‘Very well!  But who is to drive you?’ Captain Le Mesurier turned to Drake.  ‘You can drive, of course.’

Drake replied absently.  ’I have driven the coach from Johannesburg to Pretoria, ten mules and a couple of ponies, and a man beside you swinging a sixty-foot lash.’

Captain Le Mesurier laughed out.  ’Then there’ll be no upset to-night.  Come along.’

The guests took their seats, while Drake stood on the pavement.

‘Come along, Drake,’ shouted the Captain from the box seat of the waggonette.

Drake roused himself with a start.  ‘I beg your pardon,’ he said, and he went to the side of the dog-cart.  He drew back when he saw Clarice already in it, and looked from cart to waggonette.  ‘I am so sorry,’ he said in a low voice.  ‘I was not listening, I am afraid.’

He mounted beside her, whipped up the horse, and drove ahead of the waggonette.  They passed out of the town into the open country.  Behind them the sounds of wheels grew fainter and fainter and died away.  In front the road gleamed through the night like a white riband; the hedgerows flung out a homely scent of honeysuckle and wild roses; above, the stars rode in a clear sky.  To Clarice this was the perfect hour of her life.  All her speculations had dropped from her; she had but one thought, that this man driving her cared for her, as she cared for him.  It was, in truth, more than a thought; she felt it as a glory about her.  Accidentally, as the trap swung round a bend of the road, she leaned her weight upon his arm and she felt the muscles brace beneath his sleeve.  The sensation confirmed her thought, and she repeated her action deliberately and more than once.  She had but one wish, that this drive should never end, that they should go forward always side by side through a starlit night, in a stillness unbroken by the sound of voices.  And that wish was more a belief than a wish.

They ascended the slope and came out upon an open moor.  It stretched around them, dark with heather as far as they could see.  The night covered it like a tent.  It seemed the platform of the world.  Clarice suddenly recollected her old image of the veld, and she laughed at the recollection as one laughs at some queer fancy one has held in childhood.

Across the moor the wind blew freshly into their faces.  Drake quickened the horse’s paces, and Clarice imagined a lyrical note in the ringing beat of its hooves.  The road dipped towards a valley.  A stream wound along the bed of it, and as they reached the crest of the moor they could see below them the stars mirrored in the stream.  Upon one of the banks a factory was built, and its six tiers of windows were so many golden spots of light like the flames of candles.  Drake stopped the trap and sat watching the factory.

‘Night and day,’ he said, ’night and day.  There is no end to it.  It is the law.’