The Shadow of the Past Part 26

"Just so!" Macfarlane observed. "At the same time it is as well not to give her a chance of holding you back."

Which piece of advice served only as an irritant. The disparagement of one's friends, or of one's opinions, forces the sincere believer in either into a st.u.r.dy opposition.

It was a matter of extreme gratification to Matheson that he had found Brenda Upton again. Her family history concerned him very little. She was such a good comrade. He had not realised until he rediscovered her how much he stood in need of the friendship she could give him.

Friendship with a woman who is sympathetic, and young enough to be attractive as well as companionable, fills the blanks in a man's life.

He was not in love with Brenda; he realised that perfectly; but he was fond of her. If he retained from his intercourse with her none of the glowing memories he recalled in connexion with Honor, her society afforded him a quiet pleasure that was restful and satisfying. She suggested home to a man who knew no home, and peace to a restless spirit, like the calm of inland waters following a voyage in tempestuous seas. Honor had been a dream, a beautiful inspiration. This other girl possessed a charm of an altogether different quality. Already she was becoming for him a symbol of familiar and essential things.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

Matheson dressed early for his meeting with Brenda, dressed with unusual care. A strange excitement held him. The renewal of this friendship meant more to him than its beginning had signified. He was proceeding towards his object with eyes open, proceeding deliberately with, he was aware, one ultimate end in view. His mind, despite its excitement, was quite steady of purpose. The complexities of life were resolving surely into a quite simple exposition of the human requirement. He had reached the stage when a man knows what it is he wants and is bent upon its attainment.

He met Brenda at the tramway. She wore a dark, rather shabby, coat and skirt, and she was manifestly shy. They climbed to the top of the tram, and for the first half-mile of the journey neither of them found much to say. The tram was fairly full, and the proximity of strangers made talking difficult for people who had nothing of a conventional nature to say to one another.

When they got down at the terminus he tucked her hand within his arm and started to walk quickly, drawing a long breath of relief when they left the tram lines and the remaining pa.s.sengers behind and faced the sea.

"Time rolls back," he said. "This is just like it was in the summer."

"Yes," she agreed; "only the satisfying warmth of summer has gone."

There was something pathetic in her way of saying this; it was as though she lamented not only the summer's geniality, but the satisfying warmth of their comradeship. He gripped her hand tightly, and looked down into the serious face.

"What have you been doing since I left you here--so jealously guarded?

I thought I had lost you altogether. I wrote, but my letter came back to me."

"Did you write?" Her eyes met his with a light of gladness in them. "I thought--that was only talk."

"Did you?" His manner was faintly reproachful. "I had no idea you would leave Mrs Graham so soon, or I'd have written before."

Brenda suddenly smiled.

"Neither had I," she said. "It was not exactly voluntary."

"You don't mean," he began quickly, and stopped, regarding her perplexedly. "I've wondered," he added somewhat lamely after a pause, "since getting my letter back, whether you had any trouble that night?

It wasn't, I hope, in any way due to our intercourse that you lost your post?"

She laughed, and he thought her mirth the sweetest and most infectious he had ever heard. He laughed with her.

"Oh Lord!" he said. "Don't tell me it was that."

"Mrs Graham waited up for me," she confessed, "and the others got back first and admitted I hadn't gone with them. She was--oh! so angry...

There was a man who boarded there who was sorry for me; and he secured me my present position at the cafe. It helped at the time, but of course it's a step down."

"It's a drop, yes," he admitted. "I'm awfully sorry. You must climb again. Life is always; climbing."

"It is easier to drop a step than to climb one," she returned.

"That isn't your philosophy really," he insisted. "I know you have encouraged me in believing that the greater the difficulty the more exhilarating and better worth the effort is its surmounting. It's up to you to practise what you preach."

"Ah!" she said, and her voice sounded a little weary. "I must have been a horrid little prig when I talked to you like that."

"You were never priggish," he a.s.serted. "But you keep a man up to the mark."

They walked on for a while in silence, and still in silence made their way down to the sh.o.r.e, scrambling with difficulty over the slippery rocks. When they came upon a stretch of sand he called a halt. They seated themselves close together on the sand, and he took his coat and put it about both their shoulders.

"The nights turn in chilly," he said. "Do you remember how hot it was when we sat here before?"

"Yes," she replied, and drew closer to him. "Everything seems changed,"

she said,--"even you--you, perhaps, most of all."

"I know I am changed," he allowed. "I've been through a good deal since I saw you..."

He could not, he discovered, tell her then the nature of the thing which had changed him. He had meant to, but when he tried to express himself he could not find the words.

"I've been through a good deal," he repeated. He played with the cold damp sand, and his manner became more aloof, less intimate and confidential. "Life changes most of us."

"Because life hurts," she said.

He looked at her closely, recalling the bright girlishness of her when last they had talked together.

"You are depressed," he said. "I am inclined to believe that becoming a Puritan doesn't agree with you."

She laughed a little tonelessly, and expressed the wish that she had been born a man.

"A man in my position wouldn't be serving in a cafe," she explained.

"If I had a profession I would work at it, and not grumble."

And then he made a clumsy remark which immediately on its utterance he would have recalled, had that been possible.

"You will have a home of your own some day. That's a woman's rightful profession."

He felt her withdraw from him, and in the dragging silence that followed he realised his mistake. How could he tell what jangling chord his clumsy touch had set vibrating? Misfortune had played so busy a part in her life that love had had little chance.

"Where are you staying?" he asked presently--"with whom?"

"My mother came back to Cape Town to be with me," she said. "We board in a little house not far from the Gardens."

"Do you think I might come to see you there?" he asked.

"Of course. Mother would like to meet you. She knows all about you."

She hesitated, and then said with some embarra.s.sment:

"Before you call I ought perhaps to tell you more about ourselves..."

"That isn't necessary," he answered quickly. "I know as much as suffices. Nothing could alter my regard for yourself anyway. I hope you believe that?"

"You are very generous," she answered, in so low and grateful a voice that he felt he wanted to comfort her in some more practical way than by mere words. Instead he said quietly: