"That's true," she said. "Certainly a good many people know that."
"Exactly so. Then why for does he jump down my throat as if I was backbiting the dead? Truth's truth, and it ban't a crime to tell the truth about a man after he's dead, any more than it be while he's alive."
"More it is. Very often you don't know the truth till a man's dead. My brother's a bit soft. All the same, you must speak of people as you find them. And Heathman had no quarrel with Mr. Baskerville, though most sensible people had seemingly. He was a tricky man, and nobody can pretend he was honest or straight. He's left a deal of misery behind him."
The relationship between Cora and Nathan Baskerville suddenly flashed into Jack's memory. Her remark told him another fact: he judged from it that she could not be aware of the truth. It seemed improbable that Cora could utter such a sentiment if she knew that she spoke of her father. Then he remembered how Heathman certainly knew the truth, and he assumed that Cora must also know it. She was, therefore, revealing her true thoughts, secure in the belief that, since her companion would be ignorant of the relationship between her and the dead, she need pretend to no conventional regard before him. At another time Jack Head might have approved her frankness, but to-day he designed to quarrel, and chose to be angered at this unfilial spirit. Upon that subject his mouth was sealed, but there returned to him the recollection of her last achievement. He reminded her of it and rated her bitterly.
"Very well for you to talk of dishonest men and crooked dealings," he retorted. "You, that don't know the meaning of a straight deed—you that flung over one chap and made him hang himself, and now have flung over another. You may flounce and flirt and walk quick, but I'll walk quick too, and I tell you you're no better than a giglet wench—heartless, greedy, good for nought. You chuck Ned Baskerville after keeping him on the hooks for years. And why? Because he came down in the world with a run, and you knew that you'd have to work if you took him, and couldn't wear fine feathers and ape the beastly people who drive about in carriages."
Her lips tightened and she flashed at him.
"You stupid fool!" she said. "You, of all others, to blame me—you, who were never tired of bawling out what a worthless thing the man was. You ought to be the first to say he's properly punished, and the first to say I'm doing the right thing; and so you would, but just because you've lost a few dirty pounds, you go yelping and snarling at everybody. You're so mighty clever that perhaps you'll tell me why I should marry a pauper, who can't find work far or near, because he's never learnt how to work. Why must I keep in with a man like that, and get children for him, and kill myself for him, and go on the parish at the end? You're so fond of putting everybody right, perhaps you'll put me right."
The other was not prepared for this vigorous counter-attack.
"Very well for you to storm," he said; "but you only do it to hide your own cowardly nature. You pretended you was in love with him, and took his gifts, and made him think you meant to marry him, and stick up for him for better, for worse; but far from it. You was only in love with his cash, and hadn't got no use for the man. I'm not saying you would do well to marry him for the minute; but to chuck him when he's down——"
"You're a one-sided idiot—like most other men," she answered. "'Tis so easy for you frosty creatures, with no more feeling than a frog, to talk about 'love' and 'waiting.' There, you make a sane woman wild! Waiting, waiting—and what becomes of me while I'm waiting? I'm a lovely woman, you old fool, don't you understand what that means? Waiting—waiting—and will time wait? Look at the crows'-feet coming. Look at the line betwixt my eyebrows and the lines from my nose, each side, to the corners of my mouth. Will they wait? No, curse 'em, they get deeper and deeper, and no rubbing will rub 'em out, and no waiting will make them lighter. So easy to bleat about 'faithfulness' and 'patience' if you're ugly as a gorilla and flat as a pancake. I'm lovely, and I'm a pauper, and I've got nought but loveliness to stand between me and a rotten life and a rotten death in the workhouse. So there it is. Don't preach no more of your cant to me, for I won't have it."