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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poppy
+       The Story of a South African Girl
+
+Author: Cynthia Stockley
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2011 [EBook #36138]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPPY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: "IN HIS LOOMING ABOUT THE ROOM HE HAD STOPPED DEAD
+  BEFORE WATTS'S PICTURE 'HOPE' OVER THE MANTELPIECE"
+
+  From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A.
+
+  (_See p. 336_)]
+
+
+
+
+  POPPY
+
+
+  THE STORY OF A
+  SOUTH AFRICAN GIRL
+
+  BY
+
+  CYNTHIA STOCKLEY
+
+
+  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+  NEW YORK AND LONDON
+  The Knickerbocker Press
+  1910
+
+
+  Published, March, 1910
+  Reprinted, March, 1910; May, 1910
+  July, 1910 (twice); August, 1910
+  September, 1910; October, 1910
+
+
+  The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+  To
+  Em
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+  "... and some do say of poppies that they be the tears of the moon
+  shed in a land beyond the seas: and that they do bring forgetfulness
+  and freedom from pain."
+
+                                     (_From an old Irish Legend_.)
+
+
+
+
+POPPY
+
+
+Nothing more unlike a gladsome poppy of the field was ever seen than
+Poppy Destin, aged nine, washing a pile of dirty plates at the kitchen
+table.
+
+Pale as a witch, the only red about her was where she dug her teeth into
+her lips. Her light lilac-coloured eyes were fierce with anger and
+disgust. Her hair hung in long black streaks over her shoulders, and her
+dark hands, thin and bony as bird's claws, were each decorated with a
+bracelet of greeny-yellowy grease.
+
+There had been curry for dinner. Horrible yellow rings floated on the
+top of the water in the _skottel_ and Poppy hated to put her hands into
+it.
+
+She was hating her work more than usual that day because she was hungry
+as well as angry. She had slapped her little cousin Georgie for throwing
+a heavy hammer at her which had cut a gash in her leg; and her
+punishment for this crime had been two stinging boxes on the ear and
+sentence to go without food all day. Fortunately the incident had
+occurred after breakfast.
+
+Once or twice she looked longingly at the scraps on the plates, but she
+did not touch them, because her aunt had eaten from one and she was not
+sure which, and she knew that to eat from anything her aunt had touched
+would choke her.
+
+So she threw the scraps to Nick the black cat, under the kitchen table,
+and went on hating her aunt, and washing up the plates. She would have
+liked to smash each plate on the floor as she took it out of the water,
+and to have thrown all the greasy water over the freshly-scrubbed white
+shelves and dresser. And she would have done it too, only that she did
+not like boxes on the ear.
+
+Presently she tried to fill her bitter little heart and her empty little
+stomach by going on with the story inside her head. She always had a
+story going on inside her head, and it was always about just two
+people--a beautiful lady and a man with a face like Lancelot. She used
+to begin at the end to make sure they should be quite happy, and when
+she had married them and they were living happily "ever after," she
+would go back to the beginning--how they met and all the sad things they
+had to go through before they could be married. Afterwards she would
+make a little song about them.
+
+That day she had a heroine with red gold hair for the first time,
+because she had seen such a beautiful red-gold-haired lady in the street
+the day before, dressed in brown holland with a brown hat trimmed with
+pale green leaves. Poppy dressed her heroine in the same fashion,
+instead of the usual white velvet with a long train and a wreath of
+white roses resting on her hair. Just as Lancelot was telling the
+heroine that her eyes were as beautiful as brown wine, a harsh voice
+called out from the dining-room:
+
+"Porpie! Haven't you done that washing-up yet? Make haste there! You
+know you got to smear the kitchen before you clean yourself and take the
+children up to the Kopje."
+
+Poppy gritted her teeth and furious tears came into her eyes; her aunt's
+voice always seemed to scrape something inside her head and make it
+ache; also, she detested taking the children up to the Kopje. It was
+such a long way to carry Bobby--all up Fountain Street in the broiling
+sun--and she _had_ to carry him, because if she put him into the pram
+with his twin, Tommy, they kicked each other and screamed, and when the
+children screamed, Aunt Lena always got to hear of it and boxed Poppy's
+ears for ill-treating them.
+
+Listlessly she dried the plates and stuck them up in lines on the
+dresser, soaked the _fadook_ and washed all round the edges of the bowl,
+making the water swirl round and round so that the grease would not
+settle again, then, while the water moved swiftly, carried the basin to
+the back door and emptied it with a great "swash" into the yard. The
+fowls flew shrieking in every direction and the water ran down in little
+rivers to where old Sara was doing some washing under the shade of the
+biggest acacia tree. When the little stream reached her bare black feet
+she clicked her teeth, crying, "Aah," and moved round to the other side
+of the stones on which she banged the clothes to make them white.
+
+Poppy dried her basin out with the _fadook_, wiped the table dry, and
+put the bowl upside down upon it. Then she went into the yard again and
+approached an old pail which stood in the forage-house. It was full of
+an atrocious mess, slimy and thick, giving out a pungent odour that made
+her nose wrinkle in disgust. Nevertheless she took it up and carried it
+down to old Sara to get some soapy water. The old Basuto in her red
+_kop-dook_, rolled the whites of her eyes sympathetically and muttered
+in her native tongue as she watched Poppy stir the green slime with a
+stick. She was sorry for the child. She knew it was Kaffir's work to
+smear floors. Black hands are hard, and the little thorns and stones to
+be found in the wet cow-dung do not hurt them; neither does the pungent
+smell disgust black noses.
+
+"But the _old missis_ had strange ways! Clk! It seemed she liked the
+_klein-missis_ to do Kaffir's work!" Old Sara shrugged her fat, wobbly
+shoulders, and flopped over her wash-tub once more.
+
+Poppy went back to the kitchen. She had swept it just before dinner, now
+she sprinkled it heavily with water, then kneeling down on a folded sack
+beside the bucket, she rolled up her sleeves, closed her eyes, and
+plunged her hands into the sickening mess. Quickly she withdrew them,
+flinging two handfuls on to the floor and began to smear it with the
+flat of her right hand.
+
+Kitchens and verandahs (or stoeps) in old-fashioned South African houses
+always have what are called "mud floors," which means that they are just
+mother-earth with all the stones picked out and the surface kept smooth
+and level by constant smearing in or pasting on of wet cow-dung once or
+twice a week. Smearing is a disgusting business, but joy comes after.
+When freshly dry the floor looks cool and green and fresh, and no longer
+does the _mis_ smell vilely; rather, there is a soft odour of grasses
+and flowers, as though some stray veldt wind had blown through the room.
+
+But Poppy had no time to enjoy the result of her labour. After she had
+spread sacks upon the floor to prevent feet from marking her work until
+it was dry, she stopped for a moment to dig out a thorn from her thumb
+with a needle, but immediately her aunt's menacing voice could be heard
+from the front stoep, where now she sat drinking her after-dinner cup of
+coffee with her husband, admonishing the slowness of Poppy's
+proceedings, and demanding that she should "makaste."
+
+Poppy ran into the bedroom which she shared with her two elder cousins,
+and cleaned herself of all traces of her recent occupation. Later she
+appeared on the front stoep, in a print pinafore over her grey linsey
+dress, and an old straw hat much bitten at the edges shading her pale
+fierce little face.
+
+"My word, that child looks more like an Irish Fenian every day!" was her
+aunt's agreeable greeting.
+
+Weak, good-looking "Uncle Bob," who was really no more than a second
+cousin of Poppy's, laughed in a deprecating kind of way. He was cutting
+a twist of tobacco from a great roll that hung drying from the stoep
+roof.
+
+"Och, you're always going on at the girl, Lena!"
+
+"And good cause I have," retorted Mrs. Kennedy. "Stand still, Ina, while
+I tie your cappie."
+
+Poppy said nothing, but if having black murder in your heart makes you a
+Fenian, she knew that she was one.
+
+Silently she assisted her aunt to put their pinafores upon the
+struggling twins, and to array Ina in her cape and bib--all starched to
+stand about them like boards, to their everlasting misery and
+discomfort. Mrs. Kennedy gloated upon the fact that all the neighbours
+said, "How beautifully kept Mrs. Kennedy's children are!"
+
+At last Tommy was in the pram; Bobby pranced astride on Poppy's small
+bony hip, and Ina, who was just four, clung toddling to her skirt. Thus
+Poppy set forth, pushing the pram before her.
+
+"And mind you bring them in before sun-down, and don't let them sit on
+the damp grass--" was Mrs. Kennedy's last word shouted up the street
+after the procession.
+
+A little lane lined with syringa trees led from the house and was shady
+and sweet to loiter in, but Fountain Street glared and blazed under the
+afternoon sun. Poppy was pale and sadly-coloured as some strange
+cellar-plant when at last she brought her charges to a halt by the
+Kopje. She put Bobby down from her hip with a bump, tilted the pram and
+let Tommy scramble out the best way he could, then sat down on a rock
+and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Bobby was a heavy-weight, and though she changed him from one hip to
+another all the way up the street, she never got to the Kopje without a
+pain in her stomach and a feeling of deathly sickness.
+
+Nearly all the children of the town came to the Kopje in the afternoons.
+It was only a slight hill, but it had bushes and clumps of mimosa trees,
+and little quarried-out holes and masses of rocks, and other fascinating
+features dear to children. The Kaffir-girl nurses squatted under the
+trees jabbering amongst themselves, and the children congregated in
+small herds. Poppy was the only white-girl nurse to be seen. She had a
+little circle of trees and stones where she always took her brood, and
+if she found anyone else in possession, she threw stones at them until
+they retreated.
+
+When she had spread a rug for them to sit on, the children were left to
+amuse themselves in whatsoever fashion seemed good unto them. Poppy sat
+dreaming to herself, wrapped in the veils of poetry and romance. Near
+the Kopje was St. Michael's, a high school for girls kept by an English
+sisterhood, and when Poppy and her brood reached their haunt before
+three o'clock, she would see all the girls coming out of the gates,
+passing by in their nice dresses and hats with bags of books in their
+hands. They would stare at Poppy, and sometimes laugh; then the pain in
+her stomach would come into her throat and almost choke her. No one ever
+spoke to her. They knew quite well who she was, but she did Kaffir's
+work, and her clothes were old and ugly, and she was altogether a person
+to be despised and laughed at.
+
+But sometimes a little ray of human friendliness would break through the
+hedge of snobbery. On this summer day a girl called Edie Wyllie, who
+used to sit next to her in Sunday-school, called out in quite a jolly
+way as she passed:
+
+"Hullo, Poppy Destin!"
+
+But her sister pulled at her arm at once and rebuked her.
+
+"Edie! You know mother doesn't let us speak to Poppy Destin."
+
+"Pooh!" called out Poppy with the utmost scorn and derision. "Who wants
+to speak to you? I hate you."
+
+She made fearful faces at them; but when they had all gone past, she
+rocked on her stone and wept.
+
+"I hate them! I hate them!" she sobbed. "And I hate God! God is a
+beast."
+
+Ina stood by and listened, with her pinafore in her mouth.
+
+"I'll tell mother that, what you say," she remarked gravely.
+
+"'Tell-tale-tit, your tongue shall be slit.' Go away from me, else I'll
+beat you," shouted Poppy, and Ina ran for her life and hid behind some
+rocks. Poppy continued her weeping, dry-eyed now, but sobbing
+spasmodically.
+
+Suddenly a voice behind her!
+
+"What's the matter little girl?"
+
+Turning round she saw that the beauteous lady in the holland dress was
+sitting on a stone opposite her, smiling kindly. Her hair was like
+sovereigns shining in the sunlight, Poppy thought.
+
+"Do tell me what is the matter!"
+
+"Nothing's the matter," said Poppy defiantly.
+
+The lady laughed long and merrily as though she found something
+refreshing in the child's sulky misery.
+
+"Well, but how silly of you to cry and make your eyes red for nothing!
+You've got such pretty eyes, too!"
+
+Poppy stared at her, gasping.
+
+"Oh! If I only thought I had pretty eyes--" she said breathlessly.
+
+"Well, you have indeed. And they are most uncommon too--just the colour
+of lilac, and 'put in with a smutty finger' like an Irish girl's. Are
+you Irish?"
+
+Poppy was about to inform her that she was a Fenian, but she thought
+better of it.
+
+"I was born here in Bloemfontein," she answered.
+
+"Well, perhaps your mother came from Ireland, for you have _quite_ an
+Irish face: only you're so thin, and you look so cross--are you?"
+
+"Yes. I am always cross. I hate everybody."
+
+"Good heavens! What a little savage! but you shouldn't. It makes one so
+ugly to hate."
+
+"Does it?" Eagerly. "Do you think if I was never cross I'd get
+beautiful?"
+
+"You are much more likely to," said the other encouragingly, thinking in
+the meantime that nothing could ever make harmonious and beautiful that
+small tormented face.
+
+"Is that why you are so beautiful?" was the next question.
+
+The beauty smiled: a little complacently perhaps.
+
+"I expect so. I am never cross and never unhappy, and I never mean to
+let anyone make me so." She opened her brown holland sunshade lined with
+sea-green silk and got up to go.
+
+"Now be sure and remember that," she said pleasantly. "Never cry, never
+be unhappy, never hate anyone, and never be cross and--you'll see how
+beautiful you'll become."
+
+"Oh, I will, I will," cried Poppy ardently.
+
+"Now I must go," said the beautiful one. "I want to take one last walk
+round your pretty Bloemfontein, because I am going back to Cape Town
+to-morrow."
+
+"Have you any little girls in Cape Town?" asked Poppy, wishing to detain
+her a little longer. She laughed at that.
+
+"You funny child! Why I'm not even married. But I'm going to be, and to
+the most fascinating man in Africa."
+
+"Is his name Lancelot?"
+
+"No. His name is Nick Capron. How old are you, child?"
+
+"Nine."
+
+"Only nine! You look about thirteen, you poor little thing. Well,
+good-bye, I must really go."
+
+"Good-bye; and thank you so much for speaking to me," Poppy stammered.
+She felt that she could adore the beautiful study in brown holland, who
+only laughed at her again and went on her way.
+
+But Poppy, sitting on her rock had a gleam of hope and happiness; for at
+last she knew the secret of being beautiful; _and_--it had been told
+her--her eyes were pretty.
+
+She sat thinking for a long time and making resolutions. She even
+determined to strive to hate Aunt Lena less. Minor resolutions were--not
+to be unkind to the children when they made her angry and told tales on
+her; not to quarrel with her two elder cousins, Clara and Emily; not to
+scratch them and beat them with her fists when they called her
+_Foelstruis_,[1] because her legs were so long and thin; not to fly into
+awful rages in which she could not speak, only shake all over and bite
+her hands and lips till the blood came; not to sit and think of Aunt
+Lena's ways until a red curtain came down before her eyes and her heart
+felt like a red-hot coal burning her to death.
+
+  [1] Ostrich.
+
+These were a few of the terrible obstacles in the path to beauty which
+she set herself to overcome. There were other arts, too, she would
+practise to the same end. She would brush her hair until it sprang into
+waves, even as the hair of the beautiful one in brown. She would cut her
+eyelashes, as Clara did, to make them thick and long. She would run and
+jump, even when she was tired, to make her body strong and her cheeks
+pink. She would walk upright, even when she had the pain in her stomach,
+so that she might grow tall and graceful. Furthermore, she would find
+out from old Sara where that wonderful milky cactus grew, which the
+young Basuto girls gathered and rubbed upon their breasts in the
+moonlight to make them grow round and firm as young apples.
+
+Last, but most important of all, she evolved from her dreamings and
+devisings a promise to herself that she would never, _never_ do mean
+things, for meanness she surely knew to be the friend of hideousness.
+Meanness showed in the face. Could not anyone see it in Aunt Lena's
+face? The traces of mean thoughts and deeds showed in the narrow space
+between her eyebrows, in the specks in her pale eyes, were brushed into
+her sleek, putty-coloured hair and crinkled her coarse thick hands. If
+you only looked at the freckles and loose skin all round her wrists, her
+fat fingers and the way her ears stuck out, you must see how cruel and
+hateful she could be, thought Poppy. Whereupon, forgetting the greatest
+of her resolutions in a moment, she fell to hating her Aunt Lena again
+with a particular malignancy. But presently she noticed that the trees
+were casting long giant shadows towards the town, pansy-coloured clouds
+were in the sky, and a certain dewiness had come into the air. Hastily
+collecting the children she departed with them. In the same order as
+they came, they returned home down the long white street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was hard in the house of Aunt Lena Kennedy to attain beauty
+through virtue.
