And yet he could not understand. How came this daughter of an Englishwoman to feel thus bitterly towards her mother's people?--and why did the mother acquiesce in the condemnation of her country? It was as perplexing as it was distressing. Across the turmoil of his thoughts, a thing irrelevant and yet not without its significance in relation to the present disturbing scene, a speech the Jew had made at lunch that day flashed with startling clearness; and he recalled, besides the words, the distaste in the speaker's tones when replying about Benauwdheidfontein: "It suggests being at odds with life... fear lurks in the word. It's a name with a sinister meaning--an unlucky name." Possibly the Kriges were at odds with life. Could it be that Honor, beautiful, young, intelligent, was at odds with the life which for her was only beginning? It could not be. The sorrows that embitter are encountered usually farther along the road: they are not the skies of spring and summer which are overcast. His gaze, lingering upon her figure, as she stood in the dusk with her arm about her mother's shoulders, lifted to her face which in the fading light showed little more than an outline. It was, he decided, some fanciful touch of the twilight that gave to her features the expression of earnest entreaty he imagined he saw in them; her eyes shone with a softness in such direct contradiction to the hostility of her words, the proud aloofness of her manner, that he knew it for a trick of the twilight. No woman who felt so bitterly against his country could turn so soft a gaze upon an Englishman. "You are a little startling in your vehemence, Honor," Freidja Krige observed, speaking for the first time since her sister's advent had snapped the desultory general conversation, which Matheson had found so unenlivening, and flung the bombshell of her complaining into the void. Honor laughed quietly. The deep emotions that had swayed her and provoked her attack, were subdued; she had her feelings well in hand now. "I haven't startled any one really," she said. "But--I have made Mr Matheson angry." A new quality had come into her voice. She gave Matheson a gesture of appeal. It was as though she wished to assure him that there was nothing personal in her attack, that she did not hold him responsible for the national crimes of which she complained. She excepted him, as she excepted her mother. They had been born English, they couldn't help that. He might even be an estimable person in despite of it.