"But that did not appeal to you?" with significance.
"Not perhaps so much as the growl," was her enigmatic reply.
"And did you like this wild, wilderness land of silence?"
She regarded him with half-grave, half-mocking eyes. "Well, we understood why you want to have a finger in Rhodesia's pie, you and your various active organisations working in the interests of a Dutch South Africa. Any child could see what such a country would be worth to you. But you won't succeed, my friend. They've got a few strong men up there who believe in 'to-morrow' more than 'to-day,' and are not afraid to forego present honours for future progress. You won't bribe them, and you won't hoodwink them, and you won't get them. They may not have much weight or power or money to back them, but there's something in the atmosphere up there, something in the very air, that would tell anyone with a grain of perspicacity they could be dangerous if they liked. I shouldn't rouse the sleeping lion in Rhodesia if I were you, Meinheer, you and your colleagues, with coercion or anything else—that way lie explosives."
At that moment Mr. Pym joined them, and the conversation at once became general, though van Hert laughingly told his host he had been undergoing a regular hoarding hustling. Then he told them of a few happenings since they went away, and because he was as glad as he could be to see them back again, all his natural versatility came uppermost, and one could easily perceive why he was a leader of men, and likely to remain so.
"If only one could make him see straight," said Diana, when they spoke of it afterwards, "instead of with the warped vision of a one-idea'd fanatic."
Later she tried to draw Meryl a little concerning her attitude towards him, but Meryl would only maintain an unrevealing silence, and Diana was baffled and troubled. She felt vaguely that some new thought was forming in Meryl's mind, some thought that held danger, but she could not grasp in what direction it tended.
And van Hert smoked his pipe with a very thoughtful air that evening, pondering deeply. Meryl had neither encouraged him nor repulsed him, and she seemed just the same and yet different; and once more that half-formed dread came back to his memory that through Rhodesia he might lose her.
And then he thought he would put the uncertainty at an end quickly and learn his fate as soon as possible; for he was treading on rather thin ice in his public capacity just now, and a strong coalition against him, which was rumoured in the air, might place him in an unpleasant position.
On the other hand, Mr. Pym's support and Meryl's charm might prove weapons which would see him safely through, and help him to mould his position anew on broader lines.