+
+On Saturdays Poppy even forgot that she had ever made resolutions to
+that end. Upon that day of days, Mrs. Kennedy subjected her house and
+all that therein was to a scrubbing in which there was no niggardliness
+of what she termed "elbow grease." Poppy was not exempt; her turn came
+at ten o'clock at night; and that was the hour of shame and rage for
+Poppy. When all the rest of the children were comfortably in bed,
+sucking their weekly supply of _lekkers_, Mrs. Kennedy would roll up her
+sleeves and approach in a workmanlike manner the big pan-bath in the
+middle of the kitchen, wherein stood Poppy, lank, thin-limbed, and
+trembling--but not with cold--under the scrutiny of the speckled eyes
+she hated so well.
+
+"Ah! you bad-tempered little cat!" was the usual preliminary; "why can't
+you be grateful to me for taking the trouble to keep you clean? It isn't
+every aunt by marriage who would do it, I can tell you. I suppose you'd
+like to go about with the dirt ingrained in you! What are you shivering
+and cringing like that for? Are you ashamed of your own body?"
+
+"It is horrible to be naked, aunt," she would retort, striving to keep
+tears from bursting forth and full of apprehension that someone might
+come into the wide-open kitchen doors.
+
+"Horrible! what's horrible about it, I'd like to know, except in your
+own nasty little mind? A body like a _spring-kaan_,[2] that's what
+you've got ... and don't want me to see it, I suppose! Dirty pride! the
+ugliest child _I've_ ever seen ... the longest legs ... and the
+skinniest arms ... look what nice fat arms Clara and Emily's got! ...
+one would think you never got enough to eat ... pass me that other arm."
+
+  [2] Grasshopper.
+
+With a rough flannel and blue mottled soap she scoured Poppy's body and
+face as if it had been the face of a rock; scrubbing and rubbing until
+the skin crackled like a fire beneath her vigorous hand. Later came a
+scraping down with a bath towel made of something of the same fibre as a
+door-mat. At last Poppy crept to her bed, her eyes like pin-points in
+her head from the scalding of the strong soap; her hair strained back
+from her sore, glazed face and plaited as tightly as possible into two
+pig-tails behind her ears.
+
+On such nights she was far enough from the beauty she so much coveted.
+To herself she appeared hideous--_hideous_. It gave her pain to look at
+herself in the glass. And she believed that her aunt made her hideous
+with malignant intent. Her cousins had their hair loosely plaited, and
+it hung nicely over their faces, and they had frills to their
+nightgowns. Poppy's nightgown of unbleached calico had a tight narrow
+neck-band that nearly strangled her when buttoned with a linen button
+the size of a small saucer.
+
+Those were the nights when a thousand devils ate at her heart and fought
+within her, and she knew she could never be beautiful. She would lie
+awake for hours, just to loathe her aunt and concoct tortures for her.
+In imagination she cut slits in that hated body and filled them with
+salt and mustard, or anything that would burn; dug sharp knives into the
+cruel heart; saw the narrow hard face lying on the floor and beat into
+it with a hammer until it was red, red, red--and everything was red.
+
+"Scorpion! Scorpion!" she would rave.
+
+Worn out at last and half asleep she would choke and groan and bite her
+pillow, thinking she had her enemy under her hands, until her cousins in
+their big bed across the room would call out:
+
+"Ma! I wish you would come and speak to Miss Poppy here. She's calling
+you a 'scorpion'!"
+
+The chances were that Mrs. Kennedy, in no pleasant temper after all her
+exertions, would fly into the room, tear down the bedclothes, and
+administer two or three stinging slaps on Poppy's bare body, crying out
+upon her for an ungrateful, vile-tempered little fagot.
+
+"You want a _sjambok_ round you, that's what you want, my lady, and
+you'll get it one of these days. I shan't go on with you in this patient
+way for ever."
+
+"I won't have a _sjambok_ used on a child in my house," Uncle Bob would
+mutter in the dining-room, asserting himself in this one matter at
+least.
+
+But Clara and Emily would jeer from their beds, calling her _Miss_ Poppy
+in fine derision.
+
+"_Now_ you've got it! How did you like that, hey? _Lekker_, hey?"
+
+Some time after midnight Poppy would weep herself to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once Poppy used to go to St. Gabriel's Infant School, where she had
+learned to read and write; but when the twins arrived in the world, Aunt
+Lena could no longer spare her from home, and her education languished
+for three years. But at last there came a letter from her god-mother in
+Port Elizabeth saying that she had sent five pounds to St. Michael's
+Home, asking the Sisters to give Poppy as much education as possible for
+that sum.
+
+Poppy was wild with delight. It had been beyond her wildest dreams to go
+to St. Michael's and learn all sorts of wonderful things with all the
+_grand_ children of Bloemfontein. She could not believe that such joy
+was to be hers. Mrs. Kennedy made great objections to the scheme, and
+seemed likely to get her way until her husband took the trouble to
+insist. So Poppy went off one morning full of hope and high ambition, in
+a clean, very stiffly starched overall of faded galatea, her old straw
+hat freshly decorated with a yellow pugaree that hung in long tails down
+her back.
+
+But school was only the beginning of a fresh era of misery. The girls
+stared at her old boots and sneered at her pugaree, and no one would be
+friends with her because she wore white cotton stockings, which were
+only sixpence a pair, and sold to Kaffir girls to wear on Sundays.
+
+Poppy gave back sneer for sneer and taunt for taunt with great
+versatility; but her heart was sometimes near bursting under the galatea
+overall. It seemed to her that even the teachers despised her because of
+her shabbiness and ugliness, and that when she worked hard at her
+lessons she got less praise than the pretty girls. "Yes! it's because
+I'm ugly, and everything I wear is ugly," she whispered to herself as
+she walked home alone every day, hurrying because she knew the children
+would be dressed and ready, waiting to be taken to the Kopje as soon as
+she had bolted her cold dinner. Clara's and Emily's dinner was always
+kept hot. They went to the Dames' Institute, another school of some
+importance where all the nice high Dutch Boers sent their children: and
+they got home at two o'clock. Mrs. Kennedy said she would keep no dinner
+hot later than that hour, so that Poppy, arriving at three, found her
+stewed mutton cold in a dish of fatty gravy, and sometimes a bit of cold
+suet pudding. She would always have "filled up" contentedly enough with
+bread, but Mrs. Kennedy grumbled when too much bread was eaten, as she
+only baked once a week.
+
+Sometimes, when Poppy had been very unhappy at school, she used to stop
+at the Kopje instead of hurrying home, so that she could cry without
+being spied on by Ina or the twins. She would lie down among the rocks
+and the kind green leaves, and moan and cry out against God and
+everybody in the world. Her little songs and stories seemed to have died
+in her heart and been buried. She would call out to God that He _might_
+have let her have _something_--a kind mother, or golden hair, or brains,
+or a white skin, or a happy home, or _something_; it wouldn't have hurt
+_Him_, and it would have made all the difference to her. Later she
+passed from argument to anger and from anger to frenzy; shouting at the
+sky because she was ugly and poor and horrible within as well as
+without, so that no one loved her and she hated everyone.
+
+At last, tired out, hopeless, sick with bitter crying, she would lay her
+head against an old mimosa tree that had a curve in its trunk like the
+curve of a mother's arm, and the soft odour of the fluffy round yellow
+blossoms would steal over her. Later, a land of peace and strength
+seemed to come out of the tree to her, and she would have courage to get
+up and go on her way.
+
+One of the teachers, Miss Briggs, was always scolding her about her
+hands. She would draw the attention of the whole class to them, covering
+Poppy with shame. They were not big hands like Clara's and Emily's but
+they were rough and coarse with housework and through being continually
+in the water washing stockings and handkerchiefs and plates; and in the
+winter they got horribly chapped, with blood marks all over them, so
+that the teachers couldn't bear to see them and the girls used to say
+"Sis!" when she reached for anything. Her nails, too, were often untidy,
+and her hair. She never had time in the mornings to give it more than
+just one brush and tie it back in her neck, and she used to have to
+clean her nails with a pin or a mimosa thorn while she was hurrying to
+school, learning her lessons on the way. It was the only time she had to
+learn them, except in the afternoons when she took the children out. If
+they were good and would stay happy, she could get out her books from
+under the pram seat and learn; but almost immediately Ina would want to
+be played with, or Georgie would fall down and hurt himself and whimper
+in her arms for half an hour. The fact was that the children had been
+brought up to believe that Poppy was in the world entirely for their
+comfort and convenience, and they could not bear to see her doing
+anything that was not for them.
+
+"I'll tell ma," was their parrot cry: and that meant boxes on the ear.
+
+"I up with my hand" was a favourite phrase of Aunt Lena's.
+
+In the evenings Ina must always be sung to sleep, and sometimes would
+not go off for more than an hour. Then Mrs. Kennedy would say briskly:
+
+"Now get your lessons done, Porpie!"
+
+But by then Poppy's head would be aching and her eyes would hardly keep
+open, and what she did learn would not stay in her head until the next
+morning.
+
+And after all, none of the teachers seemed to care much whether she
+learned them or not. If by accident she did them well, she got no
+praise; if she did them ill she was scolded and the lesson was
+"returned"--that meant being kept in on Friday afternoons until the
+lesson had been learnt or rewritten. But when Friday afternoon came,
+Poppy could not stay; there were the children to be taken out, and her
+ears would be boxed if she were too late to do that; she would get no
+tea, and the whole house would be thoroughly upset. So the "returned"
+lessons had to go to the wall. She would slink home when supposed to be
+taking recreation in the play-ground before the "returned" bell rang.
+That meant bad conduct marks, unpopularity with the teachers, and as the
+deserted Fridays mounted up--all hope lost of gaining a prize. After a
+while the teachers said she was incorrigible, and gave her no more
+attention.
+
+"I wonder you bother to come to school at all, Poppy," was the favourite
+gibe of Miss Briggs.
+
+When examination days came she did badly, except in history and
+geography, which she liked and found easy.
+
+Break-up day was the worst of all.
+
+The girls all came in their pretty soft white frocks and looked sweet.
+Only Poppy was ugly, in a piqué frock, starched like a board, her hair
+frizzed out in a bush, her pale face looking yellow and sullen against
+the over-blued white dress; her long legs and her narrow feet longer and
+narrower than ever in white stockings and elastic-sided boots.
+
+There was never any prize for her.
+
+She knew there never would be. She used to keep saying inside herself:
+
+"_Of course_ there isn't a prize for you"; and yet she was so silly,
+her ears were cracking and straining all the time to hear her name read
+out of the list. And her heart used to feel like a stone when the list
+came to an end without her name being called; and her pale face would be
+strangely red and burning like fire. Sometimes a little extra piece
+would be read, that Poppy Destin's historical essay or geography paper
+was the best, but the prize had been passed on to the second best on
+account of this girl's disobedience, untidiness, and the number of
+undone returned lessons against her name. Then everybody would look at
+Poppy Destin, and her heart would stop so still that she believed she
+must fall down dead in one minute.
+
+But the entertainment would go on. The girls fetched their prizes from
+the table covered with lovely books, and curtseyed to Lady Brand, who
+spoke and smiled to each one of them. Afterwards would come the
+recitations and songs that everyone joined in but Poppy. She had been
+turned out of the singing-class because she sang off the key. Also,
+Sister Anna said, she moaned instead of singing; though Poppy was aware
+that she had lovely tunes going on inside her head all the time. It must
+have been true about the moaning, for Ina used to say when Poppy sang to
+her at nights:
+
+"Your songs always sound just's if you are crying all the time, Poppy."
+
+She loved music, but was not allowed to learn it. Clara learned and
+Emily could have if she had liked, but Aunt Lena said she couldn't
+afford those "frills" for Poppy. Once a lady named Mrs. Dale offered to
+teach the child if she could be spared two afternoons a week, and Poppy
+begged her uncle to let her go. He shook his head.
+
+"You must ask your aunt if she can spare you, Poppy."
+
+"Spare her!" shrieked Mrs. Kennedy. "Isn't she away all day now? What
+help do I get from her, I'd like to know? and now she wants to go
+gadding off in the afternoons, the only time she can be of a little use
+to take the children off my hands. Music indeed! Gadding with Nellie
+Dale is more like it."
+
+"Only twice a week, uncle," pleaded Poppy.
+
+"My girl, you must do what your aunt thinks best. Can't you spare her
+two afternoons a week, Lena?"
+
+"Oh, let her go ... fine musician she'll make, _I'm_ sure," said that
+lady. And for two weeks Poppy went. Then Mrs. Kennedy, storming and
+raving, refused to let her go again. She missed her slave; so Poppy went
+back to the old life of weariness; but she had something new to think
+over. Mrs. Dale had known her mother quite well, and remembered Poppy as
+a baby.
+
+"You were a sweet little thing," she said. "So beautifully kept, and the
+apple of your mother's eye."
+
+This was most wonderful and shining news. Any illusions Poppy might have
+had about her mother had long since been scattered by such remarks from
+her aunt as:
+
+"Your mother ought to be alive. She'd have skinned you for your
+dirtiness--your deceit, your laziness" (whatever the crime might be).
+
+Or:
+
+"It's a good thing your mother's lying cold in her grave, my girl--she
+would have had murder on her soul if she had had _you_ to deal with."
+
+Now, to hear that her mother had been a gentle and kind woman, not
+beautiful, but with wonderful Irish eyes and "a laugh like a bird's
+song!"
+
+"Clever, too," said Mrs. Dale. "Though she was only a poor Irish girl
+and came out here with the emigrants, she had a lot of learning, and had
+read more books than anyone in Bloemfontein. I think the priests must
+have educated her."
+
+"But why has no one ever told me before?" asked Poppy in amazement. "No
+one speaks of her, or of my father, to me! Why?"
+
+Mrs. Dale shook her gentle head.
+
+"Ah well, my dear, she's at rest now and your wild Irish father too. Her
+heart broke when he broke his neck somewhere down on the diamond
+diggings, and she didn't want to live any longer, even for you--her
+Poppy-flower she always called you. One day, when I went to see her, she
+said to me, looking at you with those eyes of hers that were like dewy
+flowers: 'Perhaps my little Poppy-flower will get some joy out of life,
+Mrs. Dale. It can't be for nothing that Joe and I have loved each other
+so much. It must bring some gift to the child.' And she told me that the
+reason she had called you Poppy was that in Ireland they have a saying
+that poppies bring forgetfulness and freedom from pain; but then she
+took to weeping, that weeping that is like lost melodies, and that only
+the Irishry know.
+
+"'But I see,' she wailed, 'that she's marked out for sorrow--I see it--I
+see it.' And three nights after that she died."
+
+This was Mrs. Dale's story. Poppy treasured it in her heart with the
+verbal picture of her mother, "eyes like a dewy morning, black, black
+hair, and a beautiful swaying walk."
+
+"It must have been like hearing one of those old Irish melodies played
+on a harp, to see her walk along the street," was the thought Poppy
+evolved from Mrs. Dale's description.
+
+After that she never found life quite unlovely again. But she longed to
+hear more, and whenever she could, even at the risk of curses and blows,
+she would steal to kind Mrs. Dale for another word. How ardently she
+wished her mother had lived. How unutterably beautiful to be called
+Poppy-flower! instead of _Porpie_! Her mother would have understood,
+too, the love and craving for books which had seized her since she had
+more learning. She would not have been obliged to creep into the fowls'
+_hok_ or the forage-house when she wanted to read some book she had
+borrowed or found lying about the house, or the old Tennyson which she
+had rescued from the ash-heap one day and kept hidden under the
+chaff-bags in the forage-house.
+
+"There's that Porpie with a book again!" was her aunt's outraged cry.
+"Lazy young huzzy! For ever squatting with her nose poked into a book
+reading some wickedness or foolishness I'll be bound.... Anything rather
+than be helpful ... no wonder your face is yellow and green, miss ...
+sitting with your back crooked up instead of running about or doing some
+housework ... more to your credit if you got a duster and polished the
+dining-room table or mended that hole in the leg of your stocking." Oh,
+the thousands of uninteresting things there are to be done in the world!
