Gertrude Page

“ So when Diana's practical spirit perceived how great and real an attraction van Hert had for her, she did not try to put it from her and struggle against it because he was a Dutchman. The moment she was sure, and the course was clear, she let herself go fearlessly; not as an act of sacrifice at all, she was far too practical to have much faith in a sacrifice such as Meryl had conceived, but because she loved the man and believed in him, and had no shadow of doubt as to his courage and sincerity if he were but influenced to move in the right direction. ”

“ Beyond them, what you see here, a far dream-country of untold loveliness. I said, 'O, Billy! have you lived beside this all these months?' And then I began to cry, because I didn't know what else to do, and I was so glad that I had come."
A fleeting shadow of sadness seemed to cross Meryl's face. "I envy you," she said in a low voice. "You can stay on with the man you love, and see it every day. I must go back to the tea-parties."
"Most people pity me."
"I dare say; and they envy me," with a little forlorn smile.
"You have much power, and power is good," softly. ”

“ It is not noble and spirited of you to stand aside as you perhaps think. It is cowardly. Pride is generally cowardly. For the sake of your pride, of your own personal feelings, you will let her go on with this marriage and never say a word and never move a finger to save her from shipwrecking her whole life. First you will let your own sad past come between you; then you will let her hateful gold drive you away; then you will talk of yourself as just a policeman. And in any case—you must know it as well as I know it—none of these things would estrange Meryl Pym from the man she loved. ”

“ Meryl's face had in it something too strong and too distinctive for actual beauty; and yet Ailsa thought of all the lovely women she had ever seen none were quite so attractive. And because she was a tender-hearted woman, the thought crossed her mind to wonder if perhaps, out of the dark shadow that she knew hung ever over Peter Carew's life, there might yet be a way of escape; a gracious healing, and a final joy. Could two such humans meet and not love? Could anything truly separate them if once the love were born? ”

“ Inside the temple walls all was very peaceful and still, while the sunshine made a network of gold through the leafy trees upon the antique masonry. Yet as she looked around upon the empty desolation her heart grew sad with a nameless sorrow; that old, old ache, and old, old tiredness, for the utter futility of work and of striving, that sometimes seems to fill the human heart, when in a depressed mood it looks upon the ruins of something that has once had strength and greatness. Meryl carried in her hand a little pocket edition of Omar, but she did not open the leaves nor read the lines. ”

“ What else is there in heroism? Women have more heart and imagination than men. Enthusiasm arises from the imagination, self-sacrifice springs from the heart. They are therefore by nature more heroic than heroes."
Enthusiasm and a divine spirit of self-sacrifice held a very deep part in Meryl's heart, though never for a moment would the thought of heroism have occurred to her. Where Diana, out of her mocking, but staunch and loyal heart, amused herself dashing cold water and playful satire upon all heroics, Meryl said nothing at all, but at a critical moment both were equally capable of acting. ”

“ The peaceful loveliness soothed his spirit because he loved it, but in her it awakened a vague, swift ache. She felt somehow that he had a right to love the country, because he had made it his and given it of his best; that, for all his presumable poverty in many things, he was yet so rich in what he had achieved, and in what he had won for himself of interest and usefulness. While for her?... She was an alien, a mere tourist, a looker-on; the daughter of a millionaire who came to Rhodesia for wealth, and gave—how little in return! ”

“ And there is a spark of it in the soul of every woman waging her solitary fight on the outposts of the Empire, whether she put new life and hope and spirit into a miner's cabin, or a farmer's little wattle-and-daub home, or in the heart of any servant of the Empire. What the colonies owe to their women is so little talked about, partly perhaps because words are all too inadequate to express it, and also perhaps because if the one is there to listen and the one to love, many women want no recognition. ”

“ Nothing banal, nothing mediocre in the actual phenomenon—just a riot of colouring, a riot of splendour, a riot of revelation. It is not a glory in the west spreading a little way overhead. It is an all around, north, south, east, and west, colouring beyond all telling—something aloof, overpowering, incomprehensible, with the remote majestic splendour of the Rockies, or the Sahara, or the Victoria Falls.
Neither Carew nor Meryl spoke. They were of those who know that the highest appreciation of all is in silence. ”

“ Was it possible that Ailsa's accusation was true? One woman had been sacrificed more or less to his mad, insensate fury against his brother. Was the other perhaps to be sacrificed to his rigid, indomitable pride? One picture seemed to stamp itself upon his brain with ever-increasing strength and clearness: the picture of Meryl, leaning up against the window lintel that last evening at Bulawayo, white as a frail, exquisite lily, with the anguish in her deep eyes that she could not entirely hide. ”

“ Without the slightest movement she sat on and waited; and that was exceedingly characteristic of Diana. Where another girl would have felt embarrassed and made some sound to relieve the tension, she almost held her breath to retain it. The situation was unique. In a life that offered deplorably little of novelty and adventure she would not for worlds have thrown away such a chance. Meryl, on the other hand, would probably not have felt the tension; she would have quietly walked past him out at the entrance. Diana felt the atmosphere of the footlights and calmly waited. ”

