“Isn’t there some one?” the sceptical voice persisted.
And he answered slowly:
“I—don’t—know.”
He wondered why until that moment he had not given Brenda a thought. The more dominating personality of Honor, with her surprising beauty, had submerged the other affair entirely. In less than a month he had almost forgotten the girl of the beach.
“Ah!” Honor exclaimed, and the note of disbelief was still distinguishable in her voice. “There is always some one.”
He found himself wishing almost fiercely that he had not admitted that state of doubt, but had repudiated promptly the suggestion conveyed in her question. He had put himself in a false position. There was not the slightest foundation for her supposition. It even crossed his mind to explain this—to go into details. He had a profound conviction that it would be prejudicial to his interests to leave matters in this unsatisfactory, indeterminate condition.
While he was weighing these important considerations, Honor abruptly snapped his chain of thought with a wholly irrelevant remark about the sunset; and he realised with a sense of mingled regret and relief that the time was past in which any explanation was possible. Honor never encouraged personalities, as he had noticed before; whenever the talk showed a tendency to slip to a more intimate note than usual she speedily brought it back to the impersonal.
He ignored the sunset. He did not even glance towards it.
“When are you going to show me more of the beauty of the Karroo?” he asked. “You have never taken me for a second ride.”
“Oh!” she cried, and he wondered whether it were simply the glow of the setting sun that flushed her cheeks so brightly. “We have ridden every day.”