+thought Poppy. The dusters and damnations of life!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She used to long to be taken ill so that she might have a rest in bed
+and be able at last to read as much as she liked. But when she broke her
+arm she was too ill to care even about reading, and when she got scarlet
+fever she could not really enjoy herself, for Ina sickened of it too,
+and was put into bed with her, and was so fretful, always crying unless
+she was told stories or sung to. So they got better together and _that_
+was over.
+
+Before she was twelve Poppy's schooldays came to an end. The five
+sovereigns had been spent and there was no more to come. Wasted money,
+Mrs. Kennedy said, and wrote and told the god-mother so. The fact that
+never a single prize had been won was damning evidence that the culprit
+was both idle and a dunce. It was quite true that she had learnt
+nothing much in the way of lessons. History and geography or anything
+with a story in it, or poetry, were the only things that interested her.
+Grammar and arithmetic were nothing but stumbling-blocks in her path,
+though she never spoke bad grammar, being quick to detect the difference
+in the language of her teachers and that of her aunt, and profiting by
+it, and she learned to use her voice as they did too--softly and
+low--never speaking the half-Dutch, half-English patter used by Mrs.
+Kennedy and her children to the accompaniment of "Och, what?" "Hey?" and
+"Sis!" Her Uncle Bob had a sweet way of turning his words in his lips,
+which made even the kitchen-Dutch pleasant to the ear, and with great
+delight Poppy discovered one day that she also had this trick. Not for
+years however, did she realise that this was Ireland in her tongue; her
+country's way of marking Bob Kennedy and Poppy Destin as her own, in
+spite of Africa.
+
+Her ear was fine for beautiful sounds and her aunt's voice scraped the
+inside of her head more and more as time went on, and whenever the
+latter dropped an "h" Poppy picked it up and stored it in that dark
+inner cupboard of hers where was kept all scorn and contempt.
+
+She never made a remark herself without _thinking_ it first and deciding
+how it was going to sound, so afraid was she of getting to speak like
+her aunt. Often she used to practise talking, or recite to herself when
+she thought no one was listening, but when overheard, fresh sneers were
+thrown at her.
+
+"Was she going daft then? ... speaking to herself like a crazy
+Hottentot ... concocting impudence, no doubt ... the lunatic asylum
+was _her_ place ... and don't let me hear you again, my lady, or I'll
+up with my hand ... etc."
+
+One day Ina fell very ill, and Mrs. Kennedy sent a messenger flying for
+the doctor. When he came he shook his head gravely, and after a week or
+two announced that the child had dropsy. It sometimes followed on
+scarlet fever, he said ... especially if the child had taken cold ...
+probably she had been sitting on the damp ground. At once Mrs. Kennedy's
+imagination conjured up a picture of Ina sitting on a damp stone on the
+Kopje while Poppy amused herself reading a book. That was quite enough
+to convince her as to who was the cause of the child's illness.
+Thereafter she never ceased to reproach Poppy with this new crime.
+
+"If it hadn't been for _your_ wicked carelessness, my child wouldn't be
+lying at death's door now," was her eternal cry, followed by a long list
+of all the sins and offences committed by Poppy since first the
+affliction of her presence had fallen upon the Kennedys' home.
+
+"A thorn in my side, that's what you've been ever since I first set eyes
+on your yellow face.... I don't know what God lets such beasts as you go
+on living for ... no good to anyone ... dirty, deceitful little slut ...
+nose always in a book ... muttering to yourself like an Irish Fenian ...
+ill-treating my children.... Your mother ought to have been alive,
+that's what ... _she_ would have learned you ... etc."
+
+A fresh offence was that little Ina would have no one else with her but
+the despised and evil one. The cry on her lips was always, "Poppy,
+Poppy--come, Poppy!"
+
+She lay in her cot, white and swollen, and marbly-looking, and at first
+the doctor steamed her incessantly; a wire cage covered with blankets
+over her body, a big kettle, with its long spout stuck into the cage,
+boiling at the foot of the bed. She would moan and fret at the heat and
+Poppy had to be singing to her always; even fairy tales she would have
+sung to her. One day the doctor cut three slits in the instep of each
+poor little foot while she lay in Poppy's arms, clinging and wailing,
+and Poppy, quivering and sick, watched the sharp little knife and the
+water spouting out almost up to the ceiling--no blood came. After that,
+all Ina's marbly look was gone, and it was plain to see that she was
+nothing but a little white skeleton; and so weak she could hardly
+whisper to Poppy to sing to her--"There's a Friend for little children,"
+and "Snow-white and Rose-red"--her favourite hymn and her favourite
+fairy-tale.
+
+It had never occurred to Poppy that the child would die; but one day the
+doctor stood a long time watching her as she lay staring straight at the
+ceiling with her pretty brown eyes all glazy, and her little ghost hands
+clutching the bars of her cot, and presently he shrugged his shoulders
+in a hopeless way and turned to Mrs. Kennedy.
+
+"I thought we might save her as she was so young, but----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then he went away and did not come so often after. And day by day Ina
+grew thinner and whiter, and her eyes got bigger and shone more, and she
+never made a sound except to whisper, "Poppy--sing, Poppy."
+
+Poppy's voice had gone to a whisper too, then, and she could only make
+strange sounds in her throat; but Ina did not notice that.
+
+The whole family used to creep into the room and stand round the cot,
+while Poppy sat there with Ina's hand in hers, whispering songs between
+the bars of the cot, while her head felt as though there were long sharp
+needles running through it, and her throat and body were full of
+horrible pains. Sometimes the room seemed all cloudy and she only
+faintly saw dead faces through the dimness; Ina and she whispering
+together seemed to be the only alive people in the world.
+
+Even Aunt Lena's tongue was still those days, and forgot to abuse, but
+sometimes when Ina turned away from her, moaning for Poppy, the mother's
+eyes could be seen gleaming malignantly across the cot. Poppy glared
+back, for she had come to love little Ina so passionately that she could
+hardly bear anyone else to come near. No one had ever wanted Poppy and
+loved her before, and from her gratitude sprang a deep love for the sick
+child. All through the day she sat by the cot, even taking her food
+there, and at night she slept wrapt in a blanket on the floor or sitting
+in a chair by the bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening at nine o'clock Ina died.
+
+Poppy had been singing a little Boer love song to her in a dreadful
+rustling voice, with face pressed against the cold bars and eyes shut,
+when she heard a gentle sigh that seemed to pass over her face like soft
+white feathers. She left off singing and peered down into the cot. The
+room was very dim, but she could see the little white face with the soft
+damp rings of hair round it, lying very still and with eyes closed.
+
+"Ina," she whispered with a dreadful fear. "Ina, speak to Poppy--open
+eyes, darling."
+
+But Ina never opened eyes or spoke again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately Mrs. Kennedy filled the house with her lamentations, and
+mingled with them were cursings and revilings of Poppy. She would kill
+her, she shrieked, even as her child had been killed by that cursed
+Irish Fenian. She was raving mad for the time, and no doubt she would
+have killed Poppy, or attempted it, if her husband had not been there to
+keep her by main force from violence. But that Poppy should be driven
+from the house she insisted.
+
+"She shall not sleep under my roof with that innocent little corpse,"
+she screamed. "Go, go out of the house, brute and beast and devil." And
+breaking loose from her husband's hands she caught hold of the
+ghost-like child and flung her into the yard.
+
+When Poppy got up from the ground it was late and the door was shut for
+the night. The world was black save for a few pale stars. She wondered
+heavily where she could go and lie down and sleep. She was like a man
+who has walked unceasingly for hundreds of miles. She could think of
+nothing but sleep. She groped for the forage-house door, thinking how
+sweet it would be to rest there on the bundles of forage, with the smell
+of the pumpkins coming down from the roof, where they were ripening; but
+the door was locked. The fowl-hok swarmed with lice in the summer; even
+in her weariness her flesh crept at the thought of spending the night
+there. She remembered the Kopje and her old friend the mimosa tree, but
+there was a certain gloom about the Kopje on a dark night. At last she
+thought of the poplar trees by the Big Dam; they were her friends--all
+trees were her friends. When her heart hurt her most and her eyes seemed
+bursting from her head because she could not cry, if she could get close
+to a tree and press against it, and put the leaves to her eyes, some of
+her misery seemed to be taken away: thoughts and hopes would come into
+her mind, she could forget what had made her unhappy and her little
+songs would begin to make themselves heard.
+
+When she broke her arm she used to cry all night for them to put green
+leaves on the place to stop the aching, but they would not. Only the
+doctor, when he heard about it, brought her a bunch of geranium leaves
+one morning. She put them quickly under her pillow and when no one was
+there laid them down by her side, because she could not get them under
+the splints, and they eased the pain, until they were withered and "Aunt
+Lena" found them in the bed and threw them away: then the pain was as
+bad as ever.
+
+The poplar trees grew in a long line of thirty or so by the side of the
+Big Dam which lay just outside the town past the Presidency. Poppy was
+sometimes allowed to take the children there, when Clara and Emily went
+to help mind the children, in case they climbed up the dam wall and fell
+into the water. They were tall, grand trees, that never ceased rustling
+in the breeze that crept across the big expanse of water, even on the
+hottest days. Poppy had climbed every one of them, and she never forgot
+the moment of pure gold joy that she felt when she reached the top of
+each and sat there silent and afar from the world, cloistered round by
+the mysteriously whispering leaves. But the seventh tree was her
+specially loved friend. It belonged to her--and she had climbed to its
+very tip, higher than anyone ever had before, and cut her name in the
+soft pale bark.
+
+And this was the friend she turned to on that night of dreadful
+weariness when Ina died.
+
+She never knew how she got through the town, silent and dark, and over
+the little hill thick with _bessie_ bushes and rocks that lay between
+the Dames' Institute and the Presidency. She did not even remember
+climbing the tree, which had a thick smooth trunk and was hard to get up
+for the first six or seven feet. But at last she was in her seat at the
+top between two branches, cuddling up to the mother-trunk with her arms
+round it and her eyes closed.
+
+Then, even though her heart took comfort, the darkness and strange
+sounds of the night terrified her, and filled her with dread and
+despair. There were wild ducks flying and circling in long black lines
+against the pallid stars over the dam, wailing to each other as though
+they had lost something they could never, never find again. And the wind
+on the water made a dreary pattering that sounded like the bare feet of
+hundreds of dead people who had come out of the graveyards close by, and
+were hurrying backwards and forwards on the dam. Then there would be a
+mysterious rushing through the trees and all the leaves would quiver and
+quake against each other, like little ghosts that were afraid to be out
+in the dark night. Poppy wondered if Ina's little ghost was with them.
+
+In the highest windows of the Dames' Institute there were still a few
+lights showing, and a dim red glow came from a window at one end of the
+Presidency, and when Poppy opened her eyes these seemed like friends to
+her. But they went out one by one, and with the last, light seemed to go
+out of her mind too. She shut her eyes again, and pressed her heart
+against the poplar tree, and called through the darkness to her mother.
+She did not know whether she really called aloud, but it seemed to her
+that a long thin shriek burst from her lips, as a bullet bursts from a
+gun, piercing through the air for miles.
+
+"Mother! Mother! Mother, my heart is breaking." She sobbed, and sobbed,
+and sobbed, gripping the little ghostly leaves and pressing them to her
+eyes. But her mother did not come, of course. No one came. Only the
+little ghostly leaves shivered more than ever and the dreary dead feet
+came pattering over the water. At this time a sweet, sad cadence of
+words streamed into Poppy's head and began to form a little song.
+Strange, that though its burden was misery and wretchedness, it
+presently began to comfort her a little.
+
+"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea"--it ran.
+
+Yet Poppy had never seen the sea.
+
+Everyone in the world seemed to be sleeping except the dead people and
+Poppy. Even the clock in the Government buildings struck as though
+muffled up in blankets, speaking in its sleep. When it was striking she
+raised her head to listen and count the strokes, and forgetting the
+horror of the night opened her eyes--and beheld a terrible, shroudy
+vision creeping over the world. It came very slowly and stealthily, like
+a grey witch in a tale of horror, and ate up little patches of darkness
+as it came, swelling larger as it ate. Oh! the dead people swaying to
+and fro on the water! She prayed they might be gone back to their graves
+before the grey witch reached them with her long, clutching fingers; she
+prayed in a frenzy of fear for herself, calling to Christ and Mary
+Mother of God, to save her from the grey witch. She rocked herself
+backwards and forwards, praying and moaning, and almost falling from the
+tree, and at last in reckless desperation opened her eyes, and glared
+out over the dam--and saw that the dawn had come. The grey witch had
+turned into a lovely lady, all decked in palest pink, with her arms
+spread wide in the sky, trailing long veils of sheeny lavender cloud
+behind her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man and a boy with guns in their hands were creeping along under the
+dam wall, trying to get near a covey of wild duck on the water.
+Presently they stopped, and crouching, took aim and fired. The birds
+rose in a swarm and flew shrieking in long black lines, leaving two poor
+little black bodies on the dam--one flapping the water with a feeble
+wing, trying to rise, and falling back every time. The boy threw off his
+clothes and went in after them, while the man drew under the shadow of
+the dam wall, and began to run, making for the far side of the water,
+where the ducks seemed likely to settle again.
+
+Presently the lady of the sky grew brighter and streaks of gold came
+into her pink and lavender veils; the grass was all silvery with the
+heavy dew, and the earth gave up a sweet and lovely smell. God seems to
+go away from Africa at night, but He comes back most beautiful and
+radiant in the morning. Birds began to chirrup and twitter in the trees
+and bushes, and take little flying journeys in the air. The clock
+struck five--clear and bell-like strokes now, that sang and echoed out
+into the morning.
+
+Poppy felt cold and stiff and hungry, and very tired, as though she
+should fall down and die if she stayed in the tree any longer.
+
+There was nothing to do, and nowhere to go but home. After all, Aunt
+Lena could only kill her once. Then she would join Ina and see her
+mother, and hear Irish melodies, and be where it was not cold or lonely
+any more. She got down from the tree almost cheerfully and made her way
+through the grass, plucking a few _crase bessies_ by the way and
+munching them as she walked. There was hardly anyone about the town,
+except a few _boys_ carrying pails of water from the fountain. When she
+reached home, she found that the house was still shut and locked, with
+all the blinds down. So she sat on the kitchen step and waited until old
+Sara, coming out to get wood for the fire, nearly fell over her.
+
+"Tch! Tch! Tch!" she clucked. "_Arme kentze! War vas sig gisterand?_"
+(Poor child! Where were you last night?)
+
+"_Dar bij de dam. Ge koffi O'Sara. Ik is freeslik kow._" (Up by the Big
+Dam. Give me some coffee, Sara. I am very cold.)
+
+"Jah! Jah!" said old Sara, and hurried away, clucking and muttering, to
+make the fire and get the morning coffee. Poppy went in and warmed
+herself, and presently got down the cups and beakers and stood them in a
+row on the kitchen table. Cups and saucers for aunt and uncle and Clara
+and Emily, and beakers for the children. Old Sara poured them full of
+steaming black coffee, added milk and sugar and a home-made rusk in each
+saucer, and carried them away to the bedrooms. Poppy sat down with a
+beaker full, dipping a rusk into the coffee and eating it sopped,
+because the rusks are too hard to eat any other way. Presently old Sara
+came and squatted on her haunches by the fire too, drinking her coffee
+from a white basin with a blue band round it (blue that it gave Poppy a
+pain to look at, it was so cold and livid), and making fearful
+squelching noises, she sopped and ate. Rolling her big black and white
+eyes at Poppy, she whispered all that had happened after she had gone.
+Aunt Lena had screamed and cried for hours, raving that she would not
+have her child's murderess in the house again. She could go and live in
+the fowls' _hok_, or the forage-house, until another home was found for
+her, but if Poppy came into her sight again, she would tear her limb
+from limb. Afterwards she had coughed and spat up blood. Old Sara wagged
+her head, giving this piece of information as one who should say: "Serve
+her right, too." The doctor had come and said that "something was broken
+inside." Old Sara patted her wobbly stomach. "She must go to bed and not
+move for a month or she would go too." Old Sara pointed sanctimoniously
+upwards.
