And because there was that element of greatness in her, which was also in her father, she thought less of the "worthwhileness" of doing than of the poorness of not doing. His talents were given to money-making, because it was the thing he had a genius for; but she knew that in a measure he fulfilled his trust, and besides subscribing generously to charities, helped many a "lame dog" over his stile in secret. But what had this to do with the trust that was hers? She who did not even bear the heat and burden of the day in making the money?... She who had but to spend it.
In the ruined temple she sat on—thinking, thinking.
How the spot fascinated her!
In this far Rhodesia, how strange that she, the product of the most modern and presumably enlightened age, should linger there amidst these broken walls, and feel strange kinship and fascination about those old people in that remote age; should stretch a hand out to them, as it were, across the centuries, with this feeling that their thoughts had been even as her thoughts, and that the passing of the ages could never eradicate the essential likeness of one people to another in those old eternal questions of whence and why and wherefore.
And they, the maidens of that day, had loved the man who was big and strong and true, even as the maidens of to-day; the man who achieved; who was ever fearless to do and dare; who gave his service to the world quietly, unostentatiously, indifferent to praise or reward. And what was the use of it all: the love, the heartache, the silent admiration.... The maidens were dust now, and all the strength and the heroism of the strong men could not give them one age longer to do and dare ere they too made room for others.
Yet always—always—deep-rooted in the heart and mind of humanity, was this ineradicable belief in the simple act of doing; this half-contempt of the lives content to flutter their little way in aimless self-seeking. The spirit that took men through the terrible solitudes of untrodden places, that urged them across uncharted seas, that carried them fearlessly aloft to conquer the air—not for gain, not for notoriety, not for praise, but just that simple splendid need to be doing. How it appealed to her, how it enthralled her senses, how it made her ache with a great overwhelming desire to discover quickly what "doing" in a big sense there might be for her!
Of course he, the stern soldier-policeman, was of the fearless band. In his quiet way he was "doing" with the foremost, though it might be a work that would never bring him anything in this world but enough pay just to live upon. But that was beside the point. The band to which he belonged did not linger in the shallows, counting the cost, counting the gain; they plunged straightway into the deep waters, and struggled to some mysterious, perhaps fugitive, goal ahead, finding their reward in the struggle itself and the difficult headway won.
And afterwards!...
O, what did it matter about afterwards, if one had put up a good fight and dared the deep waters? How much better to be overwhelmed there, than to fritter away a butterfly life in the shallows! How splendid to win through and stand on the far bank with the quiet band of strong workers, even though no one knew aught of the struggle, instead of being lauded to the skies by the playing butterflies!
Only, what could she do; ah, what?