By midwinter, the war had become a series of guerrilla raids, of
sweeping drives and of occasional skirmishes. The epoch of the
infantry had passed, and it was the day of the mounted man. The
home-going of the great Field Marshal, six months before, had been
followed by the return to England of transports loaded with foot
soldiers. The hour, the country and the enemy all demanded the man
on the horse. With Lord Kitchener in the field and the colonies
aiding the mother country, the outcome was only a matter of time;
but few could as yet say when the fulness of that time should be at
hand.
"But it leaves me a good deal puzzled in my mind," Weldon said
thoughtfully.
"How do you mean?" Ethel Dent threw the question at him a little
defiantly.
"About going home."
"Surely, you aren't going now?"
He winced at the accent.
"I am not sure. I volunteered for six months. My time is up; I paid
my official visit to the Citadel yesterday."
"Are you needed at home?"
"No. At least, not in any real sense."
"But you are needed here."
"There are enough without me, and the need will not last long."
"Don't be too sure. On the Dunottar Castle, there were plenty of
people who laughed at you men for coming out to volunteer, after the
war was over. You have proved that they laughed at nothing. Prove it
again."
Rising, he walked the length of the room and stood looking out from
the long front window. The bamboo screens and the willow chairs were
gone from their veranda corner; the flower-boxes were empty now, and
Table Bay gleamed coldly back at him in the late afternoon sun of
midwinter. Then he turned around to face the girl, seated where her
golden hair seemed to him to catch and hold all the light centering
about the gay little tea-table.
"Don't," he said with some impatience. "Your arguments all echo my
own wish. I am pulled in two ways at once. At home, the mother is
growing restless. Since Vlaakfontein, she has lost her nerve, and
her heart is set on my meeting her in London in October."
Deliberately Ethel made a neat triangle out of three unused spoons.
"Well?" she said, without looking up.
"Piggie and I have had a smell of powder," he answered briefly. "We
want more."
"Well?" she said again.
"The question is, are we likely to get it."
"Not in England; not even in Cape Town," she answered, smiling at
the spoons before her.
"Then where?"
"Wherever the Boers are thickest."
"Yes; but, after all, you are talking platitudes, Miss Dent," he
said, with recurring impatience.
This time, she lifted her dark blue eyes to his face and allowed
them to rest there for a full minute.
"But you forbade me to argue," she said demurely.
He dropped down into a chair and faced her resolutely.
"Now look here, Miss Dent, I can't talk shop in tea-table English.
In fact, shop has no place at a tea-table, anyway. Still, you were
the one to start it. Let's have it out. I don't want to funk, at
this late day. If there is any fighting to be done, I want a hand in
it. I went into a game of a certain length; I hope I played up, and
stuck to the professional rules. That game is played out. I am not
Trooper Weldon of the Scottish Horse. I am plain Harvard Weldon
again and, to be quite frank, I don't like the change from khaki to
tweed. But about going in for another game: it all depends on what
the game will be. If it plays itself out, well and good; if it just
dribbles on and on, without accomplishing anything, even an end,
then I can see no use in going in for it. Fighting is one thing;
having a picnic all over the face of South Africa is quite another
matter. And, for the life of me, I can't see which is bound to
come."
There was a minor cadence to the final phrase. Then he fell silent,
and sat staring at the rug, while Ethel, leaning back in her chair,
studied him at her ease. All in all, she was pleased with the result
of her study. Always frank and likable, Weldon had developed
wonderfully during those past months of hard work and slender
comfort. Underneath his sunburn, his face had taken on new lines of
resolution. His eyes were as clear as ever; but their boyishness was
all in the past. It was a man who had come striding into the room,
that afternoon, and paused beside her tea-table. And Ethel, looking
up, had greeted him as she might have greeted Baden-Powell in his
place.
To a great extent, Cape Town was resuming at least a semblance of
its oldtime social life. Heroes were more plentiful than is
altogether normal, however, and there was a dust-colored tint to
most assemblages. During the past months, the Dents' house had come
to be one of the focal points of society, and there were few men of
note who had failed to mount the wide white steps and pass between
the flanking pillars at the top, on their way to the drawing-room
beyond. Once there, they usually came again, immediately, if they
lingered in Cape Town; on their way back from the front, if no
quicker opportunity offered itself. Many a bullet-interrupted
conversation was resumed there; many a boy, just out from home,
confided his mingled homesickness and aspirations to dainty,
white-haired Mrs. Dent in her easy-chair; many a seasoned officer forgot
his ambitions and his disappointments and even his still sensitive
wounds in the gay talk of the golden-haired girl by the tray. As a
rule, Ethel talked shop with no man. She merely looked sympathetic,
and left him to do the talking, which he did unhesitatingly and
without reservation. From the first hour of their meeting, Weldon
had been the one exception. Even in the hospital at Johannesburg,
she had gone over with him in detail his experiences in camp and
field, and it had been Weldon by no means who had done all the
talking.
To-day, as she had welcomed the tall Canadian in his irreproachable
frock-coat, she had known a sudden pang of regret. Undeniably, his
tailor was an artist. Nevertheless, she liked him better as she had
seen him last, in his stained khaki and his well-worn shoes, bending
over her hand in farewell, then taking The Nig's bridle from the
waiting Kruger Bobs, to leap into the tarnished saddle, lift his hat
and ride away out of sight. No one but Ethel herself had known that
it was not distance alone which had rendered him invisible to her.