+
+It was even so. Aunt Lena lay for weeks on her bed, but still ruling her
+house from it. Poppy was not allowed to eat or sleep under the house
+roof. A blanket was given to her, and she slept on the bales of chaff in
+the out-house with a bundle of forage for a pillow. Old Sara brought to
+her there such meals as she was allowed to receive.
+
+The twins were not allowed to speak to her: a strange girl was hired to
+take them out--Poppy did not mind that. Clara and Emily passed her in
+the yard as though she was a jackal or some unclean beast--she minded
+that even less. The only thing she minded at all, was not being allowed
+to see Ina before she was buried.
+
+On the day of the funeral, the little cold form in the coffin was not
+more cold and numb than one lying out in the out-house between two bales
+of chaff. Despair of mourning had Poppy by the throat. She could have
+wailed like a banshee. Indeed, if her voice had not gone from her, it
+is probable that she would have relieved the pressure on her heart and
+brain in this fashion. As it was, she was the only person in the place
+who gave no outward sign of mourning. Her old blue galatea overall, with
+the pattern worn faint in front, and the sleeves in rags, might have
+grown to her back. But old Sara was given a dark dress of Aunt Lena's,
+and a new black _dook_ to wear on her head. Clara and Emily had new
+black alpaca dresses, with tucks round the bottom and black ribbon
+sashes. Eight little girls came dressed in white, with their hair down
+and long floating white muslin veils hanging behind, and bunches of
+white flowers in their hands. They were to carry the coffin in turns,
+four carrying and four walking behind, because it was a very long way to
+the graveyard. Mr. Kennedy and Georgie and Bobby walked behind them, and
+then a great many men. But the saddest mourner of all watched from the
+crack of the forage-house door, and thought how sad and beautiful it all
+was, and how it would have been spoilt if she had gone out and joined it
+in her blue overall; and after the procession was out of sight, lay
+there on her face on the chaff, and could not cry; and seemed to have
+swallowed a stone, that stuck in her throat and gave her dreadful pains
+all across her chest; and whose heart kept saying: "I hate God! I hate
+aunt!" And when she tried to scream it aloud, found that she had no
+voice.
+
+In the evening when the sun was set, but before it was dark, a figure
+stole out of the back yard, crept through the empty _spruit_, slipped
+through a private garden and came out by the cathedral steps; then up
+past the big church bell that tolled for the dead, and so to the
+graveyard.
+
+All the way she gathered wild flowers and grasses--rock-maiden-hair,
+_rooi gras_, moon-flowers, and most especially shivery-grass, and the
+little perky rushes with a flower sprouting out of them, which the
+children call _tulps_. Ina had always loved these. Some "four o'clocks"
+too, stolen from a front garden as she passed, were added, and even a
+_stink bloem_ graced the great bunch with which Poppy entered the
+churchyard.
+
+She found a new little heap of red earth that she knew must be Ina's
+grave, for it was all covered with wreaths and the bunches of flowers
+the eight girls had carried. Scraping them all to the foot of the grave,
+Poppy laid hers where she thought Ina's hands would be, whispering down
+through the earth:
+
+"From Poppy, Ina--Poppy who loves you best of all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some nights old Sara would come sneaking softly over to the
+forage-house, to sit a while with Poppy; sometimes she had a rusk to
+give the prisoner; most often she had nothing but an end of candle, but
+that was very welcome. Lighting it, and sticking it on a side beam, she
+would squat on the floor, and taking off her _dook_, proceed to comb her
+wool. Poppy was glad of company, and interested in the frank way old
+Sara attended to the business of catching and killing her
+_chochermanners_; besides, there were a lot of interesting things in old
+Sara's wool besides _chochermanners_: there was a little bone box full
+of snuff, and a little bone spoon to put it in the nose with; and a
+piece of paper with all old Sara's money in it; and a tooth belonging to
+old Sara's mother, and several small home-made bone combs and pins and
+charms.
+
+Old Sara's Dutch was poor, and Poppy could not speak Basuto, so that
+much conversation did not ensue, but black people can tell a great deal
+without saying much.
+
+Once Poppy asked her why she did not go to her _kraal_ and live with her
+children instead of working for white people.
+
+Old Sara took snuff and answered briefly:
+
+"_Ek het nê kinders, oor Ek is ne getroud._" (I have no children,
+because I am not married.)
+
+This was good, but not infallible logic, as Poppy even in her few years
+had discovered.
+
+"Why didn't you get married when you were young, old Sara?" she queried.
+
+Old Sara rolled her eyes mournfully at the child, and muttered some
+words in her own language. Then slowly she undid the buttons of many
+kinds and colours which adorned the front of her dress. From the left
+bosom she took a large bundle of rags, and placed them carefully on the
+floor, then opening her bodice wide, she revealed her black body bare to
+the waist. Poppy's astonished gaze fell upon a right breast--no object
+of beauty, but large and heavy; but where the left breast should be was
+only a little shrivel of brown skin high up out of line with the other.
+
+That was old Sara's only answer to Poppy's question. Afterwards she
+quietly replaced her bundle of rags, and rebuttoned her dress.
+
+As for Poppy, she pondered the problem long. At last she made a little
+song, which she called:
+
+"The woman with the crooked breast."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night old Sara brought news.
+
+Poppy's box was being packed. In two days she was going to be sent away
+in the post-cart. Poppy thrilled with joy, and had no foreboding until
+next day when she overheard Clara and Emily whispering together in the
+yard. It transpired that though they envied Poppy the journey to Boshof
+in the post-cart, they did not envy her subsequent career under the
+protection of their mother's sister, Aunt Clara Smit.
+
+"Do you remember that time ma sent us there when Ina had the diphtheria?
+We never got anything but bread and dripping, and she was eating chops
+and steaks all the time."
+
+"Yes," said Clara, "and remember how she used to beat _Katzi_, the
+little Hottentot girl, in bed every night for a week until the blood
+came, just because she broke a cup."
+
+"Ha! ha!" they chirruped, "won't Miss Poppy get it _just_!"
+
+"Yes, and mammer's going to give her something before she goes, too. She
+sent me to buy a _sjambok_ this morning, because pa's hidden his away,
+and when he's gone out to the 'Phoenix' to-night, she's going to have
+Poppy across the bed in front of her. You're to hold her head and me her
+feet."
+
+"Tlk! Won't she get it!"
+
+This interesting piece of news determined Poppy on a matter which had
+long been simmering in her mind. She decided at last that she would take
+no more beatings from Aunt Lena, and neither would she sample the
+quality of Aunt Clara Smit's charity. She would run away.
+
+All that afternoon she lay turning the matter over, and later she took
+old Sara into her confidence for two reasons: old Sara must commandeer
+some food for her, and must also get for her the only thing she wanted
+to take away with her--a round green stone brooch which had belonged to
+her mother, and which Aunt Lena kept in her top drawer.
+
+Poppy felt sure that with her mother's brooch on her she need fear
+nothing in the world; it was green, and therefore kindly disposed, as
+all green things were, being akin to trees.
+
+It took a long while to beguile old Sara to obtain the brooch, for the
+old woman was very honest and she thought this looked too much like a
+stealing matter. Eventually she was persuaded, and a little after seven
+o'clock she brought it stealthily to the forage-house, together with a
+pocketful of food-scraps saved from her own portion of the evening meal.
+
+After this, Poppy did not dare wait another instant. She knew that as
+soon as he had finished his supper, her uncle would light his pipe and
+stroll off to spend a cheerful evening in the billiard-room of the
+"Phoenix Hotel"; then they would come to fetch her indoors!
+
+With a hasty farewell to old Sara, her only friend, she slipped out
+through the dark yard and ran swiftly up the street. Her direction was
+towards the _Uitspan_, a big bare place about half a mile from the town
+where wagons halted for a night before starting on a journey, or before
+bringing their loads into town in the morning. There was a big _Uitspan_
+out beyond St. Michael's, and she made for that one, remembering there
+were always plenty of wagons there.
+
+When she stole near it in the darkness, she counted eight wagons, four
+of which were loaded to depart, since their dissel-booms were turned
+away from the town.
+
+There were several fires burning, and the fume of coffee was on the
+night air. Someone was making _as-kookies_ (ash-cakes) too, for a
+pleasant smell of burnt dough assailed Poppy's nose. Four Kaffir _boys_
+were sitting round a three-legged pot, dipping into it and jabbering
+together, and by the light of another fire a white woman and three
+children were taking their evening meal. The wagon behind them was
+loaded with furniture and boxes, and by this Poppy was sure that they
+were a family on the move. She crept nearer to them, keeping in the
+shadow of the close-growing bushes. The dull red fires and the stars
+gave the only light there was.
+
+"Ma," said one of the children at the fire, "I see a spook over there by
+the bushes." The mother's response was: "Here, you make haste and finish
+your coffee and get into the wagon. It's time you children were asleep.
+They're going to inspan at eleven and you'd better get a good sleep
+before the wagon starts creaking and jolting."
+
+This was useful information to Poppy. Her plan was to follow the wagon
+when it started and keep near it until late the next day, when too far
+from Bloemfontein to be sent back.
+
+She crouched lower among the bushes, and presently began to munch some
+of her oddments of food, while still she watched the family she meant to
+adopt. When they had finished their meal they first washed up their tin
+beakers and plates with water from a small _fykie_ which hung under the
+wagon; then everything was carefully put away into a wooden locker, and
+they prepared to retire for the night. The mother was a round-faced,
+good-natured-looking, half-Dutch colonial, evidently. She climbed
+sturdily into the tented wagon by the help of the brake and a little
+_reimpe_ ladder. Across the tent was swung a _cartel_ (thong mattress)
+and atop of this was a big comfortable mattress with pillows and
+blankets arranged ready for use. By the light of the lantern which the
+woman fixed to the roof of the tent, Poppy could see that the sides of
+the tent were lined with calico bags with buttoned-over flaps, all
+bulging with the things that would be needed on the journey. The woman
+proceeded to store away more things from a heap in the middle of the
+bed, some she put under the pillows, some under the mattress, and many
+were tied to the wooden ribs of the tent so that it presently resembled
+a Christmas-tree. Meantime the children clustered on the brake and the
+_reimpe_ ladder, fidgeting to climb into the snug-looking nest. The
+mother talked while she worked:
+
+"Here, Alice! I'll put this pair of old boots into the end bag, they'll
+do for wearing in the veldt----"
+
+"Oh, sis, ma! I hate those old boots, they hurt me--" expostulated
+Alice.
+
+"Nonsense, how can they hurt you? You keep your new ones for Pretoria,
+anything'll do on the veldt. Now you all see where I'm putting the
+comb--and this beaker we'll keep up in your corner, Minnie, so we don't
+have to go to the locker every time we're thirsty. I hope that boy will
+hang the _fykie_ where we can reach it. Begin to take your boots off,
+Johnny. I'm not going to have you in here treading on my quilt with
+those boots; no one is to get in until they're _carl-foot_."
+
+"I'll get _deviljies_ (thorns) in my feet if I take them off out here,"
+says Johnny. "Can't I sit on the edge of the bed?"
+
+"All right then, but keep your feet out. Minnie, take off that good
+ribbon and tie your hair with this piece of tape," etc.
+
+Eventually they were all in the tent, lying in a row crossways, the
+mother by the opening as a sort of barricade. They did not undress--only
+loosened their clothes.
+
+Everyone wanted to lie across the opening. They couldn't see anything at
+the back of the tent, they complained; only had to lie and stare at the
+things bobbing overhead.
+
+"You never mind that," said the mother, arguing. "You've got three or
+four weeks to see the veldt and the oxen in. I'm going to lie here so
+that I can keep you children from falling out while we're trekking. Why
+I knew a woman once who let her baby lie on the outside, and in the
+middle of the night she woke up and heard an awful crunching under the
+wheels, and when she felt for the baby it wasn't there!" This story
+caused a great sensation, but presently Johnny asked how the baby's
+bones could crunch under the wheels "if it fell out behind the wagon!"
+
+The mother considered for a moment, then said:
+
+"It was the wheels of the wagon behind, of course, _dom-kop_."
+
+But Johnny pointed out that a whole span of oxen would come before the
+wheels of the next wagon, and that the baby would be all trodden to bits
+before the wheels reached it.
+
+"Oh, _Kgar! Sis!_" cried the sisters; and at this his mother told him
+amiably to shut his mouth and go to sleep.
+
+But though she put out the lantern the talk still went on intermittently
+until replaced by snores.
+
+The _boys_ and the transport-drivers all lay wrapped in their blankets,
+snoring too. Only afar the oxen could be heard moving as they grazed,
+and the bell on the neck of one of them clanked restlessly. The fires
+had died down to dim red spots. The watcher in the bushes was the only
+one awake in the camp. She feared that if she slept the family in the
+wagon might be up and away. Her mind was made up to accompany that
+good-natured-looking woman and her family to Pretoria, since that was
+where they were bound for. She would follow the wagons and join them
+when a long way from Bloemfontein, and her tale would be that she
+belonged to a wagon which had gone on in front. She would pretend that
+she had got lost, and ask to be taken on to rejoin her relations in
+Pretoria.
+
+At about eleven o'clock the moon rose, but no one stirred in the camp.
+Suddenly the figure of a man arose, took a long whip from the side of a
+wagon, unwound it, walked a little way from the camp, swung it whistling
+softly round his head for a moment, then sent a frightful report ringing
+across the veldt. Afterwards he lay down again until a great crackling
+and trampling and shouting told that the oxen were in the camp with
+their herders hooting and yelling round them. In a moment other still
+figures were on their feet; a clamour arose of voices shouting, wooden
+yokes clattering, dissel-booms creaking; bullocks were called at by
+their names and sworn at individually:
+
+"_Rooi-nek! Yoh Skelpot! com an da!_" (Redneck! You tortoise! come on
+there!)
+
+"_Viljoen! Wat makeer jij?_" (Viljoen! What's wrong with _you_?)
+
+Loud blows and kicks were heard and demands for missing oxen.
+
+"_Jan, war is de Vaal-pans?_" (John, where is the yellow-belly?)
+
+"_Ek saal yoh net now slaan, jou faarbont._" (I'll strike you in a
+minute, you baseborn.)
+
+"_De verdomder Swart-kop!_"
+
+Each wagon had a span of eighteen or twenty oxen, and as soon as the
+last pair was yoked, a small black boy, the _voerlooper_, would run to
+their heads, seize the leading _rein_ and turn them towards the road.
+Then came a tremendous crack of the driver's whip, a stream of oaths and
+oxen's names, intermingled and ending in:
+
+"_Yak!_"
+
+One by one the four wagons took the road, raising clouds of red dust,
+the drivers and boys running alongside.
+
+Usually passenger-wagons go first in the line, but the wagon with
+Poppy's adopted family in it, started last, because _Swart-kop_, a big
+black-and-white ox, had been particularly fractious, and had delayed the
+operation of inspanning, putting the driver into a terrible passion.
+Poppy waited until his cursings and revilings were only faintly heard on
+the air, then slipping quietly through the camp which had returned to
+peaceful sleeping, she plunged into the clouds of dust.
+
+Throughout the night hours she padded along, her throat and ears and
+mouth filled with the fine dirt, her eyes running and sore; afraid to
+get too near the wagons for fear of being seen; afraid to be too far
+behind for fear of she knew not what.
+
+Towards dawn they passed through a narrow _sluit_. The water was filthy
+at the _drift_ when all the wagons had gone through it, but she left the
+road and found a clean place higher up where she thankfully drank and
+laved her begrimed face. As the dawn broke she could see that the veldt
+was well-bushed with clumps of rocks, and big ant-heaps here and there;
+there would be plenty of hiding-places when the wagons stopped.
+
+Presently there were signs of a coming halt. The oxen slackened pace,
+the drivers began to call to each other, and the man who was evidently
+the _Baas_ of the convoy went off the road and inspected the ground.
+
+Then a long loud:
+
+"_Woa! An--nauw!_" passed along the line, each wagon took to the veldt,
+drawing up at about fifty yards from the road.
