In one of the low chairs a woman was seated, sewing. She looked about sixty, a well-preserved comely woman fair complexioned and essentially English in type. Her dear blue eyes met the blue eyes of the stranger with a cordial light of welcome in them, as she rose and came quickly forward and shook hands. "We do not see many travellers at this season," she remarked in her soft English voice, "which makes your visit doubly welcome. You have had a long drive." "Yes," he said; "but the air is extraordinarily light. I didn't find it too hot. It must be wonderful here in the spring." "It is," she agreed. "The next time you come to Benfontein you must choose your season better. We aren't always drought-stricken. We boast a fine climate really." "I think it's topping," he said. "And,"--he looked about him--"I think this is just the jolliest room I've ever seen." His wandering gaze, travelling critically about the room he professed such warm admiration for, was abruptly arrested when it reached the doorway, where it remained transfixed, caught by a vision of such surprising beauty that for quite an appreciable while he remained staring and speechless, until suddenly recalled to the present by the sound of Krige's foot moved with some impatience on the wooden floor. "It's perfect," he finished his encomium with, and faced his hostess again with an enigmatic smile. "I thought that as soon as I saw it." The vision hereupon entered through the doorway. "My daughter, Honor," Mrs Krige said. The vision confronted Matheson now, a tall graceful girl, with bright hair that suggested the sunlight, and eyes that were like brown pools, dark and shadowed, and splashed with a lighter shade as though the sunlight penetrated here too and sported in their brown depths. It was a lovely face; Matheson found it flawless. He was amazed at her beauty, at the soft transparency of the fair skin, and her quiet self-possession. She held out a cool, aloof hand. "You know all about me," she said, "but no one enlightens me... English?--of course." He was not sure whether it was his imagination, but he fancied he detected some hostility in her voice as she pronounced his nationality. Her tones rang odd and rather hard. "Matheson by name, cosmopolitan by disposition," he returned easily--"like yourself." "Oh! I'm Dutch," she said quickly. "Mr Matheson is a friend of Mr Holman," her mother explained. Honor's smile became more friendly. "You ought to have told me that at the beginning," she said. "It makes a difference." "Isn't that a little rough on me?" he asked. "I don't see that. It's an introduction. Mr Holman is a good friend. It is a long time already that we have known him."