"This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."CHAPTER XXON a January night in 1898, Charles Bramham was smoking and writing in the dining-room of Sea House.All the doors and windows were open: his coat was off: his white silk shirt gaped at the neck and the sleeves were turned up. Mosquitoes in vicious clouds proclaimed with shrill, treble voices their intention to make a dash for his throat and hands as soon as they could find a way through the tobacco smoke.It had been a pitiless day—the sun a ball of brass, and the thermometer at eighty-five degrees—but the evening sea-breeze had reduced the temperature by five degrees. Flying ants and gnats of every description were flinging themselves at the electric lights, and a bat circled monotonously round the ceiling. But Bramham wrote and smoked placidly on. A little stack of a dozen or more finished letters stood at his elbow, and he was busy on his last now—one to his brother in England."Read theFieldfor December 16th. There are two letters about American cartridges for shot-guns—they've impressed me very much, and for long shots at grouse, and driven partridge, I am certain they'll be better than anything we've had yet."As he made his period voices and steps advanced upon him, and he blew an opening through the smoke to get a view of the doorway. Entered Carson and Luce Abinger with scowls upon their brows."Ah, you great, lazy hulk!" growled Abinger amiably. "Sitting here in your shirt sleeves, and neglecting the decencies of civilised life." They distributed themselves upon chairs and proceeded to add to the density of the atmosphere."Yes, I know," said Bramham, pushing back his chair and regarding them—"a boiled shirt with a flopping front to it like yours, and poker with a lot of perpetual growlers. What made you leave the delights of the Club to come and spoil my mail-night?""Capron," said Abinger laconically."What! again? A repetition of last night?"Bramham shot a glance at Carson, but the latter's face expressed nothing more thanennui: he had put his head far back in his chair, and was smoking ceilingwards, following the gyrations of the bat with a contemplative eye."A repetition of every night until he gets knocked on the head by some fellow whose temper isn't so sweet as mine." Abinger's smile was not seductive. "He as good as told me that I had an ace up my sleeve, and later, he suggested that Carson had better not play for such high stakes in case he shouldn't find it convenient to pay. We discovered that we had a pressing appointment with you: but we left him Ferrand to insult."Bramham got up and went to the sideboard, bringing glasses and decanters to the table."Capron isn't built for too much corn," he remarked. "Water-gruel is his tack, and he ought to be put on to it before somebody hurts him."They all drank and smoked again in reflective concord."It is a pity," continued Bramham, with a dreamful Socratic air, "that some fellows' tastes and appetites are not matched by their physical abilities. There's an odd jumble of material in our construction! It would be anadvantage and make life much more interesting, now, if all our anatomical parts were standardised, so that every weak or worn portion could be taken out and renewed from a stock controlled by the highest power, who would only replace the affected piece if one had made a decent effort to retain one's mind and body in a healthy condition.""Oh, get out!" said Abinger. "Is your name Max Nordau, perhaps?""Or are you Mr. Lecky?" derided Carson."Ah, well, you fellows can laugh, but it would be a good scheme all the same. Capron, now——"Without warning of either foot or voice the last-named person at this moment appeared in the doorway with a debonair smile upon his lips, the figure of Ferrand behind him."Capron, now—is thirsty," said he. "And what was the interesting remark you were about to make, Brammie, my dear?""Only justthat," Bramham responded serenely. "That you were probably thirsty—as usual. Help yourself—and you, Ferrand."They drank and were seated, and all smoked, less peacefully now, but more reflectively. Capron appeared to be the only person afflicted withgaieté de cœur."What do you men think?" he demanded. "I went with Ferrand to see his patient at the Royal—he's actually got a patient!—and what do you suppose I saw while I was waiting for him in Ulundi Square?"The others remained calm and incurious."A stunning girl. Just arrived by to-day's mail-boat I found, upon discreet inquiry, in the office. You fellows ought to see her. She swung herself through that square like a yacht in full-rig. The funny part of it is that I saw her in Durban a year or two back, and she was prettythen; but now, by Gad! she has a face that would set any man's blood on fire.""Indeed!" said Abinger dryly; and Bramham virtuously remarked: "We are not all so inflammable as you.""Ah, I forgot! You're all saints and celibates here."Capron's loose lips took a sardonic twist. "Quite a mistake for the women to call you and Abinger and Eve the three bad men, isn't it? I asked the beautiful Mrs. Gruyère only yesterday why it was—and what do you think she said, my dears?"No one seemed anxious to learn, but Capron sprightfully proceeded:"—Because one's wife wouldn't live with him, and another wouldn't live with his wife, and the third has apenchantfor the wife of his neighbour."The withers of the three bad men were apparently unwrung. If any of them were embarrassed they concealed the fact skilfully behind stony eyes and complexions of varying degrees of tan. Carson seemed to be composing himself for a good night's sleep. It is true that Bramham, whose wife had been dead for less than a year, appeared to swallow something unpleasant before he remarked in an equable manner that Capron and Mrs. Gruyère were a nice brace of birds."Don't say that, Brammie." Capron was possessed of a high-pitched, rather Celtic voice. "I defended you all manfully. 'Oh,' said I, 'you should not be too hard upon them. They have amotwhich they respect about gates and girls.' At that she left me so suddenly that I hadn't time to find out from her which of you is which.""P-per-haps," stammered Abinger softly, "if you ask us we'll tell you.""Well, y-yes," said Capron, mocking Abinger with the fearlessness of the man of many drinks; "I think p-perhaps I ought to know, seeing that I have a wife myself."The silence that ensued had a quality in it which made it differ from all the other silences of that evening: and it only lasted a second, for Carson awoke, and he and Bramham rose abruptly and spoke together."I am going to bed," said one."I must finish my mail," said the other; and added, "Don't go to bed, Carson. I want your opinion about those American cartridges for shot-guns. Would you advise me to have my guns re-chambered?" He put his hand on Carson's shoulder and they walked away together to the end of the room."Heum!" commented Capron. "Commend me to a Colonial for good manners and hospitality!" But both Abinger and Ferrand had turned their backs on him and gone into the verandah. In consideration of these things he helped himself once more to Bramham's good whiskey, and presently went home with the rest of his witticisms unsaid, but far from being dead within him.Insensibly the others presently found themselves once more in their chairs in the dining-room. Desire for sleep had apparently forsaken Carson, and Bramham's mail no longer pressed. They looked at each other with grim, unsmiling faces."What did you want to bring him here for?" demanded Carson of Ferrand, but the latter was unabashed."I couldn't shake him, and I was tired of his insults. It was indicated that Bram should have a turn.""Someone ought to do unto him as was done unto the Levite's concubine," was Abinger's graceful contribution."Stop talking about the fellow," said Bramham irritably. "He makes me tired. If he hadn't a beautiful and charming wife he would be lynched, and I'd supply the rope."So they talked about other things, but there was a notable lack of charity, divine or human, about their conversation, for Capron's words had left a bad taste inthe mouths of three of them, and the fourth knew it. Indeed, Ferrand, being a doctor, knew most things about his neighbours, and having lived in Africa for a score of years, he could not be expected to be entirely lacking in malice and a touching interest in other people's sins. He presently proceeded to give them a neighbourly dig."I caught a glimpse of the girl at the Royal myself. She certainly is a wonder. Let us hope that all Capron's legends are not based on an equally good foundation?" He grinned cynically at the others. It would have been better for all bad men present to have ignored this friendly amenity, but Carson had a raw place and didn't like it flicked."Hope is all most of us have to live on in this land of flies and lies," he snarled. "We won't rob you of your income, Ferrand.""Bite on that!" added Bramham without any polish of manner.Capron had certainly succeeded in leaving an atmosphere of irritability behind him. Only Abinger remained impassive, and suavely demanded a description of the girl. Ferrand, amongst other things, was something of a poet: fire came into his eye."She's pale, but she glows like a rose: she has chaste eyes, but there isdiableriein the turn of her lip. She walks like a south wind on the water, and she has a rope of black hair that she can take me in tow with if she likes."At the end of this monograph the three bad men laughed rudely, but they avoided looking at each other; for each had a curious, half-formed thought in his mind which he wished to conceal.Bramham thought: "Part of that might fit one woman ... but it literallycouldn'tbe her ... I wonder if I should go round and——""If Icouldbe interested in a girl," thought Carson, "Imight....A rope of black hair!... anyway, I have to go and look up Nickals at the Royal to-morrow.""Could it possibly be that devil Poppy?" was Abinger's thought. "I shall go round and see." What he said was:"She must be a boneless wonder!" and the others derisively agreed. They further advised Ferrand to go and lie in Hyde Park with a sheet of brown paper over him, like all the other poets out of work.Subsequently other subjects arose. When the clock struck eleven, Ferrand departed, remembering suddenly that his long-suffering man was waiting round the corner to drive him home.Abinger was the next to make a move. His house on the Berea was still open, and in charge of Kykie, but it knew him no more. When he chanced to come to Durban from Johannesburg, where he now chiefly resided, he slept at the club. As he was making himself a last drink, Bramham said:"Isandhlwana nineteen years ago to-day, Luce!"The two men looked at each other with friendly eyes. They were not greatly sympathetic, but brave memories shared make a close bond between man and man. Silently both their glasses went upwards in a wordless toast. In a moment and silently, too, Carson was on his feet. They drank to the men who died on Isandhlwana Day. Afterwards, Bramham and Abinger fell into talk about that year. They had both fought in the Zulu war. Carson listened with glinting eyes, the weariness swept from his face for the first time that night. Bramham's face became like a boy's. Abinger's looks changed, too. His sneers were wiped out, and his scar took on the appearance of one that might have been honourably gained. Once he laughed like a rollicking boy."That day we lay above Inyezan, Bram ... do youremember? When you potted the big fellow in theumpastree!... after he had sniped about ten of our men ... by God! the cheek of that brute to perch himself up there within a hundred yards of us!... and no one knew where the shots were coming from ... it was a miracle you spotted him in that thick foliage ... he came down like a fat, black partridge ... and lay still under the tree ... we went and looked at him after the fight was all over, Carson ... he was an enormous chap ... the biggest Zulu I ever saw ... our natives recognised him—chiefGaarons, one of their best leaders ... a sure shot ... he got ten of our men ... but Bram gothimall right."They sat for two solid hours reminiscing."You and Luce have had some times together, Charlie!" said Carson, after Abinger had gone."Yes ... it makes one feel old—I suppose wearegetting on, Karri, but we were in our early twenties those days ... Abinger rather younger than I was, perhaps ... he was a different fellow then, too—of course, it was years before he met that Spanish devil who slashed his face open.... Do you know, Eve, that when I was in London last I saw her dancing in the old, sweet way at the Alhambra?""I thought she was dead?""So did I—but she wasn't. She is,now, however ... dropped down one night behind the scenes and passed out in half an hour.""Tant mieux!" said Carson serenely. "She didn't play according to rules. Well, I suppose, we must turn in, Bram—I've a ton of things to do to-morrow ... those cases of guns and ammunition and stuff are due, aren't they?""Yes: I got the advice about them: they'll be in dock to-morrow. We'll go down and look everything overduring the week if you like. How long are you going to give yourself before you go back?""Well, my leave is six months, you know—one of them gone already, by Jove! I shall be about another three or four weeks fixing up my private affairs on the Rand and getting things sent off from here. Then I propose to give myself a few months at 'home' before I go into exile for five years.""Five years of solitude and natives and pioneers!" commented Bramham. "Pretty tough on you!""Oh, you needn't pity me. I don't mind the solitude. There'll be plenty to do turning that little sixty thousand square miles into a civilised centre, now that we've got the roads open. In five years' time we shall have the rails laid right to the capital, and the mines in full swing. That's the time I shall make tracks for newer scenes. But in the meanwhile it's fine, Bram. The fellows that make pioneers are the right stuff—youknow that. It's the people who come up after the work is done who stick in my gizzard.""I daresay it's all right," said Bramham. "There are bright bits, no doubt. And, of course, you'll get more ribbons to tie your stockings up with and lockets to hang on your breast when you come back. But it seems to me to be a precious lonely life in the meantime, and I'm glad it isn't mine. Why don't you take your wife up with you, Karri?" He spoke with an idle smile, not looking at Carson, but at his hands on the bale before him arranging cigars in a box. Carson gave him a quick glance, but he laughed carelessly."Even if I possessed such a luxury I couldn't very well ask her to come up to a wild place like that—for wild it will be for many a year yet, thank the gods! Do you suppose any woman would care about it?""I know half a dozen who'd jump at the chance, andI expect you do, too. Women are fearfully keen on adventure nowadays. And then you're an attraction in yourself, Karri.""Thanks, old chap! You're easily pleased, I'm afraid." Carson's smile was affectionate, but frankly sleepy. He began to yawn. Bramham, caring nothing for hints of weariness, pursued the subject."Joking apart—you ought to marry. Why don't you, Karri?""For one thing, I can't afford it. You forget that I'm not a bloated millionaire like you. My little excursions into different parts of the interior were never cheap, and the original expedition into Borapota cost me privately as much as it did the Government, and since I've been Administrator I've found it a mighty expensive business, and you know, I've never been a money-hugger, Bram. I suppose I am a thousand or two to the good now, apart from my shares and concerns on the Rand, which wouldn't fetch much with the market in its present condition. But how far would that go towards setting up aménage-à-deuxin the desert? Even supposing that I knew someone anxious to share it——""You have your salary—two thousand a year," argued Bramham. He did not know what aménage-à-deuxwas, but he could guess."So I have, by Jove! and I need it. If you think I play John the Baptist when I take to the wilderness, Bram, you're mistaken. I do myself remarkably well to make up for the lack of society. If the soul is neglected, the carcase isn't. You come up and visit me some time, old man. You'll find all the blessings of civilisation with me, except woman.""You're a nice sort of pioneer!" Bramham said; but he knew what Carson meant. The best kit, the best guns, and saddlery, and horses, cost money everywhere, andwhen it comes to transporting them over a few thousand miles of unbroken roads—why, of course, it is expensive!"I know all about that, Carson—all the same, I think it would be a good thing if——"Carson interrupted him. "You're beginning to be a nuisance, Bram. But I'll be patient with you, and tell you the truth. I don't wantawife, butthewife, and I haven't met her yet—the woman who could stand the test of five years ofwattle-and-daub, and boot-and-saddle, and sleeping under the stars for a change when one gets tired of thewattle-and-daub; with nothing much to contemplate by day but the unlimited horizon and nothing much to hear by night but the dirge of the jackals, and the sound of the wind in forest trees, or the rush of a river.Weknow that these things are fine, Bram—the best you can get in a passable world. But would they be fine with the wrong woman?