+
+Thereafter came the outspanning, with the identical accompaniments of
+the inspanning. When the oxen had gone to seek water and food in charge
+of their herders, the _voerloopers_ departed to gather wood and _mis_
+(dry cow-dung) for the fires, and the drivers unrolled their blankets
+and lay upon them resting, but not sleeping, until a meal had been
+prepared; someone began to play a concertina at this time. Afar from the
+encampment Poppy had found a big dry hole in the heart of a clump of
+bushes. The thorns tore her face and her clothes as she struggled
+through them, but in the hole at last she fell down and succumbed to the
+passion for sleep which overwhelmed her. She lay like a stone all
+through the day, hearing nothing until the loud clap of a whip pulled
+her out of her dreams.
+
+"_Yak--Varns!_"
+
+Half dead with weariness--stiff, wretched, hungry--she crept from her
+hiding-place and stumbled on her way, wrapped once more in the
+impenetrable dust.
+
+On the night of the second day she discovered herself to the family in
+the tented wagon. Staggering from the bush at the side of the road she
+climbed on to the brake of the slowly moving wagon and appeared before
+the comfortable contented occupants--a filthy, tattered, unkempt vision;
+her face peaked and wan under the dirt, her eyes glazy. "Give me food
+and water," she whispered--her voice had never returned since Ina's
+death.
+
+After one long stare, and amidst screams from the children, the woman
+pulled her up into the tent, bade the children make room, and quickly
+found water and biscuits.
+
+Poppy ate and drank ravening, then lay back and cried weakly, the big
+hot tears washing white streaks down her cheeks. The woman with an eye
+to her clean bedclothes, proceeded to sponge her face with water in a
+tin beaker, and told Alice to take off the tattered boots and stockings.
+She questioned Poppy the while, but Poppy cared for nothing but sleep.
+She lay back and slept even as they washed her. About noon she awoke and
+found herself still lying on the big bed, and the woman was standing on
+the brake with coffee and a plate of stew.
+
+"Wake up and eat this, girl; and now you are better tell me where you
+come from and where you're going, hey?"
+
+Poppy, between eating and drinking, recited her tale: she was travelling
+with her father and brothers and sisters to the Transvaal; had wandered
+away from the wagons and got lost on the veldt--believed she had been
+wandering for a week; her name she fancifully gave as Lucy Gray (it
+seemed to wake no echoes in the minds or memories of her listeners); no
+doubt, she said, these wagons would catch the others up in a few days.
+She begged the woman to take care of her in the meantime. She would
+help with the cooking and the children--she wouldn't eat much.
+
+The woman regarded her suspiciously once or twice, but she was stupid as
+well as good-natured and had not the wit to find flaws in the
+well-thought-out tale. She consented to fall in with Poppy's request--in
+common humanity she could do little else--found some clean clothes for
+her and a pair of old boots, and gave her _fat_ to smear on her wounds
+and sore feet.
+
+But first Poppy had to be passed before the _Baas_ of the wagons--the
+big fierce-looking Boer who fortunately was not at all fierce, only very
+stupid, and although he refused to believe her tale, turning to Mrs.
+Brant and remarking briefly: "_Sij lê!_" (she lies!) he could not offer
+any suggestion as to what the truth might be; nor did he make any
+objection to Mrs. Brant's plans; so Poppy was outcast no more. She
+became one of a family, and speedily made herself so useful to Mrs.
+Brant that the good woman was glad to have her.
+
+Followed many long happy weeks. Happy even when the wet-season swooped
+down on them and they had to wait on the banks of swollen rivers
+fireless for days; or remain stuck in a mudhole for hours, until their
+wheels could be dug out or pulled out by three spans of oxen combined,
+while mosquitoes bit and swarmed over them, leaving a festering sore for
+every bite they gave; even under the heavy sweltering _sail_ that was
+flung over them at nights to keep rain out, and which also kept the air
+out and made the small tent like a pest-house; even when the food gave
+out and they had to rely on what they could get at the scattered farms.
+
+In spite of all the mishaps, everyone was kind and good-natured. No one
+offered blows or taunts to Poppy, and her starved heart revived a little
+and began to hold up its head under the gentle rain of kindliness and
+friendliness. Then, the glamour of travel was upon her for the first
+time. Never before had she seen the hills, the mountains, the great
+rolling spaces of veldt, the rivers sweeping and boiling down their wide
+ravines. It was most wonderful and beautiful, too, to wake every dawn
+and step out of the wagon to a fresh world. Where last night had been a
+hill, to-morrow would be a rushing river, befringed with mimosa, whose
+odour had been sweet on the breeze all the day before. The next day
+would find them on a bare plain, with no stick or stone to give shelter
+from the burden of the sun or the rain, and the next they would lie in
+the purple shadow of a mountain, on which were scarlet geraniums as tall
+as trees, and strange flowers shaped like birds and insects grew
+everywhere.
+
+And oh! the fresh glory of the morning dews! The smell of the wood smoke
+on the air! The wide open empty world around them and the great silence
+into which the small human sounds of the camp fell and were lost like
+pebbles thrown into the sea! Happy, rain-soaked, sun-bitten days!
+Bloemfontein and misery were a long way behind. Poppy's sad songs were
+all forgotten; new ones sprang up in her heart, songs flecked with
+sunlight and bewreathed with wild flowers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But a cloud was on the horizon. The convoy of wagons drew at last near
+its destination. Poppy began to be haunted at nights with the fear of
+what new trouble must await her there. Where would she go? What would
+she do? How could she face kind Mrs. Brant with her tale of parents and
+friends proved false? These frightful problems filled the nights in the
+creaking wagon with terror. The misty bloom that had fallen upon her
+face during the weeks of peace and content, vanished, and haggard lines
+of anxiety and strain began to show.
+
+"Child, you look peaky," said good Mrs. Brant. "What'll your ma say? I
+must give you a Cockle's pill."
+
+But Poppy grew paler and more peaky.
+
+Two days' _trek_ from Pretoria she was missed at inspan time. Long
+search was made. The wagons even waited a whole day and night for her;
+the _boys_ called and the drivers sent cracks of their great whips
+volleying and echoing for miles, as a signal of their whereabouts in
+case she had wandered far and lost her bearings. At night they made
+enormous fires to guide her to their camping-places. But she never
+returned. It was then and for the first time that two little lines of
+verse came into the memory of Alice, the eldest girl, who had been at a
+good school. She recited them to the family, who thought them passing
+strange and prophetic:
+
+               "But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
+               Will never more be seen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unfortunately, after leaving the wagons and hiding herself in a deep
+gulch, Poppy had fallen asleep, and that so heavily after her many
+nights of sleepless worry, that she did not awake for more than fourteen
+hours. When she did wake she found that some poisonous insect or reptile
+had stung one of her feet terribly: it was not painful, but enormously
+swollen and discoloured, and she found it difficult to get along. The
+wagons had gone and she could never catch up with them again, even if
+she wished. On the second night she heard, many miles away, the cracking
+of the whips and saw little glow-worms of light that might have been the
+flare of fires lighted to show her the way back to the wagons; and her
+spirit yearned to be with those friendly faces and kindly fires. She
+wept and shivered and crouched fearsomely in the darkness.
+
+The next day it rained: merciless, savage, hammering rain. Sometimes she
+wandered in it, fancying herself wandering in a forest of trees, all
+with stems as thick as a rain-drop; sometimes it was so strong she could
+lean against it; sometimes she thought she was a moth beating against
+glass, trying, trying to get out.
+
+Another night came.
+
+Through most of that she lay prone on her face,
+thinking--believing--hoping that she was dead and part of the earth she
+lay on.
+
+And, indeed, the greater part of her was mud.
+
+She had long ago lost the road. She supposed she must be in the
+Transvaal somewhere; but at this time, half-delirious from pain, hunger,
+and terror, she believed herself back near Bloemfontein--seemed to
+recognise the hills outside the town. Terrified, she took another
+direction, falling sometimes and unable to rise again until she had
+slept where she lay. Whenever she saw bushes with berries or fruits on
+them she gathered and ate.
+
+Sometimes from her hiding-places she could see Kaffirs pass singly, or
+in small parties; but after searching their faces, she let them pass.
+Even in her delirium something warned her not to make herself known.
+
+One night, it seemed to her weeks after she had left the wagons, she was
+suddenly dazzled by the sight of a red light shining quite near her. She
+gathered up her last remnants of strength and walked towards it; she
+believed she urged and ran--in reality she merely drifted by the help of
+a friendly wind that happened to be blowing that way. At last she saw
+that it was not one--but many lamps and candles shining through the
+windows of a house. But the windows themselves could be only dimly seen
+through the leaves of a tree, which overhung the house and threw long
+claw-like shadows everywhere. Next, her broken feet knew gravel under
+them: white walls were before her, too--and green doors and green
+window-shutters, all laced and latticed with the shadows of one great
+tree that stood like a monster in the path by the big door. The lights
+that shone out and dazzled showed her that the tree was very, very
+green, with a myriad strange scarlet eyes glowing in it; eyes that
+glowed with an alert brightness that was not friendly. Poppy had always
+loved trees and believed them to be her friends, but this tree
+frightened her. Nevertheless she crept closer to the biggest, brightest
+window of the house, and peered in through the glass panes, a little
+dulled and dimmed by the ever-beating, everlasting rain. She saw a man
+sitting at a table spread with beautiful shining vases of flowers,
+dishes of food, plates and glasses that glittered, fruit--two black
+_boys_ waited on him, dressed in white uniforms, and through an open
+doorway a tan-skinned old woman with a white _dook_ could be seen
+speaking to one of the _boys_--handing him a dish that flamed with
+little blue flames. The man at the table leaned back in his chair and
+faced the window. If it had not been that she believed herself dying, or
+perhaps already dead, Poppy would rather have gone back to the veldt
+than into the house where that face was master, for it terrified her
+even as the faces of the Kaffirs on the veldt had done. The man was not
+ugly; but his mouth was cruel and bitter, and his eyes were of the same
+hard, cold blue as the stripe on old Sara's coffee-basin. And across his
+face, from the left eye to the corner of his mouth, was a long, raw,
+newly-healed scar.
+
+It seemed to Poppy that while she stood watching this man, something
+inside her shrivelled up and blew away from her like a leaf in the wind.
+It came into her head then that, after all, she would not stay here at
+this house; it would be better to go back to the veldt. Wearifully she
+stepped down from the high steps she had climbed, reached the green
+door, and then her hobbling feet would go no further.
+
+She sank on the steps and her head knocked against the door. At once
+dogs barked inside, voices came near, the door opened, letting strong
+light fall across the face of Poppy, now lying on the floor. She saw
+black faces around her and heard native voices crying, "Wha!" in
+astonishment. Then someone lifted her up very strongly and held her
+under a hanging lamp and looked at her. She saw through failing eyes
+that it was the man with the scar.
+
+"Who are you, child?" he asked, and his voice was quite kind and
+friendly.
+
+Again the feeling of terror and panic swept over the child's heart; but
+she was very tired. She believed she was already dead. Her head fell
+back.
+
+"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf," is what she answered.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+  "I never saw anything like the way a poppy lives with its heart and
+  soul every second of the day.
+
+  "It is the most joyful flower in the world. Not a joy of strength, for
+  it is fragile, but just sheer delight in existence and devil-may-care.
+  I would much rather have poppies on my coffin than stupid affected
+  lilies and white roses.
+
+  "Then the sheer cheek of a poppy, and the way it dies quickly,
+  without any bother, when picked! It is such a definite vivid thing,
+  whether it is braving the sun, or sleeping folded under the stars. A
+  wild, fresh individuality; not a banal neutral-tinted affair out of
+  the garden, or something with a smile on its face and a claw
+  underneath, like a rose."
+
+                                          (_Extract from a letter._)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The girl, with a little curling motion, leaned back in the rickshaw and
+gazed with fascinated eyes at the moving picture before her, seen
+through the hazy heat of a summer day.
+
+Above the wide main street of Durban the sun blazed and glared like a
+brazen image of itself in the high ardent blue. Men in loose white ducks
+and flannels sauntered along, or stood smoking and talking under the
+shop awnings.
+
+Carriages and rickshaws flew past, containing women in light gowns and
+big veils, with white and sometimes scarlet sunshades. Black boys at the
+street corners held out long-stalked roses and sprays of fragrant mimosa
+to the passers-by, beguiling them to buy. Coolies with baskets of fish
+on their heads and bunches of bananas across their shoulders, shambled
+along, white-clad and thin-legged. One, with a basket of freshly-caught
+fish on his arm, cried in a nasal sing-song voice:
+
+"Nice lovely shad! Nice lovely shad!"
+
+Two water-carts, clanking along in opposite directions, left a dark
+track behind them on the dusty road, sending up a heavy odour of wet
+earth which the girl snuffed up as though she had some transportingly
+sweet perfume at her delicate nostrils.
+
+"I'm sure there is no smell in the world like the smell of wet Africa,"
+she cried softly to herself, laughing a little. Her eyes took on a misty
+look that made them like lilac with the dew on it.
+
+Her black hair, which branched out on either side of her forehead, had a
+trick of spraying little veils of itself over her eyes and almost
+touching her cheek-bones, which were pitched high in her face, giving it
+an extraordinarily subtle look.
+
+She was amazingly attractive in a glowing ardent fashion that paled the
+other women in the street and made men step to the edge of the pavement
+to stare at her.
+
+She looked at them, too, through the spraying veils of her hair, but her
+face remained perfectly composed under the swathes of white chiffon
+which she wore flung back over her wide hat, brought down at the sides
+and twisted round her throat, with two long flying ends.
+
+The big Zulu boy between the shafts, running noiselessly except for the
+pat of his bare feet and the "Tch-k, tch-k, tch-k" of the seed bangles
+round his ankles, became conscious that his fare was creating interest.
+He began to put on airs, giving little shouts of glorification, taking
+leaps in the air and tilting the shafts of the rickshaw backwards to the
+discomfort of its occupant.
+
+She leaned forward, and in a low voice spoke a few edged words in Zulu
+that made him change his manners and give a glance of astonishment
+behind him, crying:
+
+"_Aa-h! Yeh--boo Inkosizaan!_" behaving himself thereafter with decorum,
+for it was a disconcerting thing that an _Inkosizaan_ who had come
+straight off the mail-steamer at the Point should speak words of reproof
+to him in his own language.
+
+Presently he came to the foot of the Berea Hill, which is long and
+sloping, causing him to slacken pace and draw deep breaths.
+
+A tram-car dashed past them going down-hill, while another climbed
+laboriously up, both open to the breeze and full of people. The road
+began to be edged with fenced and hedged-in gardens, the houses
+standing afar and almost hidden by shrubs and greenery.
+
+The girl spoke to the rickshaw-puller once more.
+
+"The _Inkos_ at the Point told you where to go. Do you know the house?"
+
+He answered yes, but that it was still afar off--right at the top of the
+Berea.
+
+She leaned back again content. It delighted her to be alone like this.
+It was quite an adventure, and an unexpected one. A malicious,
+mischievous smile flashed across her face as she sat thinking of the
+annoyance of the _Inkos_ left behind at the docks. He had been furious
+when he found no closed carriage waiting for them.
+
+There was one on the quay, but it was not theirs, and on approaching it
+and finding out his mistake, he stood stammering with anger. But she had
+flashed into a waiting rickshaw, knowing very well that he could not
+force her to get out and go back to the ship without making a scene.
+
+Nothing would induce him to make a scene and attract the attention of
+people to himself. He had indeed told her in a low voice to get out and
+come back with him to wait for a carriage, but she merely made a mouth
+and looked appealingly at him, saying:
+
+"Oh Luce! It will be so lovely in a rickshaw. I have never ridden in one
+like this yet."
+
+"Well, ride to the devil," he had amiably responded, and turned his back
+on her. She had called out after him, in an entrancingly sweet voice:
+
+"Yes, I know, Luce; but what is the address?"
+
+"It was a shame," she said to herself now, still smiling; "but really I
+don't often vex him!"
+
+A man and a woman passed, as she sat smiling her subtle smile through
+her spraying hair, and looked at her with great curiosity.
+
+Afterwards the man said excitedly:
+
+"That girl takes the shine out of Mary----"
+
+The woman, who looked well-bred with a casual distinguished manner,
+agreed with him, but did not tell him so. She said:
+
+"Her eyes look as though they were painted in by Burne-Jones, and she is
+dressed like a Beardsley poster; but I think she is only a girl who is
+glad to be alive. Mary, however, is the most beautiful woman in Africa."