“ Aunt Emily nodded her head with an approving air. A quiet country house instead of a season's racketing was quite to her taste, and she felt dear Henry, as ever, was showing the marked common sense for which she humbly worshipped him afar off. Meryl looked at her father inquiringly and with a thoughtful air. Diana remarked, rather disgustedly, "O, uncle, what rot! Why should we be condemned to some dull little hole of an English village, just because there is to be no London season?" ”

“ The eyes of the visionary, who sees great things and dreams great dreams, and, alas! how often, breaks a heart that of its very fineness could only do or die.
Yet better, how much better, to hope and dare and die upon the heights, than linger content in the warm, snug valley of little joys and little sorrows!
And then across her dreams broke the sound of a sleepy voice from the room behind her.
"If you stay out there any longer, Meryl, you will grow wings and fly away. Do be rational enough to come in and go to bed." ”

“ Not that there appeared any reason why, just because he happened to be a millionaire, a police officer should be expected to wait on him, but no doubt the Administration had its own reason for showing special attention to a very rich man, and hoped for some benefit to the country thereby.
So he had taken the bull by the horns and strode up to the lamplit camp, where the travellers sat over the glowing embers; and, of course, he had heard Diana's remark, and smiled grimly to himself, in no way displeased, for it suited him perfectly to be shunned as a bear. ”

“ Aunt Emily's face wore rather a reproachful expression as she replied, "I suppose I had better return to Johannesburg, and then if any of you get ill with malaria or typhoid, you must wire for me and I will come back."
"You were very good to come so far," said Meryl gently, seeing the veiled disappointment that they could dispense with her so easily.
"If it is any consolation," volunteered Diana, "you may be quite sure we are all going to be most horribly uncomfortable for the next month or two. The only illness I anticipate is an utter and complete weariness of life. ”

“ There had been so much "Rhodesia" of late. Everyone seemed bitten with a kind of silly craze for the place. Now it was gold; now it was land; now it was union or no union; now it was annexation and "twenty pieces of silver"; such a lot of fuss about some square miles of wilderness, containing odd outcrops of gold-bearing reef.
"There is nothing worth seeing in Rhodesia, except the Victoria Falls," he asserted; "and you can run up there and see all you want to and get back in a week!" And still he looked enquiringly at Meryl.
"We want to see the people," she said, half turning. ”

“ Stanley was talking to Meryl, and Lionel Macaulay was showing Mr. Pym, the engineer, and Carew over the mine, so she gossiped away to him all by herself. And she drew from him a little of the bitter disappointments they had encountered in the country. A story of first one mine and then another failing them; of capital slipping away and bills mounting; of the gradual cutting down of comforts and increased austerity of living: a story common enough in all colonies where Life puts men through the mill again and again to prove and harden them. ”

“ And ever and again back to her mind came Carew's words that last evening at Bulawayo: "Help to bridge over the gap. Help to make division become union. That were a work that any man might be proud to give his life to."
And every day, more and more fully, she recognised that whatever she had to give she owed to South Africa. She gradually thought herself into a state in which she existed for herself and her own inclinations no more, but only for that sacred claim upon her. ”

“ She had taken him entirely by surprise in her outburst, and her news concerning himself; and he discovered she had swept his secret from him concerning his love for Meryl, almost before he knew what he was speaking of.
"There might be something in what you say if Miss Pym cared for me in return. That she does is the merest supposition."
"And how do you know that with such sureness?" she cried. "No, no, Major Carew; in your heart you know otherwise. But you just let her go away without a word, without a hope, and one or two of us know what this hasty engagement means. Diana calls it martyrdom. ”

“ I'm sick of the whole bag of tricks, and the Empire that fills Meryl with heaves and swells isn't half so much to me as winning a tennis tournament or a golf championship. But when you Hollanders are bursting with pride of place and achievement, and offering energy and brains to help Britishers along, I just feel as if you'd got to be told a few home-truths for your good. ”

“ Only to-day, for just this one afternoon, fifteen years was as yesterday, and he seemed to realise thoroughly for the first time all that royal hand-clasp had meant, before he went to his voluntary exile in a far wilderness.
But after a time, when it grew cool enough to walk, he came out into the sunshine and started off towards the steep rock pathway that leads to the summit of the Acropolis Hill, following an impulse to seek comfort in the fresh hopefulness of a height, and to lessen the pain in his heart by looking out across a world still living and loving and striving. ”

“ When she tried to voice her sympathy with their loneliness, however, Diana snapped her up a little impatiently.
"My dear Meryl, you will look at things always in the sentimental light. A woman with a husband and child in this freshness and sunshine is at least better off than if she were in a city slum, and her man probably out of work, and her child dying for want of fresh air." ”