—with any woman but the one who——"He stopped abruptly, got up, and began to walk about the room. In the doorway he stood for a moment looking seawards through the black night. A cool wind was stirring every paper and drapery in the room now, for the tide was full, swirling and rustling on the sands not a hundred yards away with nothing to be seen in the blackness but a skirl of white foam."—Who—what?" asked Bramham stolidly in the room behind him. Carson came back and sat on the table with his hands in his pockets. The old discontent was on his face."Who can never materialise because she's mostly made up of dreams."Bramham laughed. "Mrs. Portal once said to me, 'The most wonderful woman in the world could not pass the standard of a romantic Irishman: or come near the perfection of the dream-woman whom every Irishman hassecretly enshrined in his heart.' It appears that she was right."Carson laughed, too: but his face softened."Mrs. Portal knows most things about Irish and every other kind of men, I fancy. The wonder is that she can continue to be charming to us in spite of it. She's the most delightful woman in the world."Bramham gave him a shrewd glance. He would have given half he possessed to say at that moment:"What about a lovely girl who is drudging away in England to support your child?" But it was not an ordinary promise that same girl had wrung out of him, never to reveal by word or look that he knew her secret. She had bound him by every oath she could think of that had any sanctity for a man.Something of scorn presently mingled with the shrewdness of the look he cast at Carson. He searched the dark face that had so much in it that was fine and lovable, and yet was marked with sins. But whatever Carson's sins were they did not give him peace. He did not grow sleek on them. He had the weary mouth and haggard eyes of the man with the dual nature, a finer self perpetually at war with a baser, sometimes winning, sometimes losing—but always striving. Scorn left Bramham's look and affectionate loyalty came back."You can't hate a fellow like that," he thought.He presently found a further thing to say in which he was far from imagining himself disloyal to Rosalind Chard, or even prompted by curiosity."Carson ... since we've tumbled on to the subject of women, I'd like to know what you think about something I've rather advanced opinions upon ... girls ... girls who've gone over the hard-and-fast line ... not the ordinary demi-semi-quaver, of course ... nor the kind that are bound to slip off the rails even withgold fastenings ... I mean the sort of girl one would be glad and proud to marry, but who, given 'the time, the place, and the loved one altogether,' as some poet fellow says, cuts loose the painter for dear love and sheer love. What do you think of a girl like that, Karri?"Carson had a distant visionary expression in his eyes. Bramham's words appeared to have driven his thoughts far afield. He might have been a man trying to remember a sweet air that evaded his memory, or to lay hold of something that had no substance."It is odd that you should ask me that, Bram," he spoke slowly ... "and you are the only man in the world I would say it to ... but, that was the kind of girl I was speaking of when I saidthewife ... the only kind of girl I should ever care about marrying ... I suppose I am alone among Irishmen in holding such an opinion ... for all their wildness they're a conventional lot at bottom, especially on this subject ... and, of course, that's as it should be. But I've lived too long in lonely places, and I'm more woodsman than Irishman now!... I didn't think this way always, either.... But once I had a vision, a dream,something... about such a girl. The odd part of it is that I was crazy about another woman at the time—had been for years—and it cured me ofthat.... But, oh, Lord!" (he gave a sort of groan) "there's been plenty of water under the bridge since then ... and it was only a dream, anyway. There may be such girls in the world somewhere ... but not for me, Bram. Some woman will trap me with an antenuptial-contract, some day." He got up, laughing mirthlessly. "Great Tophet! it's two o'clock! I shall never get through with my work to-morrow."They gripped hands and parted for the night.Afterwards Bramham mused thus to himself:"He was lying! He must have been—or else she was.What the deuce is one to make of it?Plenty of water under the bridge since then!I daresay!... Capron's stray shaft went home.... I wonder if there's any truth inthattale!... Well! the longer I live the more I am inclined to agree with that fellow who said there never yet was a game in history or anywhere else played square with a woman in it!"CHAPTER XXITHE next morning, by a strange circumstance, which did not immediately unfold its inner meaning, three bad men met in the front verandah of the Royal.The order of their coming was thus: Bramham dropped in at about eleven o'clock to discover Abinger sitting in the verandah with a drink at his elbow—"And a smile on the face of the tiger."That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed into Bramham's head, as Abinger grinned upon him."What doyouwant?" was the latter's affable greeting, and Bramham answered fearlessly:"Oh, just a gin-and-bitters! It's getting somewhere about lunch-time, isn't it?"Abinger refrained from inquiring why the Royal should be patronised for gin-and-bitters, when the Club was just across the road from Bramham's office: he merely continued to grin. The next arrival was Carson. But he saw them before they saw him, so it was for him to play tiger. He saluted them blandly."Hullo! you fellows! Waiting to see Nickals, too?"This was the first information the other two had of the presence of Nickals in the hotel; but Abinger gravely stated that his case was a desire to see that gentleman. Bramham repeated his gin-and-bitters tale. They sat for a quarter of an hour, abusing the weather, the market, and the country, and Carson then said he should go andsee if he could find Nickals in his room. The others thought they would accompany him. It appeared that Nickals, hitherto a simple honest fellow, had suddenly grown in importance and magnetic personality.They did not, like sane men, inquire at the office, which was just inside the hall door, but strolled instead through the vestibules into the palm-garden, and from there to Ulundi Square, having passed the drawing-room windows and looked in, in case Nickals might be playing the piano or resting on the sofa, as Abinger facetiously remarked. Eventually they stopped a strolling waiter and asked if Nickals was in. The waiter went away to see, and the three sat in the Square until he returned with the information that Mr. Nickals had gone to the Berea and would not be back before four o'clock. This was conclusive. They searched each other's faces for any reasonable excuse for further loitering; finally, Abinger saidhewould now take a gin-and-bitters. Carson thought he would like a smoke. The chairs are easy and comfortable in Ulundi Square, and there are newspapers.They spent another peaceful twenty minutes. Too peaceful. No one came or went, but an ample-breasted concert soprano, who was touring the country and compiling a fortune with a voice that had long ceased to interest English audiences; a crumpled-looking lady journalist, with her nose in a note-book and her hat on one ear, and a middle-aged American tourist, with a matron as alluringly veiled as the wife of a Caliph, but who unfortunately did not remain veiled.Ennuiengulfed the trio. At last they departed in exasperation—no one having once mentioned his real reason for being there. Carson and Abinger went into the Club, Bramham into his office, promising to join them in a short time for lunch. As he passed through an outer office lined with desks and busy clerks, his secretary followed, to inform him in a discreet voice that a note had come for him by one of the Royalboys. Bramham, forgetting that he was over twenty-five on Isandhlwana day nineteen years before, sprinted into his private room in amazing style. On his desk was a letter addressed in the writing of Rosalind Chard."I had a premonition, by Jove!" he exclaimed excitedly, and tore it open. It was brief."I am staying at the Royal. Could you call on me some time to-day? I should be delighted if you would lunch with me. It will be charming to see you again."Bramham stared at the letter for several minutes, then seized his hat and rang the bell."Call Mr. Merritt," was his order, and the secretary reappeared."Merritt, I am going out again at once. If Mr. Carson or Mr. Abinger send over for me from the Club,I'm engaged. Very important business—here.Shall probably see them later in the afternoon—understand?""Certainly, sir," said the discreet Merritt, and withdrew.Arrived at the Royal once more, Bramham this time addressed himself to the inquiry office like an honest man, and was presently informed that Miss Chard would see him in her private sitting-room. His mental eyebrows went up, but he decorously followed the slim and sad-eyed coolie attendant.In a room redeemed from "hoteliness" by a few original touches, fragrant with violets and sprays of mimosa, he found a girl waiting for him, whom for a moment he scarcely recognised. It was the first time he had seen Rosalind Chard in any but the simplest clothes, and he at first supposed the difference in her attributable to her dress. She wore a beautiful gown of lilac-coloured crêpe, withsilken oriental embroiderings scrolled upon it, and a big lilac-wreathed hat—a picture of well-bred, perfectly-dressed dewy womanhood, with the faint and fascinating stamp of personality on every tiniest detail of her. She stood in the middle of the room and held out a slim, bare hand to Bramham, and he took it, staring at her and it. He was relieved to see that it was not jewelled."I can't believe my eyes," he said. "It is the most amazing thing that ever happened—to see you!""Why?" she asked softly, looking him in the eyes."I thought you were in England fighting your way along the road to Fame——""I don't care about Fame any more, Charlie.""Don't care for Fame! Why, you were crazy after it!""Crazy—yes, that is the right word. Now I am sane. You have had my hand quite a long time——"He did not release it, however, only held it tighter."I'm knocked right off my mental reservation. I don't know what I'm doing. You shouldn't stand and smile at me like that. What's the matter with you, Rosalind? You don't look happy!"His last words were a surprise to himself, for until he uttered them he had not clearly realised that in spite of her radiant beauty and her perfect clothes there was a haunting enigmatic sadness about her. And as once before, he fancied it was her smile that made her so tragic-looking. Suddenly it seemed to him that he heard a little bell tolling somewhere. He gave a glance round the room, but his eyes returned to her."What has happened to you?" he asked, in a low voice."My son is dead," she said, and she still smiled that bright, tragic smile, and looked at him with dry, beautiful eyes, that were too tired to weep. His were the eyes that filled with tears. He knew that he was in the presence ofgrief too deep for words. The hand that he awkwardly brushed across his face was his salute to sorrow."Thank you," her voice was a little dreary wind; "thank you, kindest of all friends." She moved away from him then in a vague, aimless fashion, went to a bowl of violets and smelled them, and looked up at a strange blue picture on the wall, the like of which he had never seen in an hotel and could not believe to be part of the furnishing of the Royal. It was, indeed,Hopesitting at the top of the world playing on her brave one string; but Bramham had never seen Watts's picture before. While she still stood there she spoke to him."Don't ever speak of it again, will you?... I can't ... I am not able ...""Of course not.... No, all right ... I won't," he hastily and earnestly assured her.He wondered if she knew of Carson's presence in Durban. It was strange that they had had no sight of her that morning. He would have given much to have seen her meet Carson face to face unexpectedly."Were you in this morning?" he presently asked. "I was about the hotel for an hour or so with two friends—Carson and Luce Abinger. We might so easily have run across you——"Her face when she turned told him nothing."I spent the greater part of the morning sitting under the palms facing the bay, talking to Mrs. Portal—but I left a message where I was to be found in case you called.""Mrs. Portal! I didn't know you knew her.""Yes; she and I met when I was in Durban, and became friends. She happened to be lunching here yesterday when I arrived, and she came up and spoke to me. You can imagine what it meant to have someone welcoming me as she did, after long exile from my own land—but,if you know her at all, you know how kind and lovely her ways are.""Yes, indeed," Bramham heartily agreed. "She is altogether charming."All the same, he was astonished. Mrs. Portal was charming, but she stood for orthodoxy, and the girl before him was mysteriously unorthodox—to say the least of it."I am dining with her to-night to meet her great friend, Mrs. Capron," continued Poppy, eyeing him gravely."Then you ought to be careful," he blurted out; "for you are dining with the two most precise and conventional women in the place"—here he perceived himself to be blundering—"but I may also say the most delightful," he added hastily."Ah! and why shouldn't I?" she queried softly, but her tone brought a slight flush to Bramham's cheek."Oh, I don't know," he stammered. "No reason at all, I imagine.""On the contrary," she said quietly, "you imagine every reason."Bramham scrambled out of his tight corner as best he might."At any rate," he made haste to say, "I am delighted that you have a woman friend who has it in her power to make things as pleasant and interesting as they can be in a place like this.""Thank you," she said; "and, dear friend—you need not be anxious for me. I only confess where I am sure of absolution and the secrecy of the confessional—never to women."Bramham, first pleased, then annoyed, then sulky over this piece of information, made no immediate response, and a waiter appearing at the moment to inquire whether they would take lunch, the matter dropped. He followed in the wake of her charming lilac gown, throughtessellated squares and palm-gardens, with the glow of personal satisfaction every right-minded man feels in accompanying the prettiest and best turned-out woman in the place.When they were seated at the pleasantest corner of the room, and she had ordered without fuss an excellently dainty lunch, Bramham's desire being to sit with his elbows on the table and dip into the depths of lilac eyes lashed with black above two faintly-tinted cheek-bones, he reverted to his sulky demeanour. But a scarlet mouth was smiling at him whimsically."Don't let us be cross! Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, you know; and you are the best of all possible confessors. There is nothing I can hide from you. I am even going to tell you where I got my pretty clothes from, and the money to be careering about the world and staying at the Royal—I know you are consumed with apprehension on these two points."She smiled at him with such comradeship that he could not sulk any longer."Well, you know the last time I saw you, you were in hard-luck street, at a guinea a week, and too proud to use a friend's purse. I suppose you have been getting on?""You suppose rightly: I havegoton. I have three plays running at London theatres, two novels selling well, and a book of poems in its tenth edition—not bad for poems, you know."It was a day of surprises for Bramham, and it should be excused in him that he sat for three minutes with his mouth open."You!... You!... why, I've never even heard of you!" he cried, mortified, astonished, and it must be confessed, slightly unbelieving."But perhaps you have heard ofEve Destiny? Hereare a pile of letters and things from my managers and publishers. I want you to look over them, and advise me, will you, about money and things ... I'm most frightfully unpractical and extravagant.... I can see that I shall very soon be poor again unless someone advises me and puts me on the right road. And I don't want to be poor again, Charlie. Poverty hurts ... it is like the sun, it shows up all the dark corners—in one's nature. If I can only arrange my affairs so as to have about a hundred a year to live on, I shall be satisfied.""A hundred a year!" Bramham had been skimming through her papers with his business eye, which fortunately for his feminine acquaintances was a very different organ to his pleasure eye. All his instincts were outraged at this careless view of what was evidently a splendid working concern."A hundred a year! Why, if you go on like this you'll be more likely to haul in ten thousand a year.""Ah! but I'm not going on," she interpolated calmly. "I don't mean to work any more.""Not work any more? Why? Are you panned?... dried up ... fizzled out?""Not at all," she laughed. "I have as much fizzle as ever ... I don't want to work any more—that's all. I'm tired ... and there is nothing to work for.""But since when did you begin to feel like that?""Oh, since a long time ... I haven't worked for ages ... I've been buying frocks in Paris, and sitting in the sunshine at Cannes, and looking over the side of a yacht at the blue Mediterranean, and just spending, spending ... but there is not much inthat, Charlie ... there's not much in anything if your world is empty." Her voice broke off strangely, but when he looked at her the tragic smile was back on her mouth again. He knew now why she did it—it was to keep herself fromwailing like a banshee! An interval here occurred, monopolised entirely by the waiter—a coolie, slim, snowily-draped, and regretful as are all coolie-waiters.It was Bramham who again broached the subject of Carson. He could not help himself—these two people were dear to him; and, besides, he was eaten up with curiosity."If you go to the Portals you will meet Eve Carson. He ispersona gratathere.""I know; Mrs. Portal said to me, amongst other things, 'You must meet our great friend, Sir Evelyn Carson.' She did not mention his wife, however.""His wife——?""It will be interesting to meet his wife," she said tranquilly. Bramham gazed at her. She was carefully dissecting the pink part of a Neapolitan ice from its white foundation."Yes, I should think it would be—when he gets one. I was asking him only last night why he didn't marry, and he said——""He would be sure to say something arresting," said Poppy, but she had grown pale as death. Her eyes waited upon Bramham's lips."He said, first, that he was not wealthy enough—a paltry reason. Secondly, well, I can't quite repeat it, but something to the effect that the girl of his dreams wouldn't materialise."There was a long silence. She sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes veiled. The colour of life came slowly back to her face, but she was racked and shadowy-looking. Compassion filled Charles Bramham."I suppose you heard that May Mappin tale? All rot. She's a foolish little Durban girl, left with a large fortune. He has never thought twice about her, but she has always persisted in making a fool of herself. It is a common story here that she cabled home reports of theirengagement and marriage. Poor devil! I suppose she can't help herself ... but never mind her.... You, Rosalind! I can't pretend to understand you ... the mystery is too deep for me to probe. But I believe, that if last night I could have broken my promise to you——""Never! Never!" she cried fiercely. "I should curse you for ever ... I.... And so he is not married?" she said in an ordinary voice."No, nor ever will be, till he finds the woman of his dreams, according to his own tale."Suddenly she rose from her chair."Good-bye ... I must go now ... I want to be alone ... I want rest ... I must think. Forgive me for leaving you like this—" She went away, down the long, well-filled room, and every feminine eye raked her from stem to stern, and every man strained the ligaments of his throat to breaking-point to catch the last flick of her lilac-coloured draperies.Afterwards, every eye severely considered Bramham. He found himself staring at two coffee-cups. A waiter at his elbow rudely inquired whether the lady took sugar."Yes, two—all ladies do," he answered aggressively. To conceal his discomfort he fell to perusal of the packet of papers she had put into his hands. They were from managers, agents, and publishers, and concerned themselves with contracts, royalties, and demands for the first refusal of the next work of Miss Rosalind Chard, otherwiseEve Destiny. Bramham became so engrossed at last that he forgot all the staring people in the room and the two coffee-cups and his discomfort."She's a genius, by Jove!" he said grimly. "One must get used to being made uncomfortable."CHAPTER XXIIIT was a turgid, sun-smitten Sunday afternoon at the Portals' house on the Berea. Through the open French windows of the drawing-room came the chink of many tea-cups, and a desultory but not unsprightly murmur of conversation. Some one's hand was straying absent-mindedly on the keys of the Bechstein, making little ripples, and sometimes a girl would laugh on two notes—a short, but peculiarly melodious sound like the beginning of a song in a bird's throat. Evelyn Carson, on the west side of the verandah, arguing with Bill Portal about water-fowl in Madagascar, found that laugh curiously distracting. It reminded him of an old dream that he was always trying to forget."You're thinking of a Francolin-partridge, my dear fellow," he said to Portal; "very dark feathering ... almost black ... a little bigger than the Natal grey hens." (There was that little tender laugh again! God! What a dream that was!)"Not at all," disputed Portal. "They were grouse, I tell you ... sand-grouse ... the male bird has dark-brown wings ... very light back and a pencilled head ... rather like English grouse ... with a black neck. I got scores of them at Solarey ... splendid sporting shots——"He lifted his voice slightly in his enthusiasm, and it was heard round in the east verandah, where Mrs. Portal was sitting with her great friend, Mary Capron, two other women, and Luce Abinger."Listen to the blood-shedders!" said Mrs. Capron."Yes, one of them is Bill," said Clem, "and I hoped he was looking after people inside! Who is he talking to, I wonder."Mrs. Capron opened her lips to answer, then closed them again and looked away at the sea. Luce Abinger smiled to himself."That's C-Carson," he said. "He c-came up with me."Abinger's slight stammer arrested people's attention and made them listen to what he had to say. But to do him justice, what he had to say was usually worth listening to. It is always worth while to be amused, and a man's malice is invariably more amusing than a woman's because it is not so small, and is more daring. What Abinger did not dare with his tongue, he made bold to let you know with his eyes, which were as bad as they could be. Not that he looked at all women with the same look Sophie Cornell had once complained of. He was far too clever for that—he had as many sets of expressions for his eyes as he had for his tongue.But in whatsoever way he looked, he always made the woman he was talking totête-à-têtefeel that she was doing something rather wicked and none the less fascinating because she could not be indicted on it by Mrs. Grundy. And then his appearance was so peculiarly revolting! That frightful scar running all the way down one side of his clean-shaven face, from his eye to his chin,musthave been made with a knife; but no one knew how it had been done, and that made it all the more mysterious. Certainly he was not communicative on the subject.At present he was sitting on the clean, sun-burnt boards of the verandah floor, with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up, peacefully considering the four women arranged in chairs on either side of him. Mrs. Portal,bunched up with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, was not pretty, but her face bore the marks of race, and her hair and her kind Irish eyes were full of sunshine. Abinger considered that she had less style than any woman he knew, but that it must be distinctly interesting to be Bill Portal. Mrs. Gerald Lace was silent and reposeful, with the inevitable silent reposefulness of a woman with a fourteen-inch waist. Mrs. Gruyère, warm and pink, fanned herself vigorously with an expensive painted fan, and took breath for a fresh onslaught upon the characters of her friends. Mrs. Capron, staring out at the sea with her lovely, golden eyes, was sufficiently beautiful to be forgiven for not saying much. It was enough to look at her.Durban lay below them in green and white array, but the green was too green, and the white blazed even through the drapery of passion-plant leaves that hung and clambered on the verandah and let in the sunshine upon them in jaggling Chinese patterns. The garden was delightfully, raggedly picturesque. Two sloping lawns were divided by a tall hedge of Barbadoes-thorn. There was a grove of orange-trees, and a miniature forest of mangoes. Scattered everywhere, grew golden clots of sunflowers, and away to the right a big Bougainvillea bush flaunted its fearful purple-magenta blossoms against the blue. Far beyond was the sea.The Portals' house stood so high on the Berea that no sound from the town or the sea reached it on a still day. The peace in the verandah was unbroken, save for thecheep-cheepingof some tame guinea-fowl in a neighbouring garden.If only Mrs. Gruyère could have ceased from troubling, they would all have been at rest. "Why can she not be calm and still, like Mrs. Lace?" thought Abinger. Mrs. Lace was not over-burdened with brains, but she couldsay "Oh!" and "Really?" quite prettily at appropriate intervals, and he much preferred her to Mrs. Gruyère, a most tiresome person, who, if you did not tell her the truth, invented it. She now began to worry Mrs. Portal about a girl inside, whom Abinger, not long arrived and having got no further than his present seat in the verandah, had not seen, but from the venomous tone of Mrs. Gruyère's inquiries he gathered that she must, in some fashion, be worth seeing. Mrs. Portal said in an airy way she had, that she knew nothing of Miss Chard except that she was a Cheltenham College girl, and had pretty ankles—"both highly desirable qualifications, surely?"Mrs. Gruyère, who had been educated at a Colonialseminary, immediately drew her feet, which had been obstructing Abinger's view of the Indian Ocean, into the seclusion of her peculiarly ungraceful, though doubtless expensive, skirt, and pursued the subject with more intense malignity. Abinger was of opinion that Mrs. Portal had probably made a life-long enemy for Miss Chard: which showed that she was harassed, for he knew her to be the soul of tact and kindliness. As an old ally, he felt that it behoved him to listen and prepare a weapon for the defence."But,dearMrs. Portal, desirable qualifications are not always sufficient ones.Wheredid she come from, and who are her people, I wonder? It seemsstrangein a small place like Durban, not to have met her before! What does she want here?""She paints charmingly," was all Mrs. Portal vouchsafed—"most beautiful little water-colours." After a moment's consideration she added: "She is going to do my miniature."Thereafter, she looked dreamily into space, apparently thinking of something else—an old ruse of hers when harassed about her harum-scarum acquaintances. Abingerbegan to think it highly probable that she had met the remarkable Miss Chard in a tea-shop, become interested in her face (or her ankles), and gone up and spoken to her; but he quite understood that these illegitimate proceedings must be concealed from such a keeper of seals and red tape as Mrs. Gruyère."Indeed! An artist?" that lady insisted abominably. "I wonder if——"Mrs. Portal removed her charming eyes from blue space and looked for the hundredth part of a second in the direction of Abinger. He dashed briskly into the conversation."Yes; an exceedingly c-clever artist. I saw an exhibition of her pictures somewhere in Bond Street last year. Some of her sunset-effects were brilliant—quite Whistlerian. But," he cocked his head meditatively for a second, "if I remember rightly, it was with her miniatures that she made her chief hit—yes, decidedly her——""Really?" said Mrs. Gerald Lace, all attention, thinking what a charming miniature her blonde beauty would make.Mrs. Gruyère said nothing. She was completely knocked out of the ring for five seconds, during which time Mrs. Portal smiled an amazed smile at the sunflowers on the lawn, and Abinger, with the pride of one who has done exceeding well, rose and handed tea-cups and cake from the tray of a neat and pretty maid—Hyacinth's English nurse, to be precise, who was always harnessed-in on Sunday afternoons. Having modestly helped himself to three sandwiches, he reseated himself upon the floor, for time was up: Mrs. Gruyère had got her second wind.Could it be true, she demanded of him, that there was talk of that odious Sir Evelyn Carson getting a peerage next? Why should he have got the Administratorship of Borapota, when there were so many fine men born and bred in Africa,muchmore eligible for the post? (Her ownbrother, in fact—hinc illæ!) Wasn't it a fact that Carson was exiled to Africa ten years ago because he had been mixed up in a famous divorce suit with Royalty and dared not show his nose in England again? Did Abinger consider it likely that Carson would marry May Mappin, who was still scandalously in love with him and ready to throw herself at him, together with the fortune which her father had made by "running guns" to the Zulus in '76?"