+
+The girl heard the words "Burne-Jones eyes," and knew they were speaking
+of her.
+
+At last she arrived at the gates of her destination. Big, green iron
+gates, that clanged behind her as she walked quickly forward down a
+winding path into a deep dim garden. There was no more to be seen but
+trees and tangles of flowering shrubs and bushes and stretches of green
+grass, and trees and trees and trees. Some of the trees were so tall and
+old that they must have been growing there when Vasco da Gama first
+found Natal; but there were mangoes and sweetly-smelling orange arbours,
+that could only have been planted a mere twenty or thirty years. The
+magnolia bushes were in bud, and clots of red and golden flowers were
+all aflare. Cacti, spreading wide prickly arms, and tall furzy grasses.
+Cool wet corners had grottos frondy with ferns; other corners were like
+small tropical jungles with enormous palms trailed and tangled over with
+heavy waxen-leaved creepers and strangely shaped flowers.
+
+At last, deep in the heart of this wild, still garden, she found the
+house. A tall rose-walled house, its balconies and verandahs, too, all
+draped and veiled with clinging green. One lovely creeper that clothed
+the hall-porch was alive with flowers that were like scarlet stars.
+
+She broke one of them off and stuck it in the bosom of her gown, where
+it glowed and burned all day.
+
+Then she rang the bell.
+
+After a minute, someone came bustling down the hall and the door opened,
+discovering a stout and elderly coloured woman in a tight dress of
+navy-blue sateen with large white spots. Upon her head she wore a snowy
+_dook_. At the sight of the girl she shrieked, and fell back into a
+carved oak chair that stood conveniently at hand.
+
+"Poppy!" she cried; "and no carriage sent for Luce! What time did the
+steamer come, in the name of goodness me?"
+
+"It's no use asking that question now, Kykie," said the girl grimly.
+"The only thing to do is to send a carriage down at once."
+
+Kykie departed with amazing alacrity, while the girl examined the hall,
+and opening the doors that gave off it, peeped into several rooms.
+
+"Most of the old furniture from the farm!" she commented with a look of
+pleasure. Presently she came to a flight of three stairs, and directed
+by the sound of Kykie's voice, she stepped down them and found herself
+in a large white-washed kitchen lined with spotless deal tables and
+broad shelves. An enormous kitchen range, shining and gleaming with
+steel and brass, took up the whole of one side of the kitchen. Wide
+windows let in a flood of cheerful sunshine.
+
+Kykie, having loaded three Zulu boys with imprecations and instructions
+and driven them forth, had sunk into a chair again, panting, with her
+hand pressed to her heart, and an expression of utter misery on her
+face.
+
+"Don't be so excited, Kykie," said the girl. "You can't escape the wrath
+to come; what is the use of making yourself miserable about it
+beforehand?"
+
+Kykie rolled her big eyes heavenwards; the whites of them were a golden
+yellow.
+
+"His first day home!" she wailed. "They told me at the shipping office
+the steamer wouldn't be in before three. May their mothers----"
+
+Poppy walked round the kitchen, looking at everything.
+
+"You've got all the same nice old copper things you had at the farm,
+haven't you, Kykie? But it is a much bigger kitchen. Which table will
+you let me have to mix the salads on?"
+
+Kykie's face became ornamented with scowls.
+
+"My salads are as good as anyone's," she asserted.
+
+"Nonsense! you know Luce always likes mine best. Come upstairs now and
+show me my room."
+
+"Me? With the lunch to get ready!" screamed Kykie, and jumping up she
+ran to the stove and began to rattle the pots.
+
+"Well, I will find it myself," said Poppy, going towards the door, "and
+I think you're very unkind on my first day home."
+
+But Kykie gave no heed. As a rule she was of a sociable turn of mind and
+under other circumstances would have hung about Poppy, showing her
+everything and bombarding her with questions; but now she was in the
+clutches of despair and dismay at the thought of her neglect of her
+adored master, Luce Abinger, and her very real fear of the storm that
+would surely break over her head when he arrived.
+
+Kykie called herself a "coloured St. Helena lady," but by the fat
+gnarled shape of her, it is likely that she was more than half a
+Hottentot. Also the evidence of her hair was against her: it was crisp
+and woolly, instead of being lank and oily as a proper "St. Helena
+lady's" should be. However, she always kept it concealed beneath a
+spotless _dook_. Her real name, as she often informed Poppy in aggrieved
+accents, was Celia Frances Elizabeth of Teck Fortune; but Luce Abinger
+had brutally named her Kykie, and that was all she was ever called in
+his house. By way of retaliation it was her agreeable custom to address
+her master and Poppy Destin by their Christian names; but Luce Abinger
+only laughed, and Poppy didn't mind in the least. The old woman was
+quite ignorant and uneducated, but she had lived all her life as a
+servant amongst civilised people, and she spoke correct and fluent
+English, tacking many curious expressions of her own to the tails of her
+remarks with an air of intense refinement.
+
+She was often crabbed of temper and cantankerous of tongue, but the
+heart within her wide and voluptuous bosom was big for Luce Abinger and
+all that pertained to him. She had served him during the whole of his
+twenty-five years of life in South Africa; and she was a very pearl of a
+cook.
+
+Poppy found her room without any difficulty. On opening the first door
+on the first landing and looking in, she recognised her books, and the
+faded yellow silk counterpane with the border of red poppies worked by
+Kykie in past days. She took off her hat and surveyed the room with
+contentment. Her cushions were in her chairs; her books in their
+accustomed book-shelves; her long mirror with the slim gilt frame hung
+between two windows that gave upon the balcony; her writing-table stood
+opposite the mirror where she could look up and see herself as she
+wrote. Her brown print of _Monna Lisa_ was above her dressing-table, and
+her silver cross with the ivory Christ nailed to it hung over her head--
+
+                       "To keep a maid from harm!"
+
+There were no pictures on the pale gold walls: only three wonderful
+drawings of herself, done in grey and blue and scarlet chalk on sheets
+of rough-edged common brown paper and fastened up by drawing-pins. These
+were the work of Luce Abinger.
+
+She observed that all the bowls and vases were filled with green
+leaves--no flowers. Kykie and the _boys_ knew that green leaves were
+dearer to her than flowers.
+
+Presently she rose and went to the mirror on the wall. Her hair did not
+quite please her, so she took out two little gold side-combs and ran
+them through it, until it branched out characteristically once more. She
+performed this ceremony on an average of twenty times a day, and always
+with a look of the frankest pleasure at the sight of herself.
+
+"How nice my hair is!" she thought, "and how glad I am that it branches
+out in that fascinating way that just suits my face! If it were any
+other kind of hair, sleek, or smooth, or curly, I should not look nearly
+so charming."
+
+Later she stepped into the balcony. The sun still glared, but the place
+was full of dim coolness, for its roof was massed with clematis and
+Virginia creeper, and heavy curtains of creeper hung from roof to rail;
+but long openings had been cut in the greenery to afford a view of the
+town and sea. Over the tops of the trees, far away below, beyond many
+white houses and gardens and a shining beach, was the Indian Ocean. It
+lay very still and splendid: a vast sheet of Sèvres enamel with a
+trivial frill of white at its edges, like the lace froth at the bottom
+of a woman's ball-gown. When storms sweep the Natal coast, that still
+shining sea can boom and roar and flash like a thousand cannons
+bombarding the town; but on the day that Poppy Destin first looked at it
+from her balcony, it was as still and flat as a sea on a map.
+
+Long, long thoughts were hers as she stood gazing there; and the best of
+them all was that she was back once more in the land where the roots of
+her heart were planted deep.
+
+While she stood lost in her reveries, Luce Abinger passed through the
+garden below, walking noiselessly across the green lawns. He saw her
+dreaming there, in her white gown with the scarlet flower flaming at
+her breast, and his tormented face became even less lovely. At that time
+his mood resembled the mood of Job when he desired to curse God and die.
+
+Poppy, becoming hungry, went down to look for lunch. She found the
+master of the house already seated, beating and jangling his forks
+together, a habit of his when he was impatient. He never touched his
+knives. Poppy had come to the conclusion that, like James I, he had some
+reason to hate and fear naked blades.
+
+"The g-gong has been sounded twice for you," he began agreeably. "Were
+you afraid the view wouldn't be there after lunch?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, Luce. I didn't know you were in, and I never heard a
+sound of the gong. Kykie, you should beat it louder."
+
+Kykie was at the sideboard decanting whiskey. She resembled a person who
+had recently taken part in a dynamitic explosion. Her _dook_ was pushed
+to the back of her head, her eyes stuck out, and perspiration beaded her
+nose and cheek-bones. Several of the buttons of her tight dress had come
+undone.
+
+"Heavenly me!" she retorted in shrill staccato, "you never hear anything
+you don't want to, Poppy." With that she banged the decanter down and
+floundered from the room.
+
+"What can be the matter with Kykie!" said Poppy in a wondering voice.
+What she was really wondering was, whether the fireworks had all been
+exhausted on Kykie's devoted head or whether there would be a detonation
+in her own direction shortly.
+
+Babiyaan, a _boy_ who had been in Luce Abinger's service for ten years,
+waited upon them with deft, swift hands. Poppy gave an inquiring glance
+at him; but though he had also received a generous share of obloquy and
+vilification, his face was as serene and impassive as an Egyptian's.
+
+Some delicious fish was served, grilled as only Kykie could grill,
+followed by cutlets and green peas, and a salad of sliced Avocado pears,
+delicately peppered, and with a ravishing dressing.
+
+Luce Abinger always preferred Poppy to mix the salads. He said that she
+combined all the qualifications demanded by the old Spanish receipt for
+the maker of a good salad--a spendthrift for the oil, a miser for the
+vinegar, a counsellor for the salt, and a lunatic to stir all up. It
+appeared that she sometimes fell short in the matter of salt, but she
+assured him that he had a fine stock of that within himself to fall back
+on, and acids too, in case of a lack of vinegar.
+
+Kykie's salad was very good, and Poppy told Babiyaan to tell her so.
+Later, she also sent a message of praise concerning the _omelette au
+Kirsch_. Except for these remarks the meal was partaken of in silence.
+Poppy, while she ate, observed and approved the old-rose walls, the few
+beautiful mellowy pictures upon them, the dark polished floor and the
+Persian praying-rugs spread sleekly down the room. She looked everywhere
+but at the face of Luce Abinger, for she knew that his devils were at
+him; and as the possessor of devils of her own, she both felt compassion
+and exhibited courtesy in the presence of other people's. She never
+looked at Luce Abinger's face at any time if she could help it, for the
+sight of unbeautiful things always gave her intense pain; and his face
+had the added terror and sadness of a thing that has once been
+beautiful. Its right side was still strong and fine in line; and it was
+easy to see that the mouth, before it was dragged out of drawing by the
+scar and embittered and distorted by its frightful sneer, must have been
+wonderfully alluring. The scar had left his eyes untouched, except for a
+slight pulling-down of the outer corner of the left one where the
+disfigurement began. They must have been strikingly beautiful blue eyes
+once, but now a sort of perpetual cold fury at the back of them gave
+them an odd and startling light. Apart from that, they were eyes which
+it was not good for women to search in. Poppy sometimes thought of them
+as dark and sinister pools from which it was best to retreat, for fear
+of drowning and strangling in strange waters.
+
+Presently Babiyaan brought in the little silver urn and placed it before
+Poppy, and she lighted the spirit-lamp under it and made the coffee as
+she was always used to do in the old white farm. Cigars and cigarettes
+were put before Abinger.
+
+Abinger drank his coffee as he had eaten, in absolute silence. Then,
+getting up suddenly, he bit off a word of apology with the end of his
+cigar, and left the room, Babiyaan following him.
+
+Poppy immediately helped herself to a cigarette, put her elbows on the
+table and began to smoke. Later, she took her coffee and sat in the
+verandah. It was shady and full of deep comfortable chairs. From thence
+she presently saw Abinger emerge from the front door and depart into the
+garden; the closing clang of the gate told her that he had gone out. The
+heat of the day was oppressive. She lay back, staring at the lacy green
+of the trees against the blue, and considering the horrible affair of
+Luce Abinger's devils.
+
+"It is bad enough for me to have to live with them--what must it be for
+him!" was her thought. She had seen his torment coming upon him as they
+neared Africa. Day by day he had grown more saturnine and unsociable. At
+last he spoke to no one; only Poppy, as a privileged person had an
+occasional snarl thrown in her direction. It was plain to her that
+returning to Africa meant to him returning to purgatory; especially
+since he did not intend to go back to seclusion, but to take up his
+residence in this house in Durban, where he had often lived in past
+years. Poppy had gathered from Kykie that before he "got his mark," as
+she curiously expressed it, and went to live at the old white farm,
+Abinger had kept house in Johannesburg and Durban; had lived for a part
+of the year in each house, and was well known in both places. So that
+coming back would cause him all the torture of meeting old friends who
+had known him before his disfigurement. He would have to run the
+gauntlet of familiar eyes grown curious and questioning.
+
+"Why should he have chosen to come back at all to the place of his
+torment?" Poppy wondered. "It would surely have been simpler and easier
+to have settled in Italy or somewhere where he knew no one, and would
+not be noticed so much. It can only be that Africa has her talons in
+_his_ heart, too; she has clawed him back to her brown old bosom--he
+_had_ to come."
+
+As Poppy sat in the verandah thinking of these things, she heard the
+_boys_ in the room behind her clearing the luncheon-table, and talking
+to each other in their own language. Either they had forgotten her or
+they thought she could not hear.
+
+"Where has _Shlalaimbona_ gone?" asked Umzibu; and Babiyaan answered
+without hesitation:
+
+"He has gone to the _Ker-lub_ to make a meeting with _Intandugaza_ and
+_Umkoomata_."
+
+Few things are more amazing than your Kaffir servants' intimate
+knowledge of your affairs, except it be their absolute loyalty and
+secrecy in these matters outside your own walls. Abroad from home their
+eyes and ears and tongue know nothing. They are as stocks and stones.
+They might be fishes for all the information they can give concerning
+you and yours.
+
+Also, whether they love or hate or are indifferent to him they serve,
+they will infallibly supply him with a native name that will fit him
+like his own skin. Sometimes the name is a mere mentioning of a physical
+characteristic but usually it is a thing more subtle--some peculiarity
+of manner or expression, some idiosyncrasy of speech--a man's secret sin
+has been known to be blazoned forth in one terse Zulu word.
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that South African natives are as deep
+in mysterious lore as the Chinese, or as subtle as Egyptians. The fact
+is merely, that like all uncivilised peoples they have a fine set of
+instincts; an intuition leads them to nearly the same conclusions about
+people as would a trained reasoning power. Only that the native
+conclusion has a corner of the alluring misty veil of romance thrown
+over it, while the trained reason might only supply a cold, hard, and
+perhaps uninteresting fact.
+
+Instances are, where the meaning of a native nickname is too subtle for
+the nominee himself--though any Zulu who runs may read and understand.
+If Luce Abinger had asked his servants why they called him
+_Shlalaimbona_, they would have shrugged shoulders and hung their heads,
+with a gentle, deprecating gesture. Being questioned, they would look
+blank; being told to get out and go to the devil, they would look
+modest. Afterwards they would exchange swift dark glances, and smiling,
+repeat among themselves with a gesture of stabbing: "_Shlalaimbona!_"
+Literally this word means--_stab when you see him_. What they meant by
+applying this name to Abinger, God and themselves knew best. Poppy had
+often pondered the reason, but she had never made any inquiries for fear
+it might have something to do with Abinger's scar. For another thing,
+Abinger desired her never to talk to the _boys_.
+
+"Keep them at a distance: they will be all the better servants," was his
+command; and in this, as in most things, Poppy found it wiser to obey
+him.
+
+Babiyaan continued to give interesting information to Umzibu.
+
+"Just as _Shlalaimbona_ was going to get into the carriage, _Umkoomata_
+came to the docks and fell upon him with great friendliness. Afterwards
+they went to an hotel to drink. Then _Umkoomata_ made a plan for meeting
+at the _Ker-luk_ when _Intandugaza_ would be there and others--_Baas
+Brookifield_, he with the curled hair and the white teeth; and that
+other one, _Caperone_, whose wife is like a star with light around it;
+and _Port-tal_, who is always gay with an angry face."
