"I'm having a companion." She made a mouth, and Bramham himself could not disguise a faint twist of his smile.
"Mrs. Portal said it was necessary, if I didn't want to be black-balled by the Durban ladies, so she found me a Miss Allendner, a nice little old thing, who is lonely and unattached, but eminently respectable and genteel."
"Ah! I know her—a weary sort of plucked turkey," said the graceless Bramham, "with a nose that was once too much exposed to the winter winds and has never recovered. Never mind, you'll need someone to keep off the crowd as soon as they find out who you are——"
"But they are not going to find out! Charlie, I see that I must speak to you seriously about this. I believe you think my not wanting to be known is affectation; it is nothing of the kind. It is most imperative that my identity should be kept secret. I must tell you the reason at last—I am working now for money to fight out a case in the Law Courts before anyone in Africa knows who I am. Under my own name no one will recognise me or be particularly interested; but, of course, pleading as Eve Destiny would be another matter. I couldn't keep that quiet."
"A law case! Great— Well, Rosalind," he said ironically, "you certainly do spring some surprises on me. Is it about your plays? Why can't you let me manage it for you? But what kind of case can it be?"
"A divorce case—or, rather, I think a nullity case is what it would be called."
"A what?" Bramham could say no more.
"Don't look at me like that, best of friends ... I know, I know, you are beginning to think I am not worth your friendship ... that I don't seem to understand even the first principles of friendship—honesty and candour!... Try and have patience with me, Charlie.... Perhaps I ought to have told you before ... but I've never told a single soul ... in fact, I have always refused to consider that I am married. It is a long story, and includes part of my childhood. The man who adopted me and brought me up in an old farmhouse in the Transvaal allowed me to go through a marriage ceremony with him without my knowing what I was doing ... an old French priest married us ... he couldn't speak a word of English ... only Kaffir ... and he married us in French, which I could not understand at that time. Afterwards, my life went on as usual, and for years I continued to look upon the man simply as my guardian. At last, here in Durban, when I was just eighteen, he suddenly sprang the story upon me, and claimed me for his wife. I was horrified, revolted ... my liking for him, which arose entirely from gratitude, turned to detestation on hearing it.... I believed myself to have been merely trapped. In any case, whatever I might have felt for him didn't matter then. It was too late. I belonged to ... the man you know I belong to ... I didn't know what to do at first. There were terrible circumstances in connection with ... the man I love ... which made me think sometimes that I could never meet him again ... I would just keep the soul he had waked in me, and live for work and Fame. But the man I was married to wanted to keep me to my bond ... and then suddenly he found out ... something ... I don't quite know how it came to pass, but he knew ... I was obliged to fly from his house half clad.... It was then I found refuge with Sophie Cornell."
"And these things all happened here? Do you mean to tell me that blackguard was some Durban fellow?"
"He did live here at that time."