—And was made Mayor, and died!" she finished as though she had been reciting a new kind of creed.Some portion, at least, of this surprising indictment had made Mrs. Capron's tinted cheek pale with anger. Clem Portal, too, was disturbed. She glanced fiercely at Mrs. Gruyère, and remarked with great emphasis and point:"Rot!"Mrs. Gruyère looked as if she would have liked to snort at this rude reception of her news; she contented herself, however, with a sniff—a Colonial habit of hers.Mrs. Lace also roused herself to an effort. She had not Mrs. Portal's pluck to fire boldly in the face of the enemy, but she was inspired to make a little side-attack."He would neverdreamof marrying a Colonial: Gerald told me so."Mrs. Gruyère's nostrils broadened like a hippo's; she could have tomahawked Mrs. Lace on the spot. For a moment she cast her inward eye back across the trail of Mrs. Lace's past—if she had only been a Johannesburg crow, with three coats of whitewash,howMrs. Gruyère would have turned the waterspouts of truth on her! But as it happened, Gerald Lace had extracted his blonde bride from a tender home at Kingston-on-Thames—and that was a far cry! And since her marriage, she was known to be what is called "absolutely de-vo-ted." What satisfaction can be got out of a woman like that? Mrs.Gruyère was obliged to hide her tomahawk for the time being. Smiling a thin smile with an edge as sharp as a razor to it, she addressed herself to the audience at large."At any rate, no one will deny that May Mappin is still throwing herself at his head. Isn't that so, Mr. Abinger? You practically live with him and should know."Abinger's answers were as various as Mrs. Portal's sandwiches, and as liberally supplied with mustard.1. Yes; but he didn't live with Miss Mappin.2. Carson had not asked his advice about the best place to spend a honeymoon.3. Miss Mappin had not told him that she loved Carson.4. He did not read Carson's letters.5. He could not swear that Carson was not already married.6. All women were in love with Carson, anyway.At that, Mrs. Gruyère sat back satisfied."I knew it," she said triumphantly, "and no good can come of it." She made a hollow in her lap for her cup of tea and began rolling her veil into a thick, black stole across the end of her nose.No one was quite sure what she meant, and no one particularly cared, but Mrs. Portal thought it quite time poor silly May Mappin was left alone. Mrs. Portal talked scandal herself and enjoyed it, but she didn't backbite, which is the difference between good and ill nature."You ask too much, Mrs. Gruyère," said she, sipping tea from her blue cup, delicately as a bee sips honey from a bluebell. "When you are in love with a man like Evelyn Carson, the only thing you can do is to pray with fasting and tears that no bad may come of it.""WhenIam in love!" said Mrs. Gruyère loudly."Oh!" cried Mrs. Lace with a shocked little laugh."Isn't it true, Mr. Abinger?" Clem asked."Oh, Carson is not so black as he's painted," said he with a great air of liberality."As he paints, I suppose, you mean," pertly rejoined Mrs. Gruyère."There is a form of colour-blindness that makes its victim see everything black!" said Mrs. Capron drily. Mrs. Gruyère sniffed again."You need be colour-blind when you look at his eyes," she said unpleasantly; "but some people have a morbid liking for deformity."They all looked astonished."Deformity!" cried Mrs. Capron; "why, everybody admires his striking eyes!""And,dearlady," said Abinger, with greattendresse, "do you really suppose that the colour of Carson's eyes has anything to do with it? It's the flame inside him that draws us and scorches us. He's made up of fire and iron, and——""Brass," said Mrs. Gruyère neatly—for her.At this opportune moment Carson sauntered round the corner and joined them, and Mrs. Gruyère's face became so like a Bougainvillea flower that there was hardly any difference, except that the Bougainvillea was prettier."How do you do, Sir Evelyn?" said Mrs. Portal, tendering him her hand tranquilly. "Talking of brass, can it be true that you are very rich?"Seeing no chair, Carson seated himself next to Abinger on the floor—"two bad, dissolute men, cheek by jowl," said Mrs. Gruyère to herself."Not very," he said apologetically, smiling at them all with his unusual eyes. "Not so rich as Abinger. He says he has two pounds a week for life. But we think he exaggerates."Mrs. Portal and Mrs. Capron began to laugh, and Mrs. Lace to wonder how they could wear such nice boots on such small incomes. But Mrs. Gruyère, thoroughly disgusted with the contemptible tone of the conversation, was about to rise and leave the scene, when there came a general exodus from the drawing-room, preceded by Portal and a girl, who was laughing in her throat like a bird about to begin a song.It was Poppy.The two bad men looked up.She was amazingly arrayed in a gown that was a poem composed in France—silky, creamy muslin, curving from throat to hip, and from hip to foot in sleek full folds like the draperies of a statue. Some unwonted emotion had brought a faint spot of colour to the high-pitched bones of her cheeks, and the pupils of her eyes were so large they seemed to fill her eyes with darkness. She wore a wide hat of pastel-blue straw, wreathed with silken poppies of an ashen shade, and round her neck was slung a great rope of blue-and-green Egyptian scarabei, which had cost her the whole price of one of her plays, and which repaid her now by adding in some mysterious way to her glowing personality.Clem Portal rose, and, under cover of general conversation, said swiftly to her:"If Mrs. Gruyère puts you to the question—you paint—charming little water-colours. You are going to do my miniature."Poppy stood there, smiling at her through the spraying veils of her hair. Her glowing loveliness had the effect of making the other women in the verandah seem colourless. Even Mary Capron's classical beauty was dimmed.Carson felt the old dream stir. He gave her a long, long look. As for Abinger, the expression of utter astonishment and bewilderment had passed from his face; he was smiling."Sothisis Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but not too softly for Carson to hear him."Whois she, do you say?" he asked in a low tone.They had both risen from the floor."A Cheltenham College girl, with pretty ankles," was the enigmatic response.Unaccountably, they both found themselves at Mrs. Portal's elbow. She introduced them with a gay inclusive little: "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis"; then turned away to bid a guest good-bye.Miss Chard met Abinger's insolent mocking glance fearlessly, with a prepared heart and, therefore, a prepared smile; then turned to Carson for the first time: looking into his eyes the smile drifted out of her face and suddenly she put up one of her hands and touched, with a curious mystical movement, a dark-green stone she wore at her throat as a brooch. To both men she gave the impression that she was crossing herself, or touching a talisman against something evil.Abinger stared, grinning. Carson, extremely disconcerted, appeared to turn a deeper shade of brown, and his eyebrows came together in an unbecoming line over his brilliant, sad eyes. Abinger, well acquainted with the Irishman's temper, knew that the girl's action had got him on the raw. If she had been a man she would have been made answerable for a deadly insult. As it was, Carson struggled horribly with himself for a moment, then smiled and made a characteristic remark."You are veryun-Irish, Miss Chard, in spite of your face and your superstitions."This, said with great grace and gentleness, meant that no real Irishwoman would have had the abominable taste to notice what Mrs. Gruyère had termed his "deformity."But the girl either could not, or would not, taste the salty flavour of his compliment. She made a curious answer."I do not profess to be Irish."For some reason Carson took this for a fresh affront, and it was more than he could put up with. All his easily-lighted fires were ablaze now, and the reflection of them could be seen in his eyes. He gave her one fierce look, then turned away without a word. Abinger stood grinning. But the lilac eyes filled with tears, and the scarlet mouth went down at the corners like a child's."Oh, you mustn't mind Carson," said Abinger easily. "You see, he has unfortunately got a real Irish monkey for sale.""An Irish monkey?""Yes. Have you never heard of the species? Carson's is quite famous. It used to be a source of revenue to the Transvaal and Rhodesia for years—they thought nothing of giving him fifty pounds for letting it out on the spree."Her tears had slipped back unused to whence they came; she was now dry-eyed and rather haughty."How could I know?" she began stiffly.Abinger apparently thought it not wholly out of place to deliver her a short lecture on the undesirability of hurting people's feelings, together with the information that Carson, though hot-tempered and rather mad, was one of the finest gentlemen in the world and happened to share the misfortune of his nationality with a few of the most charming people in South Africa, not excluding their pleasant hostess—Mrs. Portal.By the time he had finished his remarks Miss Chard had regained her tranquillity."Thank you," said she sweetly. "I think it very nice and friendly of you to tell me all these things. I suppose you are an Irishman, too?"Some emotion kept Abinger dumb for several seconds; then under her tranquil gaze he recovered himself."No, I am a cosmopolitan; incidentally of Scotch birth.""Indeed!" Miss Chard looked politely interested. "You flatter yourself chiefly on the first, I suppose?""I did, until to-day.""To-day?""Yes. A cosmopolitan's chief pride, you see, is in the fact that he can conceal his nationality, whilst able to detect instantly that of the person he is speaking to. Now I should never have guessed thatyouare—English."Her colour remained unchanged: her eyes regarded him steadfastly."You took me for some new kind of barbarian, perhaps?"He moved a hand deprecatingly: "Not at all; but if I had been asked for an expression of opinion, I should have said, 'A little Irish vagabond dragged up in Africa.'"The girl's sweet laugh fell from her lips."What a ridiculous thing to say! You evidently have not heard that I have only been in Africa for a few weeks or so—myfirstvisit."Then, as though the conversation had ceased to interest her, she turned away and began to talk to Portal—who introduced to her a man with a satanic expression on a woman's mouth as Dr. Ferrand. The doctor immediately began to talk to her about "home!"She stemmed that tide."Why talk about 'home'?" she said impatiently. "It is far more interesting out here.""Why?" cried Ferrand the poetical. "Why?Because the air of 'home' still hangs about you. By just looking at you I know that you have lately heard the jingle of hansom bells, and 'buses rumbling on asphalt, and voices crying, 'Only a penny a bunch!'; that you have been tastingthe fog and getting splashed with the mud and smelling the Thames....""Yes," said Miss Chard; "and I infinitely prefer the smell of mangoes."Ferrand would have turned away from her, if he had been able to turn away from any woman.Mrs. Portal, who had just joined them, agreed with her."How can anyone compare the two lives—flowers in your hands and the Indian Ocean blue at your feet, to London with smuts on your nose and nutmeg-graters in your chest?"But still Ferrand looked at Miss Chard."'She is London, she is Torment, she is Town,'" he muttered."Don't believe it," said Mrs. Portal in her other ear. "He is his own torment: he has his own box of matches.—Good-bye, Mrs. Gruyère ... Good-bye, Mrs. Lace; so glad—Thursday, then, for polo, and you're going to call for me; good-bye, good-bye. (You're not going, Cora, you and your husband are staying to supper.)... Good-bye, Mrs. Leigh ... yes—don't forget.... Good-bye."Everyone was going except the elect few who had been asked to stay to what was called "supper" on Sunday night, because no one wore evening-dress—but was really an extra-specially excellent dinner. They gathered at the end of the verandah, where Carson was swinging little Cinthie Portal in a hammock and talking to Mrs. Capron seated on the low stone balustrade above the steps.She was a picture in pale-blue muslin, with deep-red roses on her hat. The colour of her hair gave the impression that she was gilt-edged and extremely valuable. Certainly she was the best-dressed Roman in Natal, perhaps even in Africa; but at the moment she waswondering how she could possibly get the address of Miss Chard's dressmaker without asking for it."Of course, you are staying, Mary," said Mrs. Portal, sitting down by her and putting an arm around her waist. "And you, too, Karri?"But Carson had a grievance. He was suffering such bitterness of spirit as only Irishmen with their half-mystical, half-barbaric, half-womanish natures can suffer about nothing at all. The sun had gone out of his sky, bitterness was in his mouth, and a snake ate his heart because a girl, whom he did not know or care about, repudiated Ireland, and touched a stone against the evil of his strange, Irish eyes. And he was conscious of the girl standing at the other end of the hammock now; he could feel the new movement in the hammock since her hand rested on it, and she, too, swayed it gently; and he knew that she was looking at him with dewy and wonderful eyes. Nevertheless, he excused himself to Mrs. Portal.—Thanks—he was sorry, but he must go and look after Bramham—he had promised—etc.They all expostulated. And Rosalind Chard's eyes, through the veils of her hair, besought him to look her way. With all her heart she willed him to look her way. But after he had finished excusing himself to Clem Portal, he looked Mrs. Capron's way instead.Portal said that for two brass pins he would go himself and fetch Bramham. De Grey said that Bramham would probably be found dining peaceably at the Club, with no thought of Carson. Abinger declared that he had, in fact, heard Bramham arrange to go and dine with a man from the Rand. Mrs. de Grey remarked that it was a shame that poor Mr. Bramham, even now that his wife was dead, could not go anywhere for fear of meeting Mrs. Gruyère, who always came and stood near him and began telling someone in a loud voice about hispoor devoted wife living and dying like a saint at home."Just as though it wouldn't have been far more saintlike to have come out here and minded her sinner, if heisone, which I don't believe," said Mrs. Capron."De mortuis!" broke in Clem, gently; and de Grey said, laughing:"This country is full of sinners who keep their saints at home—and I want to say that some of the saints have a jolly good time. We saw two of them giving a dinner-party at the "Café Royal" last time we were home; and for saints, they did themselves remarkably well—didn't they, Cora? And looked remarkably well too.""Yes: it's a becoming rôle—dressed byPaquin," said Cora de Grey drily.Shenever looked well, and had never had anything better than an Oxford Street gown on her back: but her tongue was as dry as the Karoo, and that helped her through a troublesome world.Abinger began to stammer softly, and everybody listened."B-Bramham will be able to come forth at l-last. Mrs. Gru' has a new nut to crack."He smiled sardonically and felt in all his pockets as though about to produce the nut—but everyone knew that this was merely a mannerism of his. Mrs. Portal looked at him apprehensively, however, and for one moment Poppy left off willing Eve Carson."And it will t-take her all her time to do it," he finished gently—even dreamily."You frighten me!" said Clem. "Whatcanyou mean?"Poppy had the most need to be frightened, but she returned to her occupation. It was now Mary Capron's turn to intervene. Perhaps some of the "willing" had gone astray, for she had certainly given Poppy all her attention for the last five minutes."Miss Chard," she cried suddenly. "I keep wondering and wondering where I have seen you before.I knowwe have met."
"This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."
"This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."
ON a January night in 1898, Charles Bramham was smoking and writing in the dining-room of Sea House.
All the doors and windows were open: his coat was off: his white silk shirt gaped at the neck and the sleeves were turned up. Mosquitoes in vicious clouds proclaimed with shrill, treble voices their intention to make a dash for his throat and hands as soon as they could find a way through the tobacco smoke.
It had been a pitiless day—the sun a ball of brass, and the thermometer at eighty-five degrees—but the evening sea-breeze had reduced the temperature by five degrees. Flying ants and gnats of every description were flinging themselves at the electric lights, and a bat circled monotonously round the ceiling. But Bramham wrote and smoked placidly on. A little stack of a dozen or more finished letters stood at his elbow, and he was busy on his last now—one to his brother in England.
