And the sight and sound of her had an extraordinary power at times to rouse to active, vivid life, a dream of the past that was old grief and pain.
Circumstance sometimes threw them together in the verandahs or out under the Southern-Cross flaming above the garden, and Poppy's low laugh might be heard mingling with his voice; but she did not always laugh because she was amused.
Carson's silver tongue could take on an amazingly sharp edge. Being an Irishman, he was a law unto himself, with a fine taste for unconventionality in other people. But if he knew South Africa from one end to the other, he also knew men and cities, and the rules that govern women all the world over. Gradually he had become to be aware that Miss Chard outraged the most important of these by being both unclassifiable and mysterious. Even in what calls itself society in South Africa, women and their belongings and connections must be above-board and open to inspection. An unattached woman has got to prove her right to social status there, as elsewhere. If she cannot, she must prepare to take the consequences—and the least unpleasant of these is to have the worst believed of her.
Of course, Rosalind Chard was backed by Mrs. Portal, but that did not prevent tongues from wagging.
Carson took it upon himself to let Miss Chard know something of these things whenever Fate ordained that he and she should walk under the stars together.
It was wittily done, by the delicate instrumentality of chosen implication, and it never missed the mark: the arrow quivered in Poppy every time. Hot and cold, with sudden rages and terrors, she would turn on him only to find the strange eyes so pleasantly indifferent; his expression so guileless that it was hard to suspect him of malicious intent. Her refuge was a little laugh. Carson told himself sardonically that the game amused him. It may have done so. Doubtless Indians were amused when they threw barbs at their staked victims. But as a fact, something more than an Indian sense of humour would have been appeased in him, if, instead of the brave smile that flickered across his victim's face, or the little dry retort that her lips gave out even while they quivered, she had answered him haughtily with the pride of race or family or position—the pride of anything with a root to it. That was the important point: what were the roots of Rosalind Chard? That she had pride was plain enough—the fine pride of courage; the pride of a slim, strong young tree that stands firm in winds that tear and beat, flaunting a brave green pennon.
But what was the name of the tree? In what strange garden had it first grown? Was it of a garden at all? Or a highway? Whence came the suggestion that it had bloomed in the desert?
Carson scarcely realised that he fiercely desired information on these matters. He supposed it to be curiosity about a pretty and interesting girl—pure curiosity. He had heard things said, a word dropped here and there—mostly by women, and he knew that harsh winds had begun to blow round the young slim tree with the brave green pennon.
So out of pure curiosity he tormented her when opportunity arose; and she—gave him witty, gentle little restrained answers, with her hand against her heart when the shadows allowed. Or if she could touch a tree she had greater strength to bear her torment and to laugh more easily.
Of all the rest she was careless. Let them think what they would—Clem was her friend.