“I mean the snake that you use in your—in your tricks.”
“I do not perform tricks with the daughter of Shiva.”
“But you said you were rehearsing the day Mr. Riordan and I looked in on you?”
“You knew that I was not speaking the truth.”
As he talked he went on about his duties. There was in his attitude toward her nothing of the servant. He did not pronounce her name once, but spoke as one speaks to an equal.
“Why should I think that you were speaking anything but the truth? If you were not telling the truth I must speak to Miss Mayfield. I don’t think she would like the idea of having a snake in the house.”
He put down the cup in his hand and turned to her.
“Miss Mayfield is well aware that the daughter of Shiva is with me. She has been with me since my birth and was with my father before me, and she is sacred.”
“George, you ought to be ashamed to believe all that superstition—an educated—” she stopped, the word nigger on her lips—“man like you. It’s nothing short of idolatry.” She was trying to talk to him as she would have scolded at one of her mother’s coloured servants.
“You prefer the mythology of the Hebrews?” asked George.