Part 33

Mr. Hoopdriver’s face became quite a bright red. He began pulling his moustache nervously. “I know,” he said. “I know. It’s a queer habit, I know. But out there, you know, there’s native servants, you know, and—it’s a queer thing to talk about—but one has to look at things to see, don’t y’know, whether they’re quite clean or not. It’s got to be a habit.”

“How odd!” said Jessie.

“Isn’t it?” mumbled Hoopdriver.

“If I were a Sherlock Holmes,” said Jessie, “I suppose I could have told you were a colonial from little things like that. But anyhow, I guessed it, didn’t I?”

“Yes,” said Hoopdriver, in a melancholy tone, “you guessed it.”

Why not seize the opportunity for a neat confession, and add, “unhappily in this case you guessed wrong.” Did she suspect? Then, at the psychological moment, the girl bumped the door open with her tray and brought in the coffee and scrambled eggs.

“I am rather lucky with my intuitions, sometimes,” said Jessie.

Remorse that had been accumulating in his mind for two days surged to the top of his mind. What a shabby liar he was!

And, besides, he must sooner or later, inevitably, give himself away.

XXXV.

Mr. Hoopdriver helped the eggs and then, instead of beginning, sat with his cheek on his hand, watching Jessie pour out the coffee. His ears were a bright red, and his eyes bright. He took his coffee cup clumsily, cleared his throat, suddenly leant back in his chair, and thrust his hands deep into his pockets. “I’ll do it,” he said aloud.

“Do what?” said Jessie, looking up in surprise over the coffee pot. She was just beginning her scrambled egg.

“Own up.”

“Own what?”

“Miss Milton—I’m a liar.” He put his head on one side and regarded her with a frown of tremendous resolution. Then in measured accents, and moving his head slowly from side to side, he announced, “Ay’m a deraper.”

“You’re a draper? I thought—”

“You thought wrong. But it’s bound to come up. Pins, attitude, habits—It’s plain enough.

“I’m a draper’s assistant let out for a ten-days holiday. Jest a draper’s assistant. Not much, is it? A counter-jumper.”

“A draper’s assistant isn’t a position to be ashamed of,” she said, recovering, and not quite understanding yet what this all meant.

“Yes, it is,” he said, “for a man, in this country now. To be just another man’s hand, as I am. To have to wear what clothes you are told, and go to church to please customers, and work—There’s no other kind of men stand such hours. A drunken bricklayer’s a king to it.”

“But why are you telling me this now?”

“It’s important you should know at once.”

“But, Mr. Benson—”

“That isn’t all. If you don’t mind my speaking about myself a bit, there’s a few things I’d like to tell you. I can’t go on deceiving you. My name’s not Benson. Why I told you Benson, I don’t know. Except that I’m a kind of fool. Well—I wanted somehow to seem more than I was. My name’s Hoopdriver.”

“Yes?”

“And that about South Africa—and that lion.”

“Well?”

“Lies.”