"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to go to in England?"
"I have no friends anywhere—except you.
"'I have no friend but Resolution
... and the briefest end!'
"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I love it most—as you did, Charlie. There are things to do and things to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."
She jumped up and stood in the light of the window, and Bramham could see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking, derisive hand at Fate.
"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it will be my turn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly, but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a little beauty, something of wit—and I can write, Charlie. Don't you think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws of that brute Life—a little Fame, a little Love——?"
"I should just say I do," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."
PART III
Nothing is better I well think
Than Love: the hidden well water
Is not so delicate to drink.