Then, as though the conversation had ceased to interest her, she turned away and began to talk to Portal—who introduced to her a man with a satanic expression on a woman's mouth as Dr. Ferrand. The doctor immediately began to talk to her about "home!"
She stemmed that tide.
"Why talk about 'home'?" she said impatiently. "It is far more interesting out here."
"Why?" cried Ferrand the poetical. "Why? Because the air of 'home' still hangs about you. By just looking at you I know that you have lately heard the jingle of hansom bells, and 'buses rumbling on asphalt, and voices crying, 'Only a penny a bunch!'; that you have been tasting the fog and getting splashed with the mud and smelling the Thames...."
"Yes," said Miss Chard; "and I infinitely prefer the smell of mangoes."
Ferrand would have turned away from her, if he had been able to turn away from any woman.
Mrs. Portal, who had just joined them, agreed with her.
"How can anyone compare the two lives—flowers in your hands and the Indian Ocean blue at your feet, to London with smuts on your nose and nutmeg-graters in your chest?"
But still Ferrand looked at Miss Chard.
"'She is London, she is Torment, she is Town,'" he muttered.