“It’s important you should know at once.”
“But, Mr. Benson—”
“That isn’t all. If you don’t mind my speaking about myself a bit, there’s a few things I’d like to tell you. I can’t go on deceiving you. My name’s not Benson. Why I told you Benson, I don’t know. Except that I’m a kind of fool. Well—I wanted somehow to seem more than I was. My name’s Hoopdriver.”
“Yes?”
“And that about South Africa—and that lion.”
“Well?”
“Lies.”
“Lies!”
“And the discovery of diamonds on the ostrich farm. Lies too. And all the reminiscences of the giraffes—lies too. I never rode on no giraffes. I’d be afraid.”
He looked at her with a kind of sullen satisfaction. He had eased his conscience, anyhow. She regarded him in infinite perplexity. This was a new side altogether to the man. “But why,” she began.