"Putney," she said, in a loud and callous voice, in itself sufficient to scrape Mrs. Jakes raw. "South the water, eh? But you can easy run up to London from there if Miss Harding sends for you, can't you?"
Kamis came eagerly to the foot of the steps as Margaret came down, and Mr. Samson, with a loud cough, posted himself at the head of them to superintend.
"I am glad you came," said Margaret. "I didn't want to go away without seeing you."
He glanced up at Mr. Samson and the others, a conscientious audience ranged above him, deputies of the Colonial Mrs. Grundy, and smiled comprehendingly.
"Oh, I had to come," he said. "I had to bid you good-by."
There was no change in his appearance since she had seen him last. His tweed clothes were worn and shabby as ever, and still strange in connection with his negro face.
"And I wanted to thank you for what you did for me that night," said Margaret earnestly. "It was a horrible thing, wasn't it? But I hear—I have heard that it has come all right."
Mr. Samson coughed again. Mrs. Jakes, with an elbow in each hand, coughed also.
"All right for me, certainly," the Kafir answered. "They have given me something to do. There 's an epidemic of smallpox among the natives in the Transkei, and I 'm to go there at once. It couldn't be better for me. But you. How about you?"
The Kafir boys who were carrying out the trunks and stacking them under Paul's directions in the cart were eyeing them curiously, and the audience above never wavered in its solemn watch. It was ridiculous and exasperating.