"It's a fairly sound argument," he returned with greater assurance. "No nation in the world can colonise as we can." "Honor," Mrs Krige interposed gently, "it is an abuse of hospitality to attack a guest." Again the pale fleeting smile crossed Honor's features. She glanced down at the man, who sat with face half averted looking towards the deepening purple of the sky, the colours of which never fade entirely on the Karroo even in the pallid hour of the dawn. "I am making no attack," she answered. "I am exposing the bleeding heart of Africa for him to see." She came closer to him. "Can you see? ... blood and hatred, blood and hatred--the price of every morgen of this land." He looked up, immeasurably perplexed and discomposed. He had persuasion that he ought to say something, offer some protest, put up something of a defence; but he felt hopelessly inadequate. There was nothing he could find to say except: "We don't hate. As a race we are healthy: grievances do not fester with us; they heal." "I know," she said. "You pride yourselves on that. You don't bear malice. But in your generosity you incline to overlook the fact that this patronising attitude insults the object of your benevolence. You say tolerantly: `The Boer is not half bad; he's useful; and anyway there is no getting rid of him. He is here for always. We will let bygones be bygones and not bear ill will,'--forgetting that the cause for ill will is on his side rather than on yours, and showing surprise that he does not respond, and appear obliged to you. You should learn to remember--to forget too easily causes suffering to others." "Honor!" Mrs Krige interposed again. Honor passed swiftly behind Matheson's chair and approached her mother. "I think at least you should bear in mind," Matheson said quietly, "that your mother is an Englishwoman." "My mother is Dutch," Honor replied quickly, and put an arm about her mother's shoulders and drew close to her. Something in that protective gesture, in the tones of the proud determined young voice, and in the older woman's acquiescent silence, acted like a silencing hand laid on Matheson's lips. He felt tragedy in the air. She had said that she was revealing the bleeding heart of Africa to him--she was doing more; he was gazing on the stark, unlovely body of the past, disinterred from its too shallow grave by the morbid passions which are born of hate.