"Read theFieldfor December 16th. There are two letters about American cartridges for shot-guns—they've impressed me very much, and for long shots at grouse, and driven partridge, I am certain they'll be better than anything we've had yet."
As he made his period voices and steps advanced upon him, and he blew an opening through the smoke to get a view of the doorway. Entered Carson and Luce Abinger with scowls upon their brows.
"Ah, you great, lazy hulk!" growled Abinger amiably. "Sitting here in your shirt sleeves, and neglecting the decencies of civilised life." They distributed themselves upon chairs and proceeded to add to the density of the atmosphere.
"Yes, I know," said Bramham, pushing back his chair and regarding them—"a boiled shirt with a flopping front to it like yours, and poker with a lot of perpetual growlers. What made you leave the delights of the Club to come and spoil my mail-night?"
"Capron," said Abinger laconically.
"What! again? A repetition of last night?"
Bramham shot a glance at Carson, but the latter's face expressed nothing more thanennui: he had put his head far back in his chair, and was smoking ceilingwards, following the gyrations of the bat with a contemplative eye.
"A repetition of every night until he gets knocked on the head by some fellow whose temper isn't so sweet as mine." Abinger's smile was not seductive. "He as good as told me that I had an ace up my sleeve, and later, he suggested that Carson had better not play for such high stakes in case he shouldn't find it convenient to pay. We discovered that we had a pressing appointment with you: but we left him Ferrand to insult."
Bramham got up and went to the sideboard, bringing glasses and decanters to the table.
"Capron isn't built for too much corn," he remarked. "Water-gruel is his tack, and he ought to be put on to it before somebody hurts him."
They all drank and smoked again in reflective concord.
"It is a pity," continued Bramham, with a dreamful Socratic air, "that some fellows' tastes and appetites are not matched by their physical abilities. There's an odd jumble of material in our construction! It would be anadvantage and make life much more interesting, now, if all our anatomical parts were standardised, so that every weak or worn portion could be taken out and renewed from a stock controlled by the highest power, who would only replace the affected piece if one had made a decent effort to retain one's mind and body in a healthy condition."
"Oh, get out!" said Abinger. "Is your name Max Nordau, perhaps?"
"Or are you Mr. Lecky?" derided Carson.
"Ah, well, you fellows can laugh, but it would be a good scheme all the same. Capron, now——"
Without warning of either foot or voice the last-named person at this moment appeared in the doorway with a debonair smile upon his lips, the figure of Ferrand behind him.
"Capron, now—is thirsty," said he. "And what was the interesting remark you were about to make, Brammie, my dear?"
"Only justthat," Bramham responded serenely. "That you were probably thirsty—as usual. Help yourself—and you, Ferrand."
They drank and were seated, and all smoked, less peacefully now, but more reflectively. Capron appeared to be the only person afflicted withgaieté de cœur.
"What do you men think?" he demanded. "I went with Ferrand to see his patient at the Royal—he's actually got a patient!—and what do you suppose I saw while I was waiting for him in Ulundi Square?"
The others remained calm and incurious.
"A stunning girl. Just arrived by to-day's mail-boat I found, upon discreet inquiry, in the office. You fellows ought to see her. She swung herself through that square like a yacht in full-rig. The funny part of it is that I saw her in Durban a year or two back, and she was prettythen; but now, by Gad! she has a face that would set any man's blood on fire."
"Indeed!" said Abinger dryly; and Bramham virtuously remarked: "We are not all so inflammable as you."
"Ah, I forgot! You're all saints and celibates here."
Capron's loose lips took a sardonic twist. "Quite a mistake for the women to call you and Abinger and Eve the three bad men, isn't it? I asked the beautiful Mrs. Gruyère only yesterday why it was—and what do you think she said, my dears?"
No one seemed anxious to learn, but Capron sprightfully proceeded:
"—Because one's wife wouldn't live with him, and another wouldn't live with his wife, and the third has apenchantfor the wife of his neighbour."
The withers of the three bad men were apparently unwrung. If any of them were embarrassed they concealed the fact skilfully behind stony eyes and complexions of varying degrees of tan. Carson seemed to be composing himself for a good night's sleep. It is true that Bramham, whose wife had been dead for less than a year, appeared to swallow something unpleasant before he remarked in an equable manner that Capron and Mrs. Gruyère were a nice brace of birds.
"Don't say that, Brammie." Capron was possessed of a high-pitched, rather Celtic voice. "I defended you all manfully. 'Oh,' said I, 'you should not be too hard upon them. They have amotwhich they respect about gates and girls.' At that she left me so suddenly that I hadn't time to find out from her which of you is which."
"P-per-haps," stammered Abinger softly, "if you ask us we'll tell you."
"Well, y-yes," said Capron, mocking Abinger with the fearlessness of the man of many drinks; "I think p-perhaps I ought to know, seeing that I have a wife myself."
The silence that ensued had a quality in it which made it differ from all the other silences of that evening: and it only lasted a second, for Carson awoke, and he and Bramham rose abruptly and spoke together.
"I am going to bed," said one.
"I must finish my mail," said the other; and added, "Don't go to bed, Carson. I want your opinion about those American cartridges for shot-guns. Would you advise me to have my guns re-chambered?" He put his hand on Carson's shoulder and they walked away together to the end of the room.
"Heum!" commented Capron. "Commend me to a Colonial for good manners and hospitality!" But both Abinger and Ferrand had turned their backs on him and gone into the verandah. In consideration of these things he helped himself once more to Bramham's good whiskey, and presently went home with the rest of his witticisms unsaid, but far from being dead within him.
Insensibly the others presently found themselves once more in their chairs in the dining-room. Desire for sleep had apparently forsaken Carson, and Bramham's mail no longer pressed. They looked at each other with grim, unsmiling faces.
"What did you want to bring him here for?" demanded Carson of Ferrand, but the latter was unabashed.
"I couldn't shake him, and I was tired of his insults. It was indicated that Bram should have a turn."
"Someone ought to do unto him as was done unto the Levite's concubine," was Abinger's graceful contribution.
"Stop talking about the fellow," said Bramham irritably. "He makes me tired. If he hadn't a beautiful and charming wife he would be lynched, and I'd supply the rope."
So they talked about other things, but there was a notable lack of charity, divine or human, about their conversation, for Capron's words had left a bad taste inthe mouths of three of them, and the fourth knew it. Indeed, Ferrand, being a doctor, knew most things about his neighbours, and having lived in Africa for a score of years, he could not be expected to be entirely lacking in malice and a touching interest in other people's sins. He presently proceeded to give them a neighbourly dig.
"I caught a glimpse of the girl at the Royal myself. She certainly is a wonder. Let us hope that all Capron's legends are not based on an equally good foundation?" He grinned cynically at the others. It would have been better for all bad men present to have ignored this friendly amenity, but Carson had a raw place and didn't like it flicked.
"Hope is all most of us have to live on in this land of flies and lies," he snarled. "We won't rob you of your income, Ferrand."
"Bite on that!" added Bramham without any polish of manner.
Capron had certainly succeeded in leaving an atmosphere of irritability behind him. Only Abinger remained impassive, and suavely demanded a description of the girl. Ferrand, amongst other things, was something of a poet: fire came into his eye.
"She's pale, but she glows like a rose: she has chaste eyes, but there isdiableriein the turn of her lip. She walks like a south wind on the water, and she has a rope of black hair that she can take me in tow with if she likes."
At the end of this monograph the three bad men laughed rudely, but they avoided looking at each other; for each had a curious, half-formed thought in his mind which he wished to conceal.
Bramham thought: "Part of that might fit one woman ... but it literallycouldn'tbe her ... I wonder if I should go round and——"
"If Icouldbe interested in a girl," thought Carson, "Imight....A rope of black hair!... anyway, I have to go and look up Nickals at the Royal to-morrow."
"Could it possibly be that devil Poppy?" was Abinger's thought. "I shall go round and see." What he said was:
"She must be a boneless wonder!" and the others derisively agreed. They further advised Ferrand to go and lie in Hyde Park with a sheet of brown paper over him, like all the other poets out of work.
Subsequently other subjects arose. When the clock struck eleven, Ferrand departed, remembering suddenly that his long-suffering man was waiting round the corner to drive him home.
Abinger was the next to make a move. His house on the Berea was still open, and in charge of Kykie, but it knew him no more. When he chanced to come to Durban from Johannesburg, where he now chiefly resided, he slept at the club. As he was making himself a last drink, Bramham said:
"Isandhlwana nineteen years ago to-day, Luce!"
The two men looked at each other with friendly eyes. They were not greatly sympathetic, but brave memories shared make a close bond between man and man. Silently both their glasses went upwards in a wordless toast. In a moment and silently, too, Carson was on his feet. They drank to the men who died on Isandhlwana Day. Afterwards, Bramham and Abinger fell into talk about that year. They had both fought in the Zulu war. Carson listened with glinting eyes, the weariness swept from his face for the first time that night. Bramham's face became like a boy's. Abinger's looks changed, too. His sneers were wiped out, and his scar took on the appearance of one that might have been honourably gained. Once he laughed like a rollicking boy.
"That day we lay above Inyezan, Bram ... do youremember? When you potted the big fellow in theumpastree!... after he had sniped about ten of our men ... by God! the cheek of that brute to perch himself up there within a hundred yards of us!... and no one knew where the shots were coming from ... it was a miracle you spotted him in that thick foliage ... he came down like a fat, black partridge ... and lay still under the tree ... we went and looked at him after the fight was all over, Carson ... he was an enormous chap ... the biggest Zulu I ever saw ... our natives recognised him—chiefGaarons, one of their best leaders ... a sure shot ... he got ten of our men ... but Bram gothimall right."
They sat for two solid hours reminiscing.
"You and Luce have had some times together, Charlie!" said Carson, after Abinger had gone.
"Yes ... it makes one feel old—I suppose wearegetting on, Karri, but we were in our early twenties those days ... Abinger rather younger than I was, perhaps ... he was a different fellow then, too—of course, it was years before he met that Spanish devil who slashed his face open.... Do you know, Eve, that when I was in London last I saw her dancing in the old, sweet way at the Alhambra?"
"I thought she was dead?"
"So did I—but she wasn't. She is,now, however ... dropped down one night behind the scenes and passed out in half an hour."
"Tant mieux!" said Carson serenely. "She didn't play according to rules. Well, I suppose, we must turn in, Bram—I've a ton of things to do to-morrow ... those cases of guns and ammunition and stuff are due, aren't they?"
"Yes: I got the advice about them: they'll be in dock to-morrow. We'll go down and look everything overduring the week if you like. How long are you going to give yourself before you go back?"
"Well, my leave is six months, you know—one of them gone already, by Jove! I shall be about another three or four weeks fixing up my private affairs on the Rand and getting things sent off from here. Then I propose to give myself a few months at 'home' before I go into exile for five years."
"Five years of solitude and natives and pioneers!" commented Bramham. "Pretty tough on you!"
"Oh, you needn't pity me. I don't mind the solitude. There'll be plenty to do turning that little sixty thousand square miles into a civilised centre, now that we've got the roads open. In five years' time we shall have the rails laid right to the capital, and the mines in full swing. That's the time I shall make tracks for newer scenes. But in the meanwhile it's fine, Bram. The fellows that make pioneers are the right stuff—youknow that. It's the people who come up after the work is done who stick in my gizzard."
"I daresay it's all right," said Bramham. "There are bright bits, no doubt. And, of course, you'll get more ribbons to tie your stockings up with and lockets to hang on your breast when you come back. But it seems to me to be a precious lonely life in the meantime, and I'm glad it isn't mine. Why don't you take your wife up with you, Karri?" He spoke with an idle smile, not looking at Carson, but at his hands on the bale before him arranging cigars in a box. Carson gave him a quick glance, but he laughed carelessly.
"Even if I possessed such a luxury I couldn't very well ask her to come up to a wild place like that—for wild it will be for many a year yet, thank the gods! Do you suppose any woman would care about it?"
"I know half a dozen who'd jump at the chance, andI expect you do, too. Women are fearfully keen on adventure nowadays. And then you're an attraction in yourself, Karri."
"Thanks, old chap! You're easily pleased, I'm afraid." Carson's smile was affectionate, but frankly sleepy. He began to yawn. Bramham, caring nothing for hints of weariness, pursued the subject.
"Joking apart—you ought to marry. Why don't you, Karri?"
"For one thing, I can't afford it. You forget that I'm not a bloated millionaire like you. My little excursions into different parts of the interior were never cheap, and the original expedition into Borapota cost me privately as much as it did the Government, and since I've been Administrator I've found it a mighty expensive business, and you know, I've never been a money-hugger, Bram. I suppose I am a thousand or two to the good now, apart from my shares and concerns on the Rand, which wouldn't fetch much with the market in its present condition. But how far would that go towards setting up aménage-à-deuxin the desert? Even supposing that I knew someone anxious to share it——"
"You have your salary—two thousand a year," argued Bramham. He did not know what aménage-à-deuxwas, but he could guess.
"So I have, by Jove! and I need it. If you think I play John the Baptist when I take to the wilderness, Bram, you're mistaken. I do myself remarkably well to make up for the lack of society. If the soul is neglected, the carcase isn't. You come up and visit me some time, old man. You'll find all the blessings of civilisation with me, except woman."
"You're a nice sort of pioneer!" Bramham said; but he knew what Carson meant. The best kit, the best guns, and saddlery, and horses, cost money everywhere, andwhen it comes to transporting them over a few thousand miles of unbroken roads—why, of course, it is expensive!
