"And then there was a girl that I befriended. I took her in when she came to my house without a rag to her back, or a shoe to her foot, one night—fed her, clothed her, and treated her like my own sister—or would have done if she hadn't been such a cold-blooded, standoffish slang.[7] Yet I can assure you, Sir Evelyn, that when I was on the Durban Race-course three weeks ago, with two perfect gentlemen from the Rand, she sat quite close to me in a carriage with that Mrs. Portal, and though I smiled and bowed to her twice, she deliberately looked right through me.... I might have been a bit of rubbish lying in the street...."
[7] Snake.
Something in this narrative dimly, though unpleasantly, interested Carson. He forgot his weariness for the moment and looked at the woman intently.
"Yes ... what do you think of that? Deliberately cut me ... me who had been her friend in need. I supposed it was because she had managed to get taken up by a big-pot like Mrs. Portal.... I said so to one of my friends—such a nice boy—you may know him—Wolfie Isaacs, of the firm of Isaacs and Jacobs. But after he'd been away talking to some other men, he came back and told me that she was the great authoress who wrote all the cracked books and poems about Africa, and that everyone was raving about her. He said I must have made a mistake when I thought I knew her! What do you think of that? The girl I had taken in without any shoes to her feet!... and, oh my! couldn't I tell a tale to her swell friend Mrs. Portal if I—" Something in the steely expression of the face opposite suddenly arrested her flow of eloquence.
"Do you mind telling me whom you are talking about?" said Carson quietly.
"Certainly—I'm delighted to. It is only fair that everybody should know what a slang that girl is, to cut me like that, who had taken her in without asking a single question about where she came from.... Och! but I can tell you I found out afterwards, Sir Evelyn ... she's as bad as she can be, that Rosalind Chard——"
Carson's tanned skin had turned an ashy-yellow shade, which was neither becoming nor artistic.
"Woman—" he said in a low, hoarse voice, scarcely audible; but his eyes said a great deal more than his lips; and Miss Cornell, at first surprised, became angrily red.
"Och! don't you woman me!" she cried, bridling. "So you're a friend of hers, too, I suppose! She's got very grand all at once!... but I wonder if she told you she used to be constantly in a house on the Berea with Luce Abinger. That it was from his house she came that night I took her in! My boy Zambani saw her come through the gap in the hedge that led from Abinger's garden. Ha! ha! and she pretending to be such a saint all the time! Ask Mr. Bramham! He knows all about it."
Carson took it like a blow between the eyes. If he had not been sitting, he would have reeled. As it was, he leaned against the back of the seat and closed his eyes for a moment, though the lids scorched like flame. But the woman mistook his attitude for calm unbelief. She thought he shut his eyes because he was pretending to be bored, and she was furious.