enough now, and for a few moments made no reply.

"What are you going to do about it?" she asked.

"Nothing."

He fancied a look of relief came into her face. She must be intensely
imbued with the cause of her countrymen, with racial partisanship, he
decided.

"Nothing? But if you think they tried to murder you?"

"Oh, I don't think much of that. I'm not going to bother any more about
it. Why should I?"

"But you English are always such a--well, vindictive race. It is one of
your favourite boasts that you never let anybody get the better of you--
that you are always even with them--I think that is the phrase," she
said, and there was a strange look upon her face which rather puzzled
him.

"Are we? Well, here's an exception then. Life is too short to bother
oneself about trifles merely for the sake of `being even with' somebody.
Likely one of these days Gideon Roux will be the first to be sorry he
shot at me. He needn't have done it. The cave affair and the rifles
didn't concern me. I shouldn't have given it away. But he won't come
down with the value of the mare, because I believe the poor devil is
none too flush at any time. So what does it matter?"

That strange look upon Aletta's face deepened. He did not quite know
how to read it.

"Have you told father about this?" she said.

"Not yet. I had meant to. I don't think I shall at all now. It
doesn't seem worth while."

"Then why did you tell me?"

"I don't know."

Again they stood looking at each other in silence, as though reading
each other. He was thinking of how he had seen her last night--bright,
sparkling, girlish--full of humour and merriment; yet even then he had
judged her temperament to have another side. Now his judgment was borne
out. She could show herself serious, grave, judicious--in short, full
of character when a matter of moment was under discussion. She for her
part was thinking that of all the men she had met, and she had met
many--for Stephanus De la Rey was connected with some of the best old
Dutch families at the Cape, and in the society of the capital, Dutch or
English, Aletta had not merely had the _entree_, but had been in
request--she had never come into contact with one who was quite like
this. He was right outside her ordinary experience.

A sound of approaching hoof-strokes aroused them--on Aletta's part with
something of a start. A bridle path threaded the garden here, affording
a considerable shor