"No," said Christian. "You want—yes, I see. But—you 'd better take the money."
"I don't want it."
"But take it," urged the Boer. "A hundred pounds—it is much. Perhaps it is more; I have not counted it. If it is less, I will give the rest, to make a hundred pounds. You will take it—not?"
"No." The answer was definite. "No—I won't take it, I tell you."
"Then—" Christian half-turned towards the house, with a heaviness in his movements which had not been noticeable before. "Come in and eat," he bade gloomily. "Gott verdam—come and eat."
The Kafir checked another laugh. "With pleasure," he said, and followed at the Boer's back.
The Boer stooped to pick up the bundle of money where it lay on the earth and led the way without looking round to the kitchen where he had left his wife. The Kafir paused in the kitchen door, looking in, acutely alive to the delicacy of a situation in which he figured, under the Boer's eye, as part of the company which included the Boer's wife. He waited to see how Christian would adjust matters.
The table was spread with the materials of supper. Mrs. du Preez had a chair by it, and now leaned over it, with her head resting on her arms, to make room for which plates and cups were disordered. Her flowery hat was still on her head; she had not commanded the energy necessary to withdraw the long pins that held it and take it off. In her dust-caked best clothes, she sprawled among the food and slept, and the paraffin lamp on the wall shed its uncharitable glare on her unconscious back.
Christian dumped the heavy little bundle on the table beside her and she moved and muttered. He called her by name. With a sigh she dragged her heavy head up and her black-rimmed tragic eyes opened to them in an agony of weariness. They rested on the waiting Kafir on the doorway.
"You 've brought him in?" she said. "Christian, I hoped you would."