Yet she was a self-made woman, who had acquired a large fortune by the sale of "Saracen's Sauce." Therefore did current gossip accuse her of beginning life as a cook. A perfect invention, this, as she was a gentlewoman who had, intellectually, married beneath her--that is, she had bought with the sauce money a scampish aristocrat of the Jim Kaimes type, only less manly. He had long since drank himself into the family vault, and had left his wife with one son, who was now in the army. Every one liked Mrs. Saracen, in spite of her eccentricities, and love of glaring colours, and many a society pauper had reason to thank her for timely help. And to cap her good qualities, she professed open pride in the sauce, which appeared on every middle-class dinner-table throughout the three kingdoms.
"Dear Lady James," she wheezed, wagging two fat hands, like a seal its flappers, "how good of you to come! You will find some interesting people here"--she looked round with pride at the collection of lions, old and young, tame and wild, fat and lean, sham and real. "Now, Mr. Wallace here--let me present him. Charming man--very outspoken--great traveller--Zambesi--knows cannibals intimately!" Then, behind a plump hand, whispered a nutshell biography, "Don't mention his wife--divorce."
Thus warned, Leah got on excellently with the lean, brown, keen-eyed man, who confessed to extensive explorations. "Cannibals?--yes, Lady James, I know a few and love them."
"What strange affection, Mr. Wallace! Why?"
"They ate a man I detested. I fear he disagreed with them in death, as he always disagreed with me in life."
Lady Jim laughed. "Is there any one here you would like to make a side-dish of?" she asked, letting her eyes rove.
"No; I am a complete stranger in London. It is the one place I have not explored. But Mrs. Saracen has told me the past of many here, and I can give you histories, if you like."
"Go on, then. Only don't give me dates, else the women here might scratch. I don't know these creatures myself," she went on, with the calm insolence of a great lady; "to me they are like your Central African natives."
"I agree, Lady James--only less civilised."
"In what way?"