Later, he lay on the seat of the carriage, his face to the wall, his eyes closed, his hands clenched—thinking, thinking. He would remember Poppy's shut eyes as he kissed her under the flamboyant tree; how her throat shone in the darkness. Then a voice, not hers, would break in upon him, crying:
"Evelyn, I love you. For your sake men may brand me—swear you will never forsake me for another woman!"
Did he ever swear? Was that his voice he seemed to hear?—tender, fervent—swearing by her face, by his life, by——
"Oh, Lord God! what a blackguard!" he groaned aloud.
But his heart held steadfast to his plan.
When at last evening fell, the train reached Maritzburg, and the passengers poured out into the station dining-room. Carson, haggard-eyed, found the bar, and drank three brandies atop of each other. He was on the point of ordering a fourth when a Maritzburg acquaintance stepped in and saved him the trouble—slapping him on the shoulder, and claiming his attention with a little scheme, which he said Bramham was standing in with. It was something about coal, but Carson never afterwards remembered details, though he listened very politely and intently to every word, for it was good to be spoken to by a decent man as if he were another decent man, after those years of degradation in the train.
The four brandies might have been poured over a rock for all the effect he felt of them; but when the starting bell rang, he made his way back to the train through the hustling crowd with a calmer mien, and leaning from the window, wrung his acquaintance's hand with unassumed warmth. Ever afterwards he felt real friendship for that Maritzburg man.
To his surprise, he found that he now had a fellow-passenger, a lady. Her figure seemed vaguely familiar as she stood packing her things into the rack, and when she turned round he wondered where in the world before he had met the unabashed gaze of those large brown eyes beneath a massed fringe of dusty, crispy hair. She, on her part, was regarding him with the pleased smile of an old acquaintance.
"Sir Evelyn Carson! How funny!" she said, and smiled winningly. Carson bowed, and his smile was ready and courteous, for, in truth, he was glad not to be alone; but he continued to greatly wonder.
"I believe you don't remember me!" said she archly. "How unkind! And I've so often bowed to Mr. Bramham when you've been with him in the old days. And you've been to Brookie's office, too, when I was his seckertary."