"And you feel like Cecil Rhodes?... We went out to the Matopos this afternoon. It was a big thought, that of his, to be buried there. It gives you people in the north something that we of the south have not—your own special great man, lying in your midst. What a country you will be some day! I envy you your share of the building."
"The south is a great country now. It is not a small thing to be building there."
"Yes, but we have two races, and it spells division and weakens our enthusiasm."
"Help to bridge over the gap. Help to make it spell union. That were a work that any man might be proud to give his life to."
And at that slowly she became taut and rigid almost as he, with wide eyes gazing into the night. He had struck a hidden chord; struck it full and strong.
"Do you mean," she said a little breathlessly, "that though my sympathies are so much with the north, my work, any usefulness I may attain to, ought to be given to the south?... that ... that ... perhaps it belongs to it?..."
He was silent a moment, weighing his words.
"I think," he said, "that you in the south are passing through a critical stage, and there must be much need for strong women as well as strong men. Dutch Predominance is the cry now, but the scales turn easily, and it may be English Predominance to-morrow. No country can make real headway, and consolidate its greatness, while there is this changing and interchanging of power. There must be no predominance but that of the country's good; and to that end Dutch and English must be merged into South African. It is the duty of every true patriot to look this way and that, and see how it can best be achieved; and to be ready to sink all personal aims and triumphs for the furtherance of the great end."
"Is it possible," she asked slowly, "when it seems one side only is honest in its protestations?"
"You cannot be sure about that. Seek out the strongest and best men of both sides, and help them to gain the power and hold it. Your own side is not without blame. At the first big election after the country was settling down again, you could not even stand together. At the polls there were three parties, where there should have been only two. Englishmen opposed Englishmen, mostly over a question of small differences, and for personal pride of place. South Africa has never yet recovered from that mistake. You must not hold two hands out to the Boers—the hands of differing Englishmen—but one hand, that is absolutely reliable and sincere."