Honor appeared surprised, even a little startled; his outburst was unusual and unexpected, and his manner was very insistent. Without intending it she had hurt him; she regretted that.
“I was mistaken,” she acknowledged generously. “I believe that you are sincere.”
Then she left him, standing in the path feeling a little surprised at himself, and went swiftly up to the stoep and entered the house. For the first time in her life she had experienced shyness in a man’s presence.
Matheson remained for a while in a state of indecision; then he went indoors and stayed in his room until supper was ready. From his window he watched Krige ride away, as he had done on several occasions during the past week. That the business upon which he rode was important, Matheson judged from the fact that Krige dressed with care on these evenings, and discarded the veldschoens he used daily about the farm for highly varnished black boots; his clothes also were black. Invariably he rode away in advance of supper, and seldom returned before eleven o’clock, which was late for a man who rose daily with the sun.
Matheson was undecided whether these journeys were taken in pursuance of revolutionary or matrimonial designs. Krige did not wear the air of a lover; but a man may cherish romance who does not cut a romantic figure. It was difficult to imagine Krige in ardent mood; yet the picture of Krige as a married man and a father, seemed perfectly natural and likely; he was not the type of man who remains single.
No reference of his absence was ever made by the other members of the family; only his place at the supper-table was not set for him, which omission, with the agreeable substitute of the company of Mrs Krige and one of her daughters for Krige’s silent presence on the stoep after supper, marked the general acceptance of the fact.
Matheson experienced an increasing curiosity as to the nature of these journeys. Some inward prompting suggested that the message for Holman depended upon these nightly pilgrimages; and into his mind the first misgivings as to the honourableness of acting as intermediary in this business insinuated themselves, and gave him food for much unpleasant thought. A man has no sort of moral right to traffic in his honour.