At last Carson was enlightened. He was, in fact, in the pleasant company of Miss Sophie Cornell.
"Ah! yes, of course—I remember quite well," said he. Indeed, if she could but have known it, he remembered a good deal more than was flattering, for Bram's tale of highway-robbery was still clear in his mind. She had changed a good deal since then: grown coarser and more florid—and there were other things—! When a woman has flung her kisses to the world as generously as summer flings daisies in a green meadow, the tale of them is marked upon her face for all who run to read. However, her dress was black, and so extremely neat that it was a pity she should have spoiled its effectiveness by wearing a pair of yellow suède evening shoes.
Carson was not surprised when she informed him that she had left the uninteresting field of typewriting, to adorn a profession where beauty and wit are more readily recognised and liberally remunerated.
"I am in an awfully nice bar in Maritzburg," she told him languorously. "Come in and have a drink next time you are there—'The Falcon.' All my friends were awfully annoyed with me for leaving literary work, but really it was so dull—and, of course, it's a great mistake to think one can't stay a lady, whatever one does; don't you think so, Sir Evelyn, eh?"
"Certainly!" he gravely agreed.
"I am treated as quite the lady by all the smartest men in the town, and there's a great difference between that and being bullied from morning to night by a little bounder like Brookie, you know. Not that he didn't have his good points. But still, the way he treated me in the end was perfectly frot[6], and there's no other word for it. In fact, everybody did. Charlie Bramham, now, always said he'd be my friend, but as soon as it suited him, he just scooted off and never came near me again ... after persuading me in the first place to come to Durban to work for him."
[6] Rotten.
"Oh! Bramham's a good fellow," said Carson, smiling at this new version of a tale of highway-robbery. "I don't think he could have behaved very badly."
"Good fellows and bad fellows are all just the same when they're tired of you," said Miss Cornell feelingly; adding, with great hauteur: "Not that I ever allowed any man to get tired of me, Sir Evelyn, I assure you. There's not a single fellow in Africa can say a thing about me."
This was very impressive, but Carson did not exactly know what it might mean. He only knew that he was growing a little weary.