And the next week in the hospital had dragged perceptibly. At the
end of that time, she had been quite ready to say good by to
Johannesburg and all that it contained. But, meanwhile, her smile
gave no clue to her memories, as she offered her hand to Weldon.
"I knew you were here," she said cordially; "and I have any number
of things to talk over with you. There is no talking for me now,
though, with all these people on my hands. Can't you stay on and
dine with us? That will give us an hour to gossip comfortably, and
Captain Frazer is to be the only other guest. I asked him, on the
chance of your appearing. Oh, good afternoon, Colonel Douglas!"
And Weldon found himself swept on out of her radius.
He took refuge beside Mrs. Dent and, from that safe slack-water, he
made a thorough survey of the room. It was the first time he had
been present at one of the Dents' reception days, and he
acknowledged himself surprised at what he saw. Here and there an
acquaintance nodded to him; but, for the most part, he was a
stranger to the guests, save for the dozen whom he knew well by
sight and better still by reputation. Moreover, while he watched
her, he began to wonder whether he were not something of a stranger
to Ethel herself. This stately girl was not the comrade with whom he
had tramped the deck of the Dunottar Castle, nor yet the friend of
his early days in Cape Town, nor yet again the blithe companion of
his last tedious hours of convalescence. This girl was altogether
admirable; but a bit awe-inspiring withal. He watched the nonchalant
ease with which she provided a white-haired veteran of many
wars and many orders with a cup of steaming tea, and then sat and
chatted with him while he drank it. He felt himself a bashful boy,
as he watched her, and, like any other bashful boy, he fell to
talking to Mrs. Dent about his mother.
Then the last visitor made a reluctant exit, and Ethel crossed the
room to his side. With the passing of the little throng of guests
her assured manners had passed, and she met him with the same
informal manner which had marked those last days at Johannesburg.
"Now," she said, as she dropped down beside her mother's chair; "you
must tell me all about everything, Mr. Weldon. And, first of all,
are you quite strong again?"
Question had followed question, eager, girlish and sincere, until
Weldon's answers had covered all the interval since they last had
met. At length, the delicate little mother had gone away to rest
before time for dinner. Weldon's strong arm had half-supported,
half-carried her up the staircase. Then, returning to the
drawing-room, he had joined Ethel beside the deserted tea-table.
"After six months of the billy and the fryingpan, it is wonderfully
good to handle china again," he said, as he halted on the hearth rug
and stood smiling down at her.
She smiled back at him in full approval. Weldon looked very much the
lord of creation, as he stood there with his back to the fire and
one elbow resting on the mantel beside him. The position suited him,
and, speaking in quite another sense, it suited her also.
"Then a taste of civilization is pleasant now and then, even to a
grizzled warrior like yourself?" she questioned lightly.
"Yes, for the time being. One never knows, though, how long that
time being will last."
"What shall you do, when the war ends?"
"Go home, take up a share in the pater's business, and grow stout
and lazy," he answered her unsmilingly.
"An alluring prospect."
"Yes; but there will be other things: an occasional dinner, and even
a tea now and then."
Leaning back in her chair, she looked up at him through her long
yellow lashes.
"And shall you never remember to miss Africa?" she asked indolently.
His eyes rested upon her gravely.
"Yes, often. Moreover forgive my bluntness, but it is one of the
privileges of a soldier--moreover, Miss Dent, I shall miss you."
Her color came; but she made no effort to ignore his words.
"Thank you," she said, with equal gravity. "I am glad to have you
say so. But I hope it may be long before that day comes." "I can't
tell. I had expected to sail for home, in a week or two. Now I am
not so sure."
"Whether you wish to?"
"Whether I ought. When I left the Transvaal, the work seemed nearly
done. Down here, the stories are less promising." He paused; then he
added thoughtfully, "But it leaves me a good deal puzzled in my
mind."
Coffee was served in the drawing-room, that night. Ethel roused
herself from a reverie as Weldon and Captain Frazer joined her. To
their half-mocking questions, she admitted the fact of her
thoughtfulness. To neither one did she see fit to acknowledge its
cause. The mood passed swiftly, however, and it left her more
brilliantly gay than either man had ever seen her until then. Each
frankly confessed himself dazzled; each one of them, more grave by
nature than she often showed herself, was secretly uneasy lest her
sudden overflow of spirits was in some fashion directed towards his
companion; yet so skilfully did she lead the conversation that, at
the evening's end, neither Weldon nor the Captain could produce any
valid claim to being considered the favored guest.
"It has been good to have you here," she said gayly, as she gave
them each a hand at parting. "Even if I was not present at your
meeting, I have always felt that I had a finger-tip, at least, in
your friendship." Then, as she dropped their hands, she faced the
Captain with sudden seriousness. "Captain Frazer," she said slowly;
"Mr. Weldon's time is over, and he has left the service. He thinks
the fighting is all done. I am only a woman; I can't explain things
very clearly, and so," she hesitated a little; "and so I think I
shall leave his soul in your hands. There are plenty of people still
in South Africa; there are never too many men." And, with a grave
little nod, half intent, half girlish, she turned away from the
door, leaving the heavy drapery to sway to and fro behind her.