"I know all about that, Carson—all the same, I think it would be a good thing if——"
Carson interrupted him. "You're beginning to be a nuisance, Bram. But I'll be patient with you, and tell you the truth. I don't wantawife, butthewife, and I haven't met her yet—the woman who could stand the test of five years ofwattle-and-daub, and boot-and-saddle, and sleeping under the stars for a change when one gets tired of thewattle-and-daub; with nothing much to contemplate by day but the unlimited horizon and nothing much to hear by night but the dirge of the jackals, and the sound of the wind in forest trees, or the rush of a river.Weknow that these things are fine, Bram—the best you can get in a passable world. But would they be fine with the wrong woman?—with any woman but the one who——"
He stopped abruptly, got up, and began to walk about the room. In the doorway he stood for a moment looking seawards through the black night. A cool wind was stirring every paper and drapery in the room now, for the tide was full, swirling and rustling on the sands not a hundred yards away with nothing to be seen in the blackness but a skirl of white foam.
"—Who—what?" asked Bramham stolidly in the room behind him. Carson came back and sat on the table with his hands in his pockets. The old discontent was on his face.
"Who can never materialise because she's mostly made up of dreams."
Bramham laughed. "Mrs. Portal once said to me, 'The most wonderful woman in the world could not pass the standard of a romantic Irishman: or come near the perfection of the dream-woman whom every Irishman hassecretly enshrined in his heart.' It appears that she was right."
Carson laughed, too: but his face softened.
"Mrs. Portal knows most things about Irish and every other kind of men, I fancy. The wonder is that she can continue to be charming to us in spite of it. She's the most delightful woman in the world."
Bramham gave him a shrewd glance. He would have given half he possessed to say at that moment:
"What about a lovely girl who is drudging away in England to support your child?" But it was not an ordinary promise that same girl had wrung out of him, never to reveal by word or look that he knew her secret. She had bound him by every oath she could think of that had any sanctity for a man.
Something of scorn presently mingled with the shrewdness of the look he cast at Carson. He searched the dark face that had so much in it that was fine and lovable, and yet was marked with sins. But whatever Carson's sins were they did not give him peace. He did not grow sleek on them. He had the weary mouth and haggard eyes of the man with the dual nature, a finer self perpetually at war with a baser, sometimes winning, sometimes losing—but always striving. Scorn left Bramham's look and affectionate loyalty came back.
"You can't hate a fellow like that," he thought.
He presently found a further thing to say in which he was far from imagining himself disloyal to Rosalind Chard, or even prompted by curiosity.
"Carson ... since we've tumbled on to the subject of women, I'd like to know what you think about something I've rather advanced opinions upon ... girls ... girls who've gone over the hard-and-fast line ... not the ordinary demi-semi-quaver, of course ... nor the kind that are bound to slip off the rails even withgold fastenings ... I mean the sort of girl one would be glad and proud to marry, but who, given 'the time, the place, and the loved one altogether,' as some poet fellow says, cuts loose the painter for dear love and sheer love. What do you think of a girl like that, Karri?"
Carson had a distant visionary expression in his eyes. Bramham's words appeared to have driven his thoughts far afield. He might have been a man trying to remember a sweet air that evaded his memory, or to lay hold of something that had no substance.
"It is odd that you should ask me that, Bram," he spoke slowly ... "and you are the only man in the world I would say it to ... but, that was the kind of girl I was speaking of when I saidthewife ... the only kind of girl I should ever care about marrying ... I suppose I am alone among Irishmen in holding such an opinion ... for all their wildness they're a conventional lot at bottom, especially on this subject ... and, of course, that's as it should be. But I've lived too long in lonely places, and I'm more woodsman than Irishman now!... I didn't think this way always, either.... But once I had a vision, a dream,something... about such a girl. The odd part of it is that I was crazy about another woman at the time—had been for years—and it cured me ofthat.... But, oh, Lord!" (he gave a sort of groan) "there's been plenty of water under the bridge since then ... and it was only a dream, anyway. There may be such girls in the world somewhere ... but not for me, Bram. Some woman will trap me with an antenuptial-contract, some day." He got up, laughing mirthlessly. "Great Tophet! it's two o'clock! I shall never get through with my work to-morrow."
They gripped hands and parted for the night.
Afterwards Bramham mused thus to himself:
"He was lying! He must have been—or else she was.What the deuce is one to make of it?Plenty of water under the bridge since then!I daresay!... Capron's stray shaft went home.... I wonder if there's any truth inthattale!... Well! the longer I live the more I am inclined to agree with that fellow who said there never yet was a game in history or anywhere else played square with a woman in it!"
THE next morning, by a strange circumstance, which did not immediately unfold its inner meaning, three bad men met in the front verandah of the Royal.
The order of their coming was thus: Bramham dropped in at about eleven o'clock to discover Abinger sitting in the verandah with a drink at his elbow—
"And a smile on the face of the tiger."
"And a smile on the face of the tiger."
That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed into Bramham's head, as Abinger grinned upon him.
"What doyouwant?" was the latter's affable greeting, and Bramham answered fearlessly:
"Oh, just a gin-and-bitters! It's getting somewhere about lunch-time, isn't it?"
Abinger refrained from inquiring why the Royal should be patronised for gin-and-bitters, when the Club was just across the road from Bramham's office: he merely continued to grin. The next arrival was Carson. But he saw them before they saw him, so it was for him to play tiger. He saluted them blandly.
"Hullo! you fellows! Waiting to see Nickals, too?"
This was the first information the other two had of the presence of Nickals in the hotel; but Abinger gravely stated that his case was a desire to see that gentleman. Bramham repeated his gin-and-bitters tale. They sat for a quarter of an hour, abusing the weather, the market, and the country, and Carson then said he should go andsee if he could find Nickals in his room. The others thought they would accompany him. It appeared that Nickals, hitherto a simple honest fellow, had suddenly grown in importance and magnetic personality.
They did not, like sane men, inquire at the office, which was just inside the hall door, but strolled instead through the vestibules into the palm-garden, and from there to Ulundi Square, having passed the drawing-room windows and looked in, in case Nickals might be playing the piano or resting on the sofa, as Abinger facetiously remarked. Eventually they stopped a strolling waiter and asked if Nickals was in. The waiter went away to see, and the three sat in the Square until he returned with the information that Mr. Nickals had gone to the Berea and would not be back before four o'clock. This was conclusive. They searched each other's faces for any reasonable excuse for further loitering; finally, Abinger saidhewould now take a gin-and-bitters. Carson thought he would like a smoke. The chairs are easy and comfortable in Ulundi Square, and there are newspapers.
They spent another peaceful twenty minutes. Too peaceful. No one came or went, but an ample-breasted concert soprano, who was touring the country and compiling a fortune with a voice that had long ceased to interest English audiences; a crumpled-looking lady journalist, with her nose in a note-book and her hat on one ear, and a middle-aged American tourist, with a matron as alluringly veiled as the wife of a Caliph, but who unfortunately did not remain veiled.
Ennuiengulfed the trio. At last they departed in exasperation—no one having once mentioned his real reason for being there. Carson and Abinger went into the Club, Bramham into his office, promising to join them in a short time for lunch. As he passed through an outer office lined with desks and busy clerks, his secretary followed, to inform him in a discreet voice that a note had come for him by one of the Royalboys. Bramham, forgetting that he was over twenty-five on Isandhlwana day nineteen years before, sprinted into his private room in amazing style. On his desk was a letter addressed in the writing of Rosalind Chard.
"I had a premonition, by Jove!" he exclaimed excitedly, and tore it open. It was brief.
"I am staying at the Royal. Could you call on me some time to-day? I should be delighted if you would lunch with me. It will be charming to see you again."
"I am staying at the Royal. Could you call on me some time to-day? I should be delighted if you would lunch with me. It will be charming to see you again."
Bramham stared at the letter for several minutes, then seized his hat and rang the bell.
"Call Mr. Merritt," was his order, and the secretary reappeared.
"Merritt, I am going out again at once. If Mr. Carson or Mr. Abinger send over for me from the Club,I'm engaged. Very important business—here.Shall probably see them later in the afternoon—understand?"
"Certainly, sir," said the discreet Merritt, and withdrew.
Arrived at the Royal once more, Bramham this time addressed himself to the inquiry office like an honest man, and was presently informed that Miss Chard would see him in her private sitting-room. His mental eyebrows went up, but he decorously followed the slim and sad-eyed coolie attendant.
In a room redeemed from "hoteliness" by a few original touches, fragrant with violets and sprays of mimosa, he found a girl waiting for him, whom for a moment he scarcely recognised. It was the first time he had seen Rosalind Chard in any but the simplest clothes, and he at first supposed the difference in her attributable to her dress. She wore a beautiful gown of lilac-coloured crêpe, withsilken oriental embroiderings scrolled upon it, and a big lilac-wreathed hat—a picture of well-bred, perfectly-dressed dewy womanhood, with the faint and fascinating stamp of personality on every tiniest detail of her. She stood in the middle of the room and held out a slim, bare hand to Bramham, and he took it, staring at her and it. He was relieved to see that it was not jewelled.
"I can't believe my eyes," he said. "It is the most amazing thing that ever happened—to see you!"
"Why?" she asked softly, looking him in the eyes.
"I thought you were in England fighting your way along the road to Fame——"
"I don't care about Fame any more, Charlie."
"Don't care for Fame! Why, you were crazy after it!"
"Crazy—yes, that is the right word. Now I am sane. You have had my hand quite a long time——"
He did not release it, however, only held it tighter.
"I'm knocked right off my mental reservation. I don't know what I'm doing. You shouldn't stand and smile at me like that. What's the matter with you, Rosalind? You don't look happy!"
His last words were a surprise to himself, for until he uttered them he had not clearly realised that in spite of her radiant beauty and her perfect clothes there was a haunting enigmatic sadness about her. And as once before, he fancied it was her smile that made her so tragic-looking. Suddenly it seemed to him that he heard a little bell tolling somewhere. He gave a glance round the room, but his eyes returned to her.
"What has happened to you?" he asked, in a low voice.
"My son is dead," she said, and she still smiled that bright, tragic smile, and looked at him with dry, beautiful eyes, that were too tired to weep. His were the eyes that filled with tears. He knew that he was in the presence ofgrief too deep for words. The hand that he awkwardly brushed across his face was his salute to sorrow.
"Thank you," her voice was a little dreary wind; "thank you, kindest of all friends." She moved away from him then in a vague, aimless fashion, went to a bowl of violets and smelled them, and looked up at a strange blue picture on the wall, the like of which he had never seen in an hotel and could not believe to be part of the furnishing of the Royal. It was, indeed,Hopesitting at the top of the world playing on her brave one string; but Bramham had never seen Watts's picture before. While she still stood there she spoke to him.
"Don't ever speak of it again, will you?... I can't ... I am not able ..."
"Of course not.... No, all right ... I won't," he hastily and earnestly assured her.
He wondered if she knew of Carson's presence in Durban. It was strange that they had had no sight of her that morning. He would have given much to have seen her meet Carson face to face unexpectedly.
"Were you in this morning?" he presently asked. "I was about the hotel for an hour or so with two friends—Carson and Luce Abinger. We might so easily have run across you——"
Her face when she turned told him nothing.
"I spent the greater part of the morning sitting under the palms facing the bay, talking to Mrs. Portal—but I left a message where I was to be found in case you called."
"Mrs. Portal! I didn't know you knew her."
"Yes; she and I met when I was in Durban, and became friends. She happened to be lunching here yesterday when I arrived, and she came up and spoke to me. You can imagine what it meant to have someone welcoming me as she did, after long exile from my own land—but,if you know her at all, you know how kind and lovely her ways are."
"Yes, indeed," Bramham heartily agreed. "She is altogether charming."
All the same, he was astonished. Mrs. Portal was charming, but she stood for orthodoxy, and the girl before him was mysteriously unorthodox—to say the least of it.
"I am dining with her to-night to meet her great friend, Mrs. Capron," continued Poppy, eyeing him gravely.
"Then you ought to be careful," he blurted out; "for you are dining with the two most precise and conventional women in the place"—here he perceived himself to be blundering—"but I may also say the most delightful," he added hastily.
"Ah! and why shouldn't I?" she queried softly, but her tone brought a slight flush to Bramham's cheek.
"Oh, I don't know," he stammered. "No reason at all, I imagine."
"On the contrary," she said quietly, "you imagine every reason."
Bramham scrambled out of his tight corner as best he might.
"At any rate," he made haste to say, "I am delighted that you have a woman friend who has it in her power to make things as pleasant and interesting as they can be in a place like this."
"Thank you," she said; "and, dear friend—you need not be anxious for me. I only confess where I am sure of absolution and the secrecy of the confessional—never to women."
Bramham, first pleased, then annoyed, then sulky over this piece of information, made no immediate response, and a waiter appearing at the moment to inquire whether they would take lunch, the matter dropped. He followed in the wake of her charming lilac gown, throughtessellated squares and palm-gardens, with the glow of personal satisfaction every right-minded man feels in accompanying the prettiest and best turned-out woman in the place.
When they were seated at the pleasantest corner of the room, and she had ordered without fuss an excellently dainty lunch, Bramham's desire being to sit with his elbows on the table and dip into the depths of lilac eyes lashed with black above two faintly-tinted cheek-bones, he reverted to his sulky demeanour. But a scarlet mouth was smiling at him whimsically.
"Don't let us be cross! Everything is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, you know; and you are the best of all possible confessors. There is nothing I can hide from you. I am even going to tell you where I got my pretty clothes from, and the money to be careering about the world and staying at the Royal—I know you are consumed with apprehension on these two points."
She smiled at him with such comradeship that he could not sulk any longer.
"Well, you know the last time I saw you, you were in hard-luck street, at a guinea a week, and too proud to use a friend's purse. I suppose you have been getting on?"
