“Yes, but I object to that biography. If you will listen to me, Miss Saurin—”
I did listen, but they all talked together, surrounding me and making a great deal of noise and saying the silliest, wildest things about themselves and each other; and a few yards away was that hateful voice, low and level, with the disturbing crake in it that suggested power and the habit of issuing orders. Whatsoever his orders were to Mrs Skeffington-Smythe she was evidently disinclined to carry them out.
“Nonsense!” she was protesting. “Let us go and talk to Anna. Don’t you think it is time you made up your quarrel with her? What did you fall out about, by the way?”
“You are mistaken. I’m sure Miss Cleeve has no quarrel with me.”
Mrs Skeffington-Smythe laughed gaily.
“You’re a fraud, Kim. Every woman has a quarrel with you.”
I hadn’t the faintest desire to hear these enigmatical sayings, but they all talked at the top of their voices, brandishing each others’ affairs. It appeared to be true that no one’s secrets were their own in this hateful country.
Mrs Valetta had broken up the crowd round me, ordering them to go and pick up sticks to boil the kettle for tea. They straggled away, complaining and abusing each other, to a patch of bush about five hundred yards from the court. The Earl was sent to Mrs Brand’s hut to fetch the milk which had been forgotten. I now saw myself menaced by the approach of the beard, and the thought of flight occurred to me, but at that moment the argument between the man and Mrs Skeffington-Smythe ceased.
“Oh, very well, since you are so very insistent,” she said crossly, and turning to me added sweetly, “Dear Miss Saurin, how is your poor nose? This is Major Kinsella. He is dying to inquire after it.”
If this was meant to cover us both with confusion it did not have the desired effect. At her words the smile suddenly left his face, and he bowed courteously; the steel-blue eyes looked into mine with a grave serenity. I could not but know that he was incapable of such gratuitous rudeness. Wherefore, instead of snubbing him, as I had intended to do, I bowed back to him and bestowed upon him the bright, cold smile of a frosty morning: I had the satisfaction of knowing that he recognised the quality of it, if Mrs Skeffington-Smythe did not. She changed her tactics.