“Well, how much came out?”
There could be no doubt that Flora did know, yet Bonnybell’s resolution not to go further in admissions than she was absolutely compelled was instinctive.
“How did you hear about it?”
“Oh, how does one hear things? Servants, little birds, God knows what! I asked Charlie whether he knew anything about it, but he only laughed, and said, whoever the writer was, he had done Bonnybell a good turn.” (It was not because Flora’s pink hair and chalky face were disagreeable objects that Miss Ransome had turned away her head.) “Of course, I at once concluded that he had written it himself. He really will play these little games once too often, and get himself into trouble.” (To most people it would have seemed difficult for “Charlie” to effect that object more thoroughly than he had already done.) “I suppose that it is partly his way of showing his affection for you, and partly that being in such low water himself has made him spiteful. My prudish friends tell me I ought to shut my door on him, but I am not fond of shutting doors upon people, it is not a pleasant process for either side.”
She spoke as one who had known, personally, the outside of a good many doors.
“You were always so kind.”
“Yes, so I was and am”—accepting the tribute as her undoubted due (there were so many tributes that never were and never could be paid to Flora)—“but it is not altogether that. I do not want to make an enemy of him; and, low in the world as he is, he could yet do me a nasty turn, as he has just done you. If you take my advice, my dear, you will keep on terms with him, despite his last achievement.”
Bonnybell heaved a most unaffected sigh. A feeling of disgusted despair took temporary possession of her sanguine breast. Was she never to be able to free herself from the environment of mud and slime into which circumstances, not herself, had plunged her? Was she never to get away from the past and its most hideous embodiment, Charlie? He had done her a good turn this time, but he would repeat his action when it would not be a good turn. She might be just about to pull off something really good—the eyes of the passers-by, both on foot and in hansoms, had convinced her how much lay in her power if she had a fair chance—and Charlie would come in again with his thrust in the dark, another of his anonymous letters would arrive, and it would all be “blued”!
“Is he in London?” she asked faintly.
“I do not know. He comes and goes. I generally see him when he is up. I am afraid, poor devil, that mine is the only respectable house left open to him.”