"You suppose rightly: I havegoton. I have three plays running at London theatres, two novels selling well, and a book of poems in its tenth edition—not bad for poems, you know."
It was a day of surprises for Bramham, and it should be excused in him that he sat for three minutes with his mouth open.
"You!... You!... why, I've never even heard of you!" he cried, mortified, astonished, and it must be confessed, slightly unbelieving.
"But perhaps you have heard ofEve Destiny? Hereare a pile of letters and things from my managers and publishers. I want you to look over them, and advise me, will you, about money and things ... I'm most frightfully unpractical and extravagant.... I can see that I shall very soon be poor again unless someone advises me and puts me on the right road. And I don't want to be poor again, Charlie. Poverty hurts ... it is like the sun, it shows up all the dark corners—in one's nature. If I can only arrange my affairs so as to have about a hundred a year to live on, I shall be satisfied."
"A hundred a year!" Bramham had been skimming through her papers with his business eye, which fortunately for his feminine acquaintances was a very different organ to his pleasure eye. All his instincts were outraged at this careless view of what was evidently a splendid working concern.
"A hundred a year! Why, if you go on like this you'll be more likely to haul in ten thousand a year."
"Ah! but I'm not going on," she interpolated calmly. "I don't mean to work any more."
"Not work any more? Why? Are you panned?... dried up ... fizzled out?"
"Not at all," she laughed. "I have as much fizzle as ever ... I don't want to work any more—that's all. I'm tired ... and there is nothing to work for."
"But since when did you begin to feel like that?"
"Oh, since a long time ... I haven't worked for ages ... I've been buying frocks in Paris, and sitting in the sunshine at Cannes, and looking over the side of a yacht at the blue Mediterranean, and just spending, spending ... but there is not much inthat, Charlie ... there's not much in anything if your world is empty." Her voice broke off strangely, but when he looked at her the tragic smile was back on her mouth again. He knew now why she did it—it was to keep herself fromwailing like a banshee! An interval here occurred, monopolised entirely by the waiter—a coolie, slim, snowily-draped, and regretful as are all coolie-waiters.
It was Bramham who again broached the subject of Carson. He could not help himself—these two people were dear to him; and, besides, he was eaten up with curiosity.
"If you go to the Portals you will meet Eve Carson. He ispersona gratathere."
"I know; Mrs. Portal said to me, amongst other things, 'You must meet our great friend, Sir Evelyn Carson.' She did not mention his wife, however."
"His wife——?"
"It will be interesting to meet his wife," she said tranquilly. Bramham gazed at her. She was carefully dissecting the pink part of a Neapolitan ice from its white foundation.
"Yes, I should think it would be—when he gets one. I was asking him only last night why he didn't marry, and he said——"
"He would be sure to say something arresting," said Poppy, but she had grown pale as death. Her eyes waited upon Bramham's lips.
"He said, first, that he was not wealthy enough—a paltry reason. Secondly, well, I can't quite repeat it, but something to the effect that the girl of his dreams wouldn't materialise."
There was a long silence. She sat with her hands in her lap and her eyes veiled. The colour of life came slowly back to her face, but she was racked and shadowy-looking. Compassion filled Charles Bramham.
"I suppose you heard that May Mappin tale? All rot. She's a foolish little Durban girl, left with a large fortune. He has never thought twice about her, but she has always persisted in making a fool of herself. It is a common story here that she cabled home reports of theirengagement and marriage. Poor devil! I suppose she can't help herself ... but never mind her.... You, Rosalind! I can't pretend to understand you ... the mystery is too deep for me to probe. But I believe, that if last night I could have broken my promise to you——"
"Never! Never!" she cried fiercely. "I should curse you for ever ... I.... And so he is not married?" she said in an ordinary voice.
"No, nor ever will be, till he finds the woman of his dreams, according to his own tale."
Suddenly she rose from her chair.
"Good-bye ... I must go now ... I want to be alone ... I want rest ... I must think. Forgive me for leaving you like this—" She went away, down the long, well-filled room, and every feminine eye raked her from stem to stern, and every man strained the ligaments of his throat to breaking-point to catch the last flick of her lilac-coloured draperies.
Afterwards, every eye severely considered Bramham. He found himself staring at two coffee-cups. A waiter at his elbow rudely inquired whether the lady took sugar.
"Yes, two—all ladies do," he answered aggressively. To conceal his discomfort he fell to perusal of the packet of papers she had put into his hands. They were from managers, agents, and publishers, and concerned themselves with contracts, royalties, and demands for the first refusal of the next work of Miss Rosalind Chard, otherwiseEve Destiny. Bramham became so engrossed at last that he forgot all the staring people in the room and the two coffee-cups and his discomfort.
"She's a genius, by Jove!" he said grimly. "One must get used to being made uncomfortable."
IT was a turgid, sun-smitten Sunday afternoon at the Portals' house on the Berea. Through the open French windows of the drawing-room came the chink of many tea-cups, and a desultory but not unsprightly murmur of conversation. Some one's hand was straying absent-mindedly on the keys of the Bechstein, making little ripples, and sometimes a girl would laugh on two notes—a short, but peculiarly melodious sound like the beginning of a song in a bird's throat. Evelyn Carson, on the west side of the verandah, arguing with Bill Portal about water-fowl in Madagascar, found that laugh curiously distracting. It reminded him of an old dream that he was always trying to forget.
"You're thinking of a Francolin-partridge, my dear fellow," he said to Portal; "very dark feathering ... almost black ... a little bigger than the Natal grey hens." (There was that little tender laugh again! God! What a dream that was!)
"Not at all," disputed Portal. "They were grouse, I tell you ... sand-grouse ... the male bird has dark-brown wings ... very light back and a pencilled head ... rather like English grouse ... with a black neck. I got scores of them at Solarey ... splendid sporting shots——"
He lifted his voice slightly in his enthusiasm, and it was heard round in the east verandah, where Mrs. Portal was sitting with her great friend, Mary Capron, two other women, and Luce Abinger.
"Listen to the blood-shedders!" said Mrs. Capron.
"Yes, one of them is Bill," said Clem, "and I hoped he was looking after people inside! Who is he talking to, I wonder."
Mrs. Capron opened her lips to answer, then closed them again and looked away at the sea. Luce Abinger smiled to himself.
"That's C-Carson," he said. "He c-came up with me."
Abinger's slight stammer arrested people's attention and made them listen to what he had to say. But to do him justice, what he had to say was usually worth listening to. It is always worth while to be amused, and a man's malice is invariably more amusing than a woman's because it is not so small, and is more daring. What Abinger did not dare with his tongue, he made bold to let you know with his eyes, which were as bad as they could be. Not that he looked at all women with the same look Sophie Cornell had once complained of. He was far too clever for that—he had as many sets of expressions for his eyes as he had for his tongue.
But in whatsoever way he looked, he always made the woman he was talking totête-à-têtefeel that she was doing something rather wicked and none the less fascinating because she could not be indicted on it by Mrs. Grundy. And then his appearance was so peculiarly revolting! That frightful scar running all the way down one side of his clean-shaven face, from his eye to his chin,musthave been made with a knife; but no one knew how it had been done, and that made it all the more mysterious. Certainly he was not communicative on the subject.
At present he was sitting on the clean, sun-burnt boards of the verandah floor, with his back against the wall and his knees drawn up, peacefully considering the four women arranged in chairs on either side of him. Mrs. Portal,bunched up with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, was not pretty, but her face bore the marks of race, and her hair and her kind Irish eyes were full of sunshine. Abinger considered that she had less style than any woman he knew, but that it must be distinctly interesting to be Bill Portal. Mrs. Gerald Lace was silent and reposeful, with the inevitable silent reposefulness of a woman with a fourteen-inch waist. Mrs. Gruyère, warm and pink, fanned herself vigorously with an expensive painted fan, and took breath for a fresh onslaught upon the characters of her friends. Mrs. Capron, staring out at the sea with her lovely, golden eyes, was sufficiently beautiful to be forgiven for not saying much. It was enough to look at her.
Durban lay below them in green and white array, but the green was too green, and the white blazed even through the drapery of passion-plant leaves that hung and clambered on the verandah and let in the sunshine upon them in jaggling Chinese patterns. The garden was delightfully, raggedly picturesque. Two sloping lawns were divided by a tall hedge of Barbadoes-thorn. There was a grove of orange-trees, and a miniature forest of mangoes. Scattered everywhere, grew golden clots of sunflowers, and away to the right a big Bougainvillea bush flaunted its fearful purple-magenta blossoms against the blue. Far beyond was the sea.
The Portals' house stood so high on the Berea that no sound from the town or the sea reached it on a still day. The peace in the verandah was unbroken, save for thecheep-cheepingof some tame guinea-fowl in a neighbouring garden.
If only Mrs. Gruyère could have ceased from troubling, they would all have been at rest. "Why can she not be calm and still, like Mrs. Lace?" thought Abinger. Mrs. Lace was not over-burdened with brains, but she couldsay "Oh!" and "Really?" quite prettily at appropriate intervals, and he much preferred her to Mrs. Gruyère, a most tiresome person, who, if you did not tell her the truth, invented it. She now began to worry Mrs. Portal about a girl inside, whom Abinger, not long arrived and having got no further than his present seat in the verandah, had not seen, but from the venomous tone of Mrs. Gruyère's inquiries he gathered that she must, in some fashion, be worth seeing. Mrs. Portal said in an airy way she had, that she knew nothing of Miss Chard except that she was a Cheltenham College girl, and had pretty ankles—"both highly desirable qualifications, surely?"
Mrs. Gruyère, who had been educated at a Colonialseminary, immediately drew her feet, which had been obstructing Abinger's view of the Indian Ocean, into the seclusion of her peculiarly ungraceful, though doubtless expensive, skirt, and pursued the subject with more intense malignity. Abinger was of opinion that Mrs. Portal had probably made a life-long enemy for Miss Chard: which showed that she was harassed, for he knew her to be the soul of tact and kindliness. As an old ally, he felt that it behoved him to listen and prepare a weapon for the defence.
"But,dearMrs. Portal, desirable qualifications are not always sufficient ones.Wheredid she come from, and who are her people, I wonder? It seemsstrangein a small place like Durban, not to have met her before! What does she want here?"
"She paints charmingly," was all Mrs. Portal vouchsafed—"most beautiful little water-colours." After a moment's consideration she added: "She is going to do my miniature."
Thereafter, she looked dreamily into space, apparently thinking of something else—an old ruse of hers when harassed about her harum-scarum acquaintances. Abingerbegan to think it highly probable that she had met the remarkable Miss Chard in a tea-shop, become interested in her face (or her ankles), and gone up and spoken to her; but he quite understood that these illegitimate proceedings must be concealed from such a keeper of seals and red tape as Mrs. Gruyère.
"Indeed! An artist?" that lady insisted abominably. "I wonder if——"
Mrs. Portal removed her charming eyes from blue space and looked for the hundredth part of a second in the direction of Abinger. He dashed briskly into the conversation.
"Yes; an exceedingly c-clever artist. I saw an exhibition of her pictures somewhere in Bond Street last year. Some of her sunset-effects were brilliant—quite Whistlerian. But," he cocked his head meditatively for a second, "if I remember rightly, it was with her miniatures that she made her chief hit—yes, decidedly her——"
"Really?" said Mrs. Gerald Lace, all attention, thinking what a charming miniature her blonde beauty would make.
Mrs. Gruyère said nothing. She was completely knocked out of the ring for five seconds, during which time Mrs. Portal smiled an amazed smile at the sunflowers on the lawn, and Abinger, with the pride of one who has done exceeding well, rose and handed tea-cups and cake from the tray of a neat and pretty maid—Hyacinth's English nurse, to be precise, who was always harnessed-in on Sunday afternoons. Having modestly helped himself to three sandwiches, he reseated himself upon the floor, for time was up: Mrs. Gruyère had got her second wind.
Could it be true, she demanded of him, that there was talk of that odious Sir Evelyn Carson getting a peerage next? Why should he have got the Administratorship of Borapota, when there were so many fine men born and bred in Africa,muchmore eligible for the post? (Her ownbrother, in fact—hinc illæ!) Wasn't it a fact that Carson was exiled to Africa ten years ago because he had been mixed up in a famous divorce suit with Royalty and dared not show his nose in England again? Did Abinger consider it likely that Carson would marry May Mappin, who was still scandalously in love with him and ready to throw herself at him, together with the fortune which her father had made by "running guns" to the Zulus in '76?
"—And was made Mayor, and died!" she finished as though she had been reciting a new kind of creed.
Some portion, at least, of this surprising indictment had made Mrs. Capron's tinted cheek pale with anger. Clem Portal, too, was disturbed. She glanced fiercely at Mrs. Gruyère, and remarked with great emphasis and point:
"Rot!"
Mrs. Gruyère looked as if she would have liked to snort at this rude reception of her news; she contented herself, however, with a sniff—a Colonial habit of hers.
Mrs. Lace also roused herself to an effort. She had not Mrs. Portal's pluck to fire boldly in the face of the enemy, but she was inspired to make a little side-attack.
"He would neverdreamof marrying a Colonial: Gerald told me so."
Mrs. Gruyère's nostrils broadened like a hippo's; she could have tomahawked Mrs. Lace on the spot. For a moment she cast her inward eye back across the trail of Mrs. Lace's past—if she had only been a Johannesburg crow, with three coats of whitewash,howMrs. Gruyère would have turned the waterspouts of truth on her! But as it happened, Gerald Lace had extracted his blonde bride from a tender home at Kingston-on-Thames—and that was a far cry! And since her marriage, she was known to be what is called "absolutely de-vo-ted." What satisfaction can be got out of a woman like that? Mrs.Gruyère was obliged to hide her tomahawk for the time being. Smiling a thin smile with an edge as sharp as a razor to it, she addressed herself to the audience at large.
