"So this is Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but not too softly for Carson to hear him.
"Who is she, do you say?" he asked in a low tone.
They had both risen from the floor.
"A Cheltenham College girl, with pretty ankles," was the enigmatic response.
Unaccountably, they both found themselves at Mrs. Portal's elbow. She introduced them with a gay inclusive little: "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis"; then turned away to bid a guest good-bye.
Miss Chard met Abinger's insolent mocking glance fearlessly, with a prepared heart and, therefore, a prepared smile; then turned to Carson for the first time: looking into his eyes the smile drifted out of her face and suddenly she put up one of her hands and touched, with a curious mystical movement, a dark-green stone she wore at her throat as a brooch. To both men she gave the impression that she was crossing herself, or touching a talisman against something evil.
Abinger stared, grinning. Carson, extremely disconcerted, appeared to turn a deeper shade of brown, and his eyebrows came together in an unbecoming line over his brilliant, sad eyes. Abinger, well acquainted with the Irishman's temper, knew that the girl's action had got him on the raw. If she had been a man she would have been made answerable for a deadly insult. As it was, Carson struggled horribly with himself for a moment, then smiled and made a characteristic remark.
"You are very un-Irish, Miss Chard, in spite of your face and your superstitions."
This, said with great grace and gentleness, meant that no real Irishwoman would have had the abominable taste to notice what Mrs. Gruyère had termed his "deformity." But the girl either could not, or would not, taste the salty flavour of his compliment. She made a curious answer.
"I do not profess to be Irish."