+
+At this juncture Umzibu missed Poppy's coffee-cup, and coming into the
+verandah to seek it, the presence of Poppy was revealed to him. He
+immediately communicated the fact by sign to Babiyaan, and a silence
+fell. Thereafter no more confidences; Poppy was left to speculate upon
+the identity of the person who wore so fascinating a title as
+_Intandugaza_, which name she translated to herself as _Beloved of
+women_. The word _Umkoomata_, too, had a charm of its own.
+
+"That means someone who is very reliable, literally _Sturdy One_. I
+should like to know that man," she thought.
+
+At about this time it occurred to her that she was tired and would go to
+rest in her room a while. She had risen at five that morning to watch
+the African coast and revel in the thought that she would soon have her
+foot on her own land again. The excitement of the day had tired her more
+than she knew. When she looked in her glass to rake the little gold
+combs through her hair, she saw that she was pale. The only colour about
+her was her scarlet ardent mouth and the flower at her breast.
+
+She flung off her gown and plunged her arms and face into cold water,
+then let down her hair with a rush and pulling her chair opposite her
+mirror, she sat down in company she had never so far found
+uninteresting--the company of her own reflection.
+
+She did not put on a wrapper. For one thing the day was warm, for
+another she found great pleasure in seeing her bare pale arms and
+shoulders, and the tall pale throat above them, so slim and young.
+Indeed, there are few more beautiful things in the world than a young
+throat--be it girl's or boy's, bird's or beast's.
+
+The scarlet flower she had plucked at the door she wore now between her
+breasts. She looked at the girl in the glass a long, long time, and the
+girl looked back at her. But it was not the look of the woman who counts
+and examines her weapons, for Poppy Destin was heart-whole; she had
+never yet looked into her glass to see how she was reflected in some
+man's eyes. Always she looked to wonder. The transformation of herself
+from what she had been only six years ago to what she was now at
+eighteen, never ceased to fascinate and amaze her. When she thought of
+the tormented, tragic features she had feared to catch a glimpse of, and
+looked now into that narrow scarlet-lipped, lilac-eyed subtle face,
+crowned with fronds of black, black hair, she believed she must be
+witnessing a miracle. When she remembered her aching, thin, childish
+body, beaten, emaciated, lank, and beheld herself now, long-limbed,
+apple-breasted, with the slim strong grace and beauty of a Greek boy,
+she could have shouted for joy and amazement at the wonder of it all.
+
+Yet in the old white farmhouse where she had found refuge and a
+remarkable education, she had been able to watch with her own eyes the
+change of the famished, wretched little two-leaved seedling into a
+beautiful flowering plant.
+
+She had often thought of herself as one set alone in an arid waste to
+travel where and how she could, with no help from anyone, and who, in
+her terrible travelling had found hidden gifts by the wayside, and
+little pools of consolation to lave her wounds and her weary heart,
+little patches of flowers to refresh her senses--all left there for her
+by the loving forethought of those who had travelled that way before
+her; her beauty, her voice, the grace of her body, her clear
+understanding, grace of tongue, had come upon her as she travelled to
+womanhood--all so unexpectedly; all wonderful gifts hidden deeply away
+until she came suddenly upon them, one by one.
+
+At last, through long thinking and piecing together of many broken ends
+of memory and disjointed scraps of information concerning her family
+history, she had come very close to realising the truth--that she owed
+much of what she was to the sweet simple Irish-women who had been her
+maternal ancestors. If your grandmother has worn a shawl over her head
+and walked barefoot on the bitter coast of Clare with a smile on her
+lips and a melody in her heart, she had something better to bequeath to
+you than money or possessions: her song and her smile will come down
+through the years and make magic in your eyes; her spirit will trample
+your troubles underfoot. If your mother has laid her heart in a man's
+hands, and her neck under a man's feet, and died for want of his kisses
+on her mouth, she, too, will have had something to bequeath: a cheek
+curved for caresses, lips amorously shaped, and sweet warm blood in the
+veins.
+
+And there was more that Poppy Destin did not know. She was only eighteen
+and could not know all her gifts yet--some women never know them at all
+until they are too old to use them! She had unwittingly left uncounted
+her biggest asset, though it was signed and sealed upon her face--the
+sign and seal of Ireland. Ireland was in the frank, sweet eyes of her;
+in the cheek-bones pitched high in her face; in her branching black
+hair; in her soft sad voice, and her subtly curved lips. Though she had
+never seen that sad, lovely land, she was one of its fair daughters:
+there lay her beauty; that was her magic.
+
+Presently she left her glass and going to the load of trunks which had
+been piled up inside the door, she took her dressing-case from the
+summit of the pile, and unlocking it, extracted a little white
+vellum-covered note-book. Sitting down before her writing-table she
+opened the book at random and kissed its pages with a rush of tears and
+a passion that always surged in her when she touched it. For it
+contained the story of her childhood, sung in little broken, wretched
+songs. Her blurred eyes looked from one heading to another:
+
+             "My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea!"
+             "My soul is like a shrivelled leaf!"
+             "The woman with the crooked breast."
+
+This was the title of old Sara's story made into a little song.
+
+Poppy Destin dreamed of being a great writer some day; but she knew,
+with the sure instinct of the artist, that even if her dream came true
+she could never surpass these little studies in misery; these cries of
+wretchedness wrung from a child's heart by the cruel hands of Life.
+
+Nothing had ever yet been able to wipe from her mind the remembrance of
+those days. For six years she had lived a life in which fresh events and
+interests were of daily occurrence; and like a blighted seedling
+transplanted to a warm, kind climate, she had blossomed and bloomed in
+mind and body. But the memory of those days that had known no gleam of
+hope or gladness hung like a dark veil over her youth, and still had
+power to drive her into torments of hatred and misery. Her soul was
+still a shrivelled leaf, and her heart as cold as a stone in the sea.
+She was very sure that this should not be so; she knew that she was
+incomplete. The instincts of her artist nature told her that somewhere
+in the world there must be someone or something that would wipe this
+curse of hatred from her; but she had never been able to find it, and
+she knew not where to seek it. Art failed her when she applied it to
+this wound of hers that bled inwardly. Despairingly she sometimes
+wondered whether it was religion she needed; but religion in the house
+of Luce Abinger was a door to which she found no key.
+
+Often, abroad, she had stolen away and knelt in quiet churches, and
+burnt candles in simple wayside chapels, trying, praying, to throw off
+the heavy, weary armour that cased her in, to get light into her, to
+feel her heart opening, like a flower, and the dew of God falling upon
+it. She had searched the face of the Madonna in many lands for some
+symbol that would point the way to a far-off reflection in herself of
+
+               "The peace and grace of Mary's face."
+
+She had knelt in dim cathedrals, racking her ears to catch some note in
+gorgeous organ strains or some word from the lips of a priest that would
+let loose a flood of light in her and transform her life. But always,
+when the ecstasy and exaltation had passed off, and the scent of incense
+no longer wrapped her round, she could feel again the cold of the stone
+and the rustle of the leaf in her breast. She could hear without
+annoyance the bitter fleers of Abinger at religion and priests and
+churches, and though they offended her taste, could listen serene-eyed.
+She understood very well what ailed Luce Abinger, for she was touched
+with the blight that lay thick upon him. His nature was warped, his
+vision darkened by hatred and evil memories. His soul was maimed and
+twisted in the same cruel fashion that his face had been scarred and
+seamed, and he terribly hated God. Poppy often thought of it as an
+ironical trick of fate, that she and Luce Abinger--just the two people
+in all South Africa, perhaps, who could do least for each other's peace
+and healing--should be thrown together to live under the same roof for
+many years. In some ways they had served each other well. He had made
+his house a refuge for her from persecution, and had been the means of
+educating and bringing her to fine womanhood. She, on the other hand,
+had come into his life at a time when he was on the verge of madness and
+when it meant everything to him to have some interest that would tear
+his thoughts from himself and his disgust of life.
+
+The solitude of the quiet old farm, chosen for its isolated position,
+was lightened by the presence of the young girl. Abinger had been
+diverted to watch the change and development in the small, shipwrecked
+vagabond. Afterwards it had first amused, then interested him, to feed
+her eager appetite for learning. For three years he had taught her
+himself, in strange desultory fashion it is true, but it happened to be
+the fashion best suited to her needs and temperament. He imported from
+England huge weekly packages of books of both modern and classical
+literature, together with every variety of journal and magazine. He
+allowed Poppy the free run of all; only, always she must recount to him
+afterwards what she had read. A sort of discussion ensued, so dominated
+by his mordant cynicism and biting wit that she certainly ran no danger
+of developing any _mawkish_ views of life. This for two or three hours
+daily. The rest of time was hers to read in or wander for hours in the
+lovely silent country, knowing a peace and tranquillity she had never
+dreamed of in her early wretched years. The part of the Transvaal they
+were in was but thinly populated--a few scattered Boer farms, and a
+native mission-house with a chapel and school instituted by a
+brotherhood of French priests of the Jesuit order. These were their
+only neighbours, and they not close ones.
+
+Abinger had chosen his retreat well.
+
+After three years it had occurred to him to leave the farm and go back
+to the world. He had tired of seclusion, and longed, even while he
+feared, to be amongst his fellows again. He was not yet prepared,
+however, to go back to the African haunts that had known him in the
+past, but made for the big open world beyond the seas; and Poppy went
+with him as his sister. Wherever they went he never allowed her to make
+any friends; only when they reached any city or place where he cared to
+stay for any length of time, he at once engaged masters and mistresses
+for her, to continue the education that he had by now tired of
+superintending, but which, for reasons of his own, he wished to perfect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+At five o'clock Kykie appeared with a tea-tray. She had assumed an air
+of calm, and her afternoon dress, which afforded a fine display of roses
+trellised on a bright blue background, and gave her the appearance of a
+large and comfortable ottoman. She cast an outraged look about the room.
+
+"Haven't you unpacked yet, for gracious' sake, Poppy?"
+
+"No, I haven't. Bring the tea over here, Kykie."
+
+She was lying on her bed, which was long and narrow as the path to
+heaven, and yet seemed to have grown too short for her, since she was
+obliged to perch her feet upon the brass bar across the end.
+
+"Then what have you been doing, in the name of goodness me?"
+
+"Nothing ... just thinking ... pour it out and come and sit by me
+here.... I haven't had a word with you yet."
+
+Kykie poured out the tea, and put some little toasted cakes on a plate,
+using her fat, yellow hands with extraordinary delicacy. Afterwards she
+sat in a chair with the things in her lap, waiting until Poppy should be
+ready.
+
+"What is it like here in Durban, Kykie?... How long have you been here?"
+
+Kykie became very important, waggling her shoulders and rolling her
+eyeballs.
+
+"More than six months getting this house ready for habitation ... men
+working in the garden day and night, for it was a wilderness and the
+poor old place all gone to pot, dearest me."
+
+"It looks all right now; I should think Luce was pleased?"
+
+"Never so much as a thank you extremingly."
+
+"Oh well, you know his ways ... but I am sure he appreciates all you do.
+He has often said to me while we were away that he wished you were with
+us."
+
+Kykie looked well pleased at this, but having passed the tea, she waved
+her hands deprecatingly.
+
+"You're just buttering me up to heaven, Poppy!"
+
+"No, I'm not. And he will eat again now he has you to cook for him.
+Abroad he used to eat frightfully little, but to-day I noticed he made
+an excellent lunch."
+
+Smiles wreathed Kykie's wide and dropsical face, and every tooth in her
+head was revealed.
+
+"Dearest me, now Poppy, really? Well! but then I don't suppose they know
+how to cook very well abroad in London, do they?"
+
+"Not so well as you, of course," said Poppy smiling and munching toast.
+
+Suddenly Kykie's face became dolorous.
+
+"Did they look at his mark much, for heavenly goodness?" she inquired in
+a dismal whisper.
+
+"Not so much. You know, Kykie, the world is full of all sorts of
+strange-looking people--especially France and Italy. In Naples, now,
+they didn't take the slightest notice of him."
+
+"For goodness' sake there must be some sights there!"
+
+"More tea. It is lovely to be home again and have you waiting on me."
+
+"Ah! I expect you liked it best abroad in that London, now Poppy?"
+
+"Never. I _thought_ I should, but I had forgotten that my roots were
+planted out here. As soon as I got out of sight of Africa they began to
+pull and hurt ... you've no idea of the feeling, Kykie ... it is
+terrible ... and it always came upon me worst in cities. I used to be
+sick with longing for a glimpse of the big open spaces with nothing in
+view but land and sky ... for the smell of the veldt, _you_ know, when
+it is baking hot and the rain comes fizzling down on it; and the early
+morning wind, when it has blown across a thousand miles of sun-burnt
+grass and little stalky, stripy, veldt-flowers and stubby bushes, and
+smells of the big black patches on the hill-sides where the fires have
+been, and of the _dorn bloems_ on the banks of the rivers ... and the
+oozy, muddy, reeking, rushing rivers! Oh Kykie, when I thought of
+Africa, in some prim blue-and-gold continental hotel, I felt like a
+caged tiger-cat, raging at the bars of the cage!... In Paris and London
+I couldn't bear to go to the big open parks for fear the sickness would
+come upon me.... It was like being a wild ass of the desert,
+knee-haltered in a walled-in garden."
+
+Kykie might have been an amazingly-arrayed copper idol representing
+Africa, so benign and gratified was her smile.
+
+"Tell me some more, Poppy. Where else did you think of Africa?"
+
+"Well, Palermo nearly drove me wild. It has the same hot moist air as
+Natal, and the flowers have the same subtle scents. The big spotted
+mosquitoes bit like terriers and followed us as high as we could go; but
+I couldn't even hate _them_, Kykie, they were so like the wretches we
+have out here--there's been one biting my instep all the afternoon." She
+pulled up her foot, and began to rub the spot gently through her
+stocking.
+
+"I think Norway was the worst of all. The men there have beards and the
+same calm eyes as the Boers, and the people are all simple and kind,
+just as they were on the farms in the Transvaal ... and sometimes on
+the top of a steep still hill I could close my eyes and pretend that I
+was on a wild mountain krantz and the hush of the waterfalls all round
+one was the hush of the tall veldt grasses waving in the wind.... But
+when I looked, and saw only the still green waters of the fjords and
+afar off a glacier thrust out between two hills like the claw of some
+great white monster ... oh Kykie, I could have torn the heart out of my
+breast and thrown it into the waters below."
+
+"Heavenly me! And were there coloured people there too?"
+
+"Not in Norway; but America is full of them, and I hate them for cheats
+and frauds ... for I was always listening and waiting to hear some
+Kaffir or Dutch word from their lips ... and they never spoke anything
+but mincing, drawling American, through their noses, like this, Kykie:
+
+"'Oh say, would _you_ tell _me_ what time this _kyar_ is due to start?'
+
+"Once I saw a boy in an elevated-railway car, who, though he was
+magnificently dressed in navy blue serge and wore a brimmer hat, looked
+so _exactly_ like Jim Basuto who ran away from the farm, that I said to
+him in Kaffir:
+
+"'You had better make haste and come back to the farm, Jim, and mind the
+sheep!'
+
+"He simply stared at me, and said to another _boy_, who might have been
+a Zulu chief except for his clothes:
+
+"'Say, this one looks to me as if she is dippy. I think she is the new
+star at Hammerstein's that _ky-ant_ speak anything but French.'
+
+"Luce was so furious, he used fearful language at the Kaffir, and made
+me leave the train at the next station, and wouldn't speak to me for a
+week."
+
+Having finished her tea and eaten all the bread-and-butter and cakes,
+the girl lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes.
+
+"For gracious' sake, and so you have seen the world!" said Kykie. "And
+now you have come back to the old quiet life?"
+
+"Not at all, Kykie. I'm going to persuade Luce to go about here, and
+meet people, and let me do the same."
+
+"He'll never do it," said Kykie vehemently. "I can see that he is worse
+than ever about his mark."
+
+"But he knows a lot of people here. I don't see how he can keep them
+from coming to the house; and I heard the _boys_ saying that he had gone
+to the Club this afternoon. Surely that is a sign that he is not going
+to shut himself up again?"
+
+"He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come here. He has given
+me strict orders that no one is to come in the front gates; they are to
+be locked and he will keep the key. Everything is to come by the back
+entrance and that, too, is to be locked."
