He found this fresh mood disconcerting and distressing. And the reproach to his honour came ill from her. He felt suddenly very tired. He needed food. In her excitement she had forgotten the nourishment that stood ready for him on the table, slowly cooling while they talked. "It isn't altogether my fault," he asserted with almost sullen insistence. "I'm not myself. I'm unnerved. You come to me when I'm altogether unprepared, and--my God! how the sight of you tempts me! But you are hard, Honor. All that is gentle in your nature has been deliberately suppressed." "I've been tutored in a hard world," she replied oddly. "It is well, perhaps, that I am hard. A woman needs an armour of steel to protect herself from the selfishness of men's love I believed in you once... I cared... You know I cared. But you wanted everything, and would give nothing. That is your way. For men like Beyers and Christian de Wet I would die, if it would benefit them at all. They are brave men with a single purpose in life. You call them rebels; we regard them as heroes. Had you joined us, I would have done anything for you. Instead, you side with the men who are trying to defeat our cause. Can you wonder that I am bitter when you speak to me of love and strike with the other hand?" She got up abruptly, and stood for a moment irresolute, looking down at him, the anger dying slowly out of her eyes. "It isn't any use--it isn't any use at all to speak of these things now. You will go your way, I mine. But it might have been so different. Last year, when you went away, I hoped you would change your mind and come back. I didn't know then of this girl. Heinrich told me about her. You went back to her, and my influence ended." So Holman had enlightened her about Brenda. Doubtless he had done so in order to prosper his own suit. It was a card he would not have scrupled to play. "I could never have embraced your cause," he said gently. "I know what you have suffered, and I feel for you. But the affairs of nations are outside individual grievances. One has to accept a broader outlook. I shall never forget that I owe it to you that I learnt to see your point of view so clearly that I look upon this movement less as a rebellion than the persistence in a righteous if mistaken cause by a people who have never known discipline. In relying upon Germany you rely upon a ruthless enemy; the protection of the British flag alone secures your independence. This Colony is governed largely by the Dutch, in the interests of the Dutch collectively with the British, and for the good of the native community. You cannot improve on that. Let well alone, Honor, and heal old wounds. Herman Nel's method of winning is the better and surer way." "Ah, Herman!" she said, and smiled. "Herman is a dreamer." "He dreams sanely," he answered with conviction. "Which means that he thinks as you do." She moved away to the table and took up the neglected food.