Oom Koos farmed two thousand morgen and principally ran goats on the land. At Honor’s speech his face lost its amiable complacency, his expression darkened.
“That is all the English care for,” he said abruptly—“to make big holes in the ground and take the gold and leave the holes. Ja.”
“Miss Krige does me an injustice,” Matheson protested. “The mines lured me only for a brief while. Engineering is my profession. I go back to it when I leave here.”
“So!” remarked Oom Koos, and smoked reflectively. “Do you make a long stay at Benfontein?” he asked.
“I have made a long stay,” Matheson answered. “I leave to-morrow, if that is convenient to Mrs Krige.”
“To-morrow, eh? I am going by De Aar to-morrow. If it suits you, I will be very pleased to drive you.”
This arrangement was so entirely convenient, and so satisfactory in that it fixed the day and settled definitely the time for his departure, that Matheson’s reluctant acceptance of the kindly intentioned offer sounded somewhat ungracious even in his own ears. He was amazed at himself. Here was an offer which exactly suited his plans, and which relieved the Kriges of the necessity of driving him into town, and he felt resentful at having to avail himself of it. At the back of his mind had loomed the hope that Honor would drive with him to De Aar. For some reason of her own Honor appeared equally dissatisfied with the arrangement. She listened to Matheson’s halting acceptance, and to her mother’s mildly uttered protest against this sudden departure, with thinly disguised impatience, breaking in on Mrs Krige’s expressions of regret.
“It all depends on what hour you start, Oom Koos. Mr Matheson has an engagement to ride with me to-morrow morning,” she announced.
“Certainly. I am not forgetting that,” Matheson said promptly.
Oom Koos looked from one to the other and smoked deliberately and smiled.