"At any rate, no one will deny that May Mappin is still throwing herself at his head. Isn't that so, Mr. Abinger? You practically live with him and should know."
Abinger's answers were as various as Mrs. Portal's sandwiches, and as liberally supplied with mustard.
1. Yes; but he didn't live with Miss Mappin.2. Carson had not asked his advice about the best place to spend a honeymoon.3. Miss Mappin had not told him that she loved Carson.4. He did not read Carson's letters.5. He could not swear that Carson was not already married.6. All women were in love with Carson, anyway.
1. Yes; but he didn't live with Miss Mappin.2. Carson had not asked his advice about the best place to spend a honeymoon.3. Miss Mappin had not told him that she loved Carson.4. He did not read Carson's letters.5. He could not swear that Carson was not already married.6. All women were in love with Carson, anyway.
At that, Mrs. Gruyère sat back satisfied.
"I knew it," she said triumphantly, "and no good can come of it." She made a hollow in her lap for her cup of tea and began rolling her veil into a thick, black stole across the end of her nose.
No one was quite sure what she meant, and no one particularly cared, but Mrs. Portal thought it quite time poor silly May Mappin was left alone. Mrs. Portal talked scandal herself and enjoyed it, but she didn't backbite, which is the difference between good and ill nature.
"You ask too much, Mrs. Gruyère," said she, sipping tea from her blue cup, delicately as a bee sips honey from a bluebell. "When you are in love with a man like Evelyn Carson, the only thing you can do is to pray with fasting and tears that no bad may come of it."
"WhenIam in love!" said Mrs. Gruyère loudly.
"Oh!" cried Mrs. Lace with a shocked little laugh.
"Isn't it true, Mr. Abinger?" Clem asked.
"Oh, Carson is not so black as he's painted," said he with a great air of liberality.
"As he paints, I suppose, you mean," pertly rejoined Mrs. Gruyère.
"There is a form of colour-blindness that makes its victim see everything black!" said Mrs. Capron drily. Mrs. Gruyère sniffed again.
"You need be colour-blind when you look at his eyes," she said unpleasantly; "but some people have a morbid liking for deformity."
They all looked astonished.
"Deformity!" cried Mrs. Capron; "why, everybody admires his striking eyes!"
"And,dearlady," said Abinger, with greattendresse, "do you really suppose that the colour of Carson's eyes has anything to do with it? It's the flame inside him that draws us and scorches us. He's made up of fire and iron, and——"
"Brass," said Mrs. Gruyère neatly—for her.
At this opportune moment Carson sauntered round the corner and joined them, and Mrs. Gruyère's face became so like a Bougainvillea flower that there was hardly any difference, except that the Bougainvillea was prettier.
"How do you do, Sir Evelyn?" said Mrs. Portal, tendering him her hand tranquilly. "Talking of brass, can it be true that you are very rich?"
Seeing no chair, Carson seated himself next to Abinger on the floor—"two bad, dissolute men, cheek by jowl," said Mrs. Gruyère to herself.
"Not very," he said apologetically, smiling at them all with his unusual eyes. "Not so rich as Abinger. He says he has two pounds a week for life. But we think he exaggerates."
Mrs. Portal and Mrs. Capron began to laugh, and Mrs. Lace to wonder how they could wear such nice boots on such small incomes. But Mrs. Gruyère, thoroughly disgusted with the contemptible tone of the conversation, was about to rise and leave the scene, when there came a general exodus from the drawing-room, preceded by Portal and a girl, who was laughing in her throat like a bird about to begin a song.
It was Poppy.
The two bad men looked up.
She was amazingly arrayed in a gown that was a poem composed in France—silky, creamy muslin, curving from throat to hip, and from hip to foot in sleek full folds like the draperies of a statue. Some unwonted emotion had brought a faint spot of colour to the high-pitched bones of her cheeks, and the pupils of her eyes were so large they seemed to fill her eyes with darkness. She wore a wide hat of pastel-blue straw, wreathed with silken poppies of an ashen shade, and round her neck was slung a great rope of blue-and-green Egyptian scarabei, which had cost her the whole price of one of her plays, and which repaid her now by adding in some mysterious way to her glowing personality.
Clem Portal rose, and, under cover of general conversation, said swiftly to her:
"If Mrs. Gruyère puts you to the question—you paint—charming little water-colours. You are going to do my miniature."
Poppy stood there, smiling at her through the spraying veils of her hair. Her glowing loveliness had the effect of making the other women in the verandah seem colourless. Even Mary Capron's classical beauty was dimmed.
Carson felt the old dream stir. He gave her a long, long look. As for Abinger, the expression of utter astonishment and bewilderment had passed from his face; he was smiling.
"Sothisis Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but not too softly for Carson to hear him.
"Whois she, do you say?" he asked in a low tone.
They had both risen from the floor.
"A Cheltenham College girl, with pretty ankles," was the enigmatic response.
Unaccountably, they both found themselves at Mrs. Portal's elbow. She introduced them with a gay inclusive little: "Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis"; then turned away to bid a guest good-bye.
Miss Chard met Abinger's insolent mocking glance fearlessly, with a prepared heart and, therefore, a prepared smile; then turned to Carson for the first time: looking into his eyes the smile drifted out of her face and suddenly she put up one of her hands and touched, with a curious mystical movement, a dark-green stone she wore at her throat as a brooch. To both men she gave the impression that she was crossing herself, or touching a talisman against something evil.
Abinger stared, grinning. Carson, extremely disconcerted, appeared to turn a deeper shade of brown, and his eyebrows came together in an unbecoming line over his brilliant, sad eyes. Abinger, well acquainted with the Irishman's temper, knew that the girl's action had got him on the raw. If she had been a man she would have been made answerable for a deadly insult. As it was, Carson struggled horribly with himself for a moment, then smiled and made a characteristic remark.
"You are veryun-Irish, Miss Chard, in spite of your face and your superstitions."
This, said with great grace and gentleness, meant that no real Irishwoman would have had the abominable taste to notice what Mrs. Gruyère had termed his "deformity."But the girl either could not, or would not, taste the salty flavour of his compliment. She made a curious answer.
"I do not profess to be Irish."
For some reason Carson took this for a fresh affront, and it was more than he could put up with. All his easily-lighted fires were ablaze now, and the reflection of them could be seen in his eyes. He gave her one fierce look, then turned away without a word. Abinger stood grinning. But the lilac eyes filled with tears, and the scarlet mouth went down at the corners like a child's.
"Oh, you mustn't mind Carson," said Abinger easily. "You see, he has unfortunately got a real Irish monkey for sale."
"An Irish monkey?"
"Yes. Have you never heard of the species? Carson's is quite famous. It used to be a source of revenue to the Transvaal and Rhodesia for years—they thought nothing of giving him fifty pounds for letting it out on the spree."
Her tears had slipped back unused to whence they came; she was now dry-eyed and rather haughty.
"How could I know?" she began stiffly.
Abinger apparently thought it not wholly out of place to deliver her a short lecture on the undesirability of hurting people's feelings, together with the information that Carson, though hot-tempered and rather mad, was one of the finest gentlemen in the world and happened to share the misfortune of his nationality with a few of the most charming people in South Africa, not excluding their pleasant hostess—Mrs. Portal.
By the time he had finished his remarks Miss Chard had regained her tranquillity.
"Thank you," said she sweetly. "I think it very nice and friendly of you to tell me all these things. I suppose you are an Irishman, too?"
Some emotion kept Abinger dumb for several seconds; then under her tranquil gaze he recovered himself.
"No, I am a cosmopolitan; incidentally of Scotch birth."
"Indeed!" Miss Chard looked politely interested. "You flatter yourself chiefly on the first, I suppose?"
"I did, until to-day."
"To-day?"
"Yes. A cosmopolitan's chief pride, you see, is in the fact that he can conceal his nationality, whilst able to detect instantly that of the person he is speaking to. Now I should never have guessed thatyouare—English."
Her colour remained unchanged: her eyes regarded him steadfastly.
"You took me for some new kind of barbarian, perhaps?"
He moved a hand deprecatingly: "Not at all; but if I had been asked for an expression of opinion, I should have said, 'A little Irish vagabond dragged up in Africa.'"
The girl's sweet laugh fell from her lips.
"What a ridiculous thing to say! You evidently have not heard that I have only been in Africa for a few weeks or so—myfirstvisit."
Then, as though the conversation had ceased to interest her, she turned away and began to talk to Portal—who introduced to her a man with a satanic expression on a woman's mouth as Dr. Ferrand. The doctor immediately began to talk to her about "home!"
She stemmed that tide.
"Why talk about 'home'?" she said impatiently. "It is far more interesting out here."
"Why?" cried Ferrand the poetical. "Why?Because the air of 'home' still hangs about you. By just looking at you I know that you have lately heard the jingle of hansom bells, and 'buses rumbling on asphalt, and voices crying, 'Only a penny a bunch!'; that you have been tastingthe fog and getting splashed with the mud and smelling the Thames...."
"Yes," said Miss Chard; "and I infinitely prefer the smell of mangoes."
Ferrand would have turned away from her, if he had been able to turn away from any woman.
Mrs. Portal, who had just joined them, agreed with her.
"How can anyone compare the two lives—flowers in your hands and the Indian Ocean blue at your feet, to London with smuts on your nose and nutmeg-graters in your chest?"
But still Ferrand looked at Miss Chard.
"'She is London, she is Torment, she is Town,'" he muttered.
"Don't believe it," said Mrs. Portal in her other ear. "He is his own torment: he has his own box of matches.—Good-bye, Mrs. Gruyère ... Good-bye, Mrs. Lace; so glad—Thursday, then, for polo, and you're going to call for me; good-bye, good-bye. (You're not going, Cora, you and your husband are staying to supper.)... Good-bye, Mrs. Leigh ... yes—don't forget.... Good-bye."
Everyone was going except the elect few who had been asked to stay to what was called "supper" on Sunday night, because no one wore evening-dress—but was really an extra-specially excellent dinner. They gathered at the end of the verandah, where Carson was swinging little Cinthie Portal in a hammock and talking to Mrs. Capron seated on the low stone balustrade above the steps.
She was a picture in pale-blue muslin, with deep-red roses on her hat. The colour of her hair gave the impression that she was gilt-edged and extremely valuable. Certainly she was the best-dressed Roman in Natal, perhaps even in Africa; but at the moment she waswondering how she could possibly get the address of Miss Chard's dressmaker without asking for it.
"Of course, you are staying, Mary," said Mrs. Portal, sitting down by her and putting an arm around her waist. "And you, too, Karri?"
But Carson had a grievance. He was suffering such bitterness of spirit as only Irishmen with their half-mystical, half-barbaric, half-womanish natures can suffer about nothing at all. The sun had gone out of his sky, bitterness was in his mouth, and a snake ate his heart because a girl, whom he did not know or care about, repudiated Ireland, and touched a stone against the evil of his strange, Irish eyes. And he was conscious of the girl standing at the other end of the hammock now; he could feel the new movement in the hammock since her hand rested on it, and she, too, swayed it gently; and he knew that she was looking at him with dewy and wonderful eyes. Nevertheless, he excused himself to Mrs. Portal.—Thanks—he was sorry, but he must go and look after Bramham—he had promised—etc.
They all expostulated. And Rosalind Chard's eyes, through the veils of her hair, besought him to look her way. With all her heart she willed him to look her way. But after he had finished excusing himself to Clem Portal, he looked Mrs. Capron's way instead.
Portal said that for two brass pins he would go himself and fetch Bramham. De Grey said that Bramham would probably be found dining peaceably at the Club, with no thought of Carson. Abinger declared that he had, in fact, heard Bramham arrange to go and dine with a man from the Rand. Mrs. de Grey remarked that it was a shame that poor Mr. Bramham, even now that his wife was dead, could not go anywhere for fear of meeting Mrs. Gruyère, who always came and stood near him and began telling someone in a loud voice about hispoor devoted wife living and dying like a saint at home.
"Just as though it wouldn't have been far more saintlike to have come out here and minded her sinner, if heisone, which I don't believe," said Mrs. Capron.
"De mortuis!" broke in Clem, gently; and de Grey said, laughing:
"This country is full of sinners who keep their saints at home—and I want to say that some of the saints have a jolly good time. We saw two of them giving a dinner-party at the "Café Royal" last time we were home; and for saints, they did themselves remarkably well—didn't they, Cora? And looked remarkably well too."
"Yes: it's a becoming rôle—dressed byPaquin," said Cora de Grey drily.Shenever looked well, and had never had anything better than an Oxford Street gown on her back: but her tongue was as dry as the Karoo, and that helped her through a troublesome world.
Abinger began to stammer softly, and everybody listened.
"B-Bramham will be able to come forth at l-last. Mrs. Gru' has a new nut to crack."
He smiled sardonically and felt in all his pockets as though about to produce the nut—but everyone knew that this was merely a mannerism of his. Mrs. Portal looked at him apprehensively, however, and for one moment Poppy left off willing Eve Carson.
"And it will t-take her all her time to do it," he finished gently—even dreamily.
"You frighten me!" said Clem. "Whatcanyou mean?"
Poppy had the most need to be frightened, but she returned to her occupation. It was now Mary Capron's turn to intervene. Perhaps some of the "willing" had gone astray, for she had certainly given Poppy all her attention for the last five minutes.
"Miss Chard," she cried suddenly. "I keep wondering and wondering where I have seen you before.I knowwe have met."