+
+Poppy's face clouded.
+
+"Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old farm with the free
+veldt all round us; but to be shut up in a house and garden--(and with
+Luce's devils," she added to herself),--"even if it _is_ a lovely
+garden!"
+
+Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she held out no hope.
+
+"You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before, with your music, and
+your reading, and writing, and be a good child," she said.
+
+"But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how I've grown up?"
+
+"I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus to rub on your
+breasts any more," said Kykie, eyeing her with the calm candour of the
+native.
+
+Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw a corner of the
+quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.
+
+"For the sake of grace you needn't mind me," remarked Kykie. "Haven't I
+watched you many a moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the
+old _spruit_?"
+
+The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little side glance at the
+old woman.
+
+"I _did_ so want to be beautiful. I would have dived to the bottom of
+the filthiest hole in that old _spruit_ a dozen times a day to make
+myself the tiniest atom less ugly than I was. Do you remember that deep
+part where the water was so clear and we could see hundreds of crabs
+pulling pieces of flesh off the leg of the dead horse?"
+
+"Oh _sis_ yes! I wondered how you could go and look at the stinking
+thing day after day."
+
+"I used to be pretending to myself that it was my aunt they were eating.
+Oh Kykie! I have some dark caves in my soul!"
+
+"And no wonder, surely to goodness. Never will I forget the night we
+opened the door and you fell into the house, all blood and mud, and your
+eyes like a _mal-meit's_[3] flaring and flickering like the sulphur on a
+match."
+
+  [3] Mad-maid.
+
+Poppy covered her eyes.
+
+"Don't talk about it----"
+
+At this time a telephone bell began to ring somewhere in the house, and
+Kykie on her feet in an instant, flew from the room at top speed. She
+came back later to say that Luce Abinger had called up to tell her he
+would not be home to dinner. Poppy was delighted.
+
+"Oh Kykie! that means that he is dining with old friends; and it will do
+him _so_ much good, and he'll want to be cheerful and sociable with all
+the world again, and we shan't be locked up any more," she cried all in
+one breath. "And now you needn't bother about dinner, but come and help
+me unpack, and I'll show you all my clothes and the nice things I've
+brought back for you."
+
+"For me, gracious saints!"
+
+"Yes, for you, you wicked old thing; silks and satins of every shade of
+the rainbow. You need never dress in anything else any more."
+
+They spent an engrossed hour unpacking, and afterwards Poppy dined
+alone, and betook herself to the garden. She knew that she had the whole
+place and the whole long evening to herself, without disturbance, for it
+was a peculiarity of Kykie's that she could not keep her eyes open after
+nine o'clock at night. As for the _boys_, after they had performed their
+duties in the kitchen and stables, their time was their own, and they
+made the most of it elsewhere than within reach or sight of their
+employers.
+
+It was early still, and though the darkness had fallen, the moon was at
+the full, and showed to advantage the solemn splendour of the trees, the
+long soft stretches of sward, and the festooned jungle-like arbours and
+arcades. In many a winding path she lost her way (for the place was of
+enormous extent), and had difficulty in locating once more the house or
+the gate or any point she was acquainted with. Coming to the gate once
+she tried it, and finding it securely locked she shook it with the
+sudden fury of a wild thing that finds itself caged. Then she stood
+still, and presently two great tears rolled down her face; but
+afterwards her wanderings became curiously systematised. Taking the gate
+as her starting-post she commenced a _détour_ of the wilderness, keeping
+to its outskirts and examining as she travelled every inch of the
+enclosing walls. The part which gave on to the main road she found to be
+hopelessly impregnable; it had first a high stone wall with a cresting
+of particularly sharp and jagged bottle-glass; and further, was backed
+by a species of laurel that grew both tall and bushy, and rattled
+aggressively if anyone so much as looked at it. Then came a long
+side-stretch of thick-set green bushes of what she judged--after
+pinching the leaf and smelling it--to be quince, with an undergrowth of
+pink pepper. After penetrating this, in a weak spot, and discovering
+that the outside rampart consisted of galvanised iron, standing
+lengthways and painted dark green, she did not feel so confident, but
+she went bravely on, until at last she came to a gate; it also was made
+of iron and painted green, but though it was unlocked, Poppy did not go
+through it, for she saw beyond, the stables and iron houses that were
+evidently the quarters of the black servants. She could hear their
+voices and the sound of a concertina. Plainly this was the back
+compound, through which all trades-people must make their way to the
+house. No doubt there was an entrance at the other side--but it was not
+for Poppy! She proceeded. The wall continued of the same quality,
+monotonously familiar; then occurred an impassable jungle that it would
+have taken a herd of buffalo to make any impression upon. After beating
+round this for some time, to the detriment of her trailing white gown,
+Poppy pursued her way with a frowning brow and a quivering under-lip.
+Next came a hedge of prickly-pear; she turned her head away from this in
+disgust. Farmers plant prickly-pears round their gardens to keep out
+cattle. It is the most perfect barrier in the world. Certainly, a human
+being _might_ cut his way through it; but he would spend the rest of his
+life picking from his festering flesh tiny invisible white thorns. On
+and on she marched; it seemed to her that the large pale hands of the
+pear-hedge flapped mockingly at her. Sometimes she was obliged to make a
+wide _détour_ to avoid a clump of trees, or a rockery, or a summer-house
+with a pergola leading to it, smothered with vines and passion-flowers
+and roses. It seemed that she walked miles and miles. Suddenly she saw
+light glimmering through a trellised opening, and ran forward. Her hands
+touched cold wrought-iron. It was the front gate! This time, when she
+shook it, she did not cry. Her gown was torn, her hair was loosened,
+there was a scratch on her cheek and blood on her hands, but she
+laughed.
+
+"Ah, my _very_ dear Luce Abinger," she said, "we shall see if you can
+keep a creature of the veldt behind a padlock."
+
+Immediately she recommenced a fresh tour of the garden, and though the
+long hot day and all its incidents must have told upon her strength, she
+seemed to have suddenly acquired fresh life and buoyancy. She had that
+within which urged her on--a taste for liberty. At that time it seemed
+to her that the whole world was too small a place for a free spirit; and
+that if this were indeed the world, she would somewhere find some
+desperate edge and leap over, even if it should be into the abyss of
+nothingness. On this tour she included the arbours and the summer-houses
+in her itinerary. The third one she came to was only a small hut of a
+place, but it had a long spire to its roof, and from thence trailed and
+hung long lines and stalks of the passion plant--everyone knows it:
+vine-leaved, with great round cream-coloured flowers, a purple outer
+ring divided into ten thousand tiny leaves, signifying the crowd that
+gathered to listen to Christ on the Mount; and in the centre,
+mysteriously arranged, like the dishes upon the table of some oracle,
+the three loaves and the five fishes! They call it the grenadilla in
+Africa, and eat its fruit with port wine and cream. Poppy dived in under
+the trailing vinery, and entered the hut. All round it had a low seat
+running, but everything was old and damp and rotten she could feel by
+the touch, and in one place the wood crumbled under her fingers, and
+thrusting her arm forward, she was able to feel that it was part of the
+wall itself; there was no further barrier beyond.
+
+She had found an exit.
+
+For a time she sat still on the cool mossy floor of the arbour,
+trembling a little at the thought of the spiders and strange beasts that
+might be dropping upon her from above. At last she nerved herself to the
+point of pushing and urging and disentangling the thick partition of
+green that kept her in. Her idea was to make an opening without making a
+gap; something she could re-arrange afterwards, leaving no sign of
+disturbance.
+
+At length she was through, and behold! she found herself in another
+garden. Was it a maze too, she wondered rather drearily? A maze without
+an opening? But no, there was a pleasing openness of view about the
+place. A few bushes and trees, a straggly flower-bed or two. Almost
+immediately she came upon a gravelled path; but she did not walk on it,
+choosing rather to follow its direction by way of the grass and soft
+earth which enflanked it. In the natural course of events a house was
+discovered. Quite a simple affair of galvanised iron, painted green,
+with a verandah running all round it and heaps of shrubs and bushes and
+creepers to hide its nakedness. Its front verandah was full of pale,
+heavenly light that was certainly not contributed by the moon; nor could
+the words that came floating over the bushes into the garden, be, by the
+wildest and most poetic imagination, endowed with a heavenly meaning.
+
+"Oh, damn it, I'm sick of this rotten typewriter and everything else in
+the world. I wish Brookie would type his own beastly law-papers."
+
+Poppy approached with the utmost gentleness, and through the screen of a
+bush covered with tiny pink flowers that smelt of musk she surveyed the
+scene.
+
+The room itself was terrible as an army with banners. It contained
+"gypsy-tables," antimacassars, "what-nots," plush fans upon the walls,
+indescribable villainies of wool and paper, a crewel-worked
+mantel-border, and every atrocity under the moon. In the midst of all
+was a good solid mahogany table, with a typewriting-machine on it, and
+seated before this was a girl. For pity of herself Poppy was glad to see
+another girl; and more especially a girl who, like herself, appeared to
+have reason to be bored with her surroundings and the general management
+of the universe. In the enthusiasm engendered by a fellow-feeling, she
+had an inclination to march in and take the girl to her heart, but after
+a further survey she changed her mind.
+
+In a large, ripe fashion, the girl was very good-looking indeed, with a
+tall and generous figure of the kind that attracts prompt and frank
+attention from the generality of men, but is not deeply admired by other
+women. Her face was of a familiar Colonial type, large-featured but
+well-shaped, with big brown eyes, rather inclined to roll, suggestive of
+what is known as "a dash of colour"; a mouth of the kind that expresses
+nothing at all until the twenties, when by the aid of a _retroussé_
+nose, grown unaccountably coarse it suddenly expresses things which
+should be left unexpressed; a round, rather plump chin, and masses of
+dark hair which had been sadly maltreated by curling-irons, and had a
+dusty appearance. On the whole a handsome girl, probably good-natured
+enough for the ordinary purposes, and of a personality pleasing enough
+for an ordinary acquaintance.
+
+Certainly not a girl to be made a friend of, thought Poppy, and decided
+that she would go no further.
+
+"I'll wait and see first if Luce is going to let me out to meet nice
+people," she thought. "If he doesn't, this girl may help to pass away an
+idle hour sometimes, and she might serve as one of the characters in my
+novel. At any rate she could teach me to use the typewriter, and I
+could teach her not to live in a chamber of horrors."
+
+With these reflections she stole back soft-footed in her tracks, and
+through her little exit-hole, which she covered up with the greatest
+care and skill, for fear that in the future it should prove to be her
+only mode of entrance into the world of men and women she longed to
+know.
+
+For a whole week she refrained from broaching to the tyrant of the house
+the subject which lay uppermost in her thoughts. For one thing she
+thought it would be well to allow him to regain some semblance of good
+humour; for another she wished to give him full opportunity and time to
+make daily excursions into the town and lunch and dine with his friends,
+so that she might have some grounds for the reproaches she meant to
+level at him when she demanded freedom. In the meantime she was absorbed
+in affairs which included the inspection and re-arrangement of every
+room in the house, excepting only Abinger's, which she never ventured
+near. Touches of her personality soon lay upon everything, from the
+chintzes in the drawing-room which she had chosen herself at Waring's,
+and sent out to Kykie for the making, down to the curtaining of Kykie's
+own bedroom windows with some cobwebby snowy muslin she had bought in
+Shanghai. She spent several hours every day at the piano, playing old
+Irish melodies, for which she had a passion, and of which she had made
+an enormous collection; but she always waited until Luce was out of the
+house, for he had a peculiar aversion to melodies of any kind and more
+especially Irish melodies. He said:
+
+"There may have been something in them when the strolling poets played
+them on their harps, but since that fellow Moore made them pretty, I
+consider them damned mawkish."
+
+So Poppy kept her melodies to herself. The rest of her time was divided
+between studying literature, writing, dreaming and wandering in the
+garden, which became dearer to her day by day.
+
+At last, one evening, on hearing from Kykie that Abinger would be dining
+at home, she made herself look as charming as possible in a pale maize
+satin gown with a wreath of green leaves on her hair, and went down
+prepared to do battle.
+
+Luce Abinger was already in the drawing-room, standing at one of the
+French windows, staring out into the garden--a sombre, solitary figure.
+She noticed, as often before, how tall and well-built he was, and the
+fine line of his head under the smooth, fair hair. He always looked
+distinguished and well-born in evening-dress. At the sound of Poppy he
+turned, and the lights shining on his maimed and distorted face, showed
+her that he was entertaining at least seven devils. A mental shiver
+passed through her and hope fell several degrees; but she advanced with
+a serene smile and a gay word. She had long ago learnt to control the
+expressions of her face, so that he might not guess the mingled terror,
+pity, and repulsion he often roused in her; and though she knew that in
+most things he had intuition as cruel as the grave, she believed that in
+this, at least, she was able to deceive him.
+
+The second gong had not yet sounded. She sat down at the piano and ran
+her fingers up and down the keys by way of bracing up her nerves.
+
+"Luce," she began, "I hope you are in a good temper, for I want to talk
+to you very seriously about something."
+
+He gave a croaking sort of laugh.
+
+"Oh certainly. I am at my very b-best. It is only necessary for you to
+p-play an Irish melody to have me p-purring at your feet. _Il ne
+manquerait plus que ça._"
+
+This was inauspicious, but Poppy refused to be daunted; and the gong
+sounding at this moment, she rose and put her hand upon his arm, saying
+cheerfully:
+
+"That's right, come along then, we'll talk it over in the dining-room."
+
+His smile was grim. They sat down to dinner, and Babiyaan and Umzibu,
+arrayed in white, hovered over them like guardian angels. Abinger ate
+little and said nothing. Only when the _boys_ were not in the room he
+fixed his eyes on Poppy in a curious way that caused in her a sensation
+of indescribable discomfort and annoyance. Once, for some unknown
+reason, she found herself remembering how she had covered herself up
+with the bed quilt from Kykie's eyes, and wishing that she had it round
+her now. She had never felt like that in a low gown before, and she
+could not understand it at all. For a time it quite unfitted her for the
+task she had in hand, but the idea occurring to her that this was
+perhaps what Luce intended, she plucked up heart again, and with the
+fruit fired her first shot.
+
+"Luce, what are you going to do about getting me a chaperon?"
+
+He gave a little jerk of his fruit-knife, so that she knew that he was
+taken unawares, otherwise he remained undisturbed by what she supposed
+must be something in the nature of a bomb-shell going off under his
+nose. He did not, however, proceed with the business of peeling his
+peach, and on giving him a swift side-glance, she found that he was
+smiling at her. Now, his smile was at no time an alluring affair, but
+when it was field day for his devils----!
+
+"Am I not a sufficiently p-proper and responsible p-person to have the
+care of your young white s-soul?" he inquired blandly.
+
+She knew _that_ mood. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to postpone
+the discussion; but then, sometimes these fits of fury and rudeness
+lasted for months. It was impossible to wait all that time.
+
+"I am not particularly concerned about my soul," she answered
+carelessly, dipping her fingers in the fine Venetian bowl before her and
+drying them delicately. One of Abinger's devils betrayed itself by
+laughing loudly and with character, but she did not even wince.
+
+"Your young white b-body, then?" He pushed back his chair from the table
+with a horrible scrench on the polished floor.
+
+"You talk like some odious sultan, but you forget that I am not a
+slave," she flashed back at him.
+
+She pushed her chair from the table also, and loosening from her wrist a
+little painted inlaid fan which she had bought from a street-seller in
+Algiers, she essayed to cool her flushed face.
+
+"Cigarettes, Babiyaan!" she said. "It is very hot; I think I will smoke
+out in the garden," she finished coldly to Abinger.
+
+But he had risen too, and lounged in the doorway leading to the
+verandah.
+
+"Oh, p-pray let us finish this interesting discussion."
+
+They stood looking at each other for a moment: she, quite collectedly;
+he, smiling with his eyes and sneering with his mouth. Babiyaan, well
+aware that she was not allowed to smoke, knew better than to hand her
+the cigarettes, but placed them on the table and discreetly retired.
+
+"There is no discussion, Luce," she said quietly, though her voice
+contained a tremor. "I simply want you to realise that it is impossible
+for me to go on living like this for ever. It isn't fair...." she added
+petulantly. He said nothing, only smiled. She regained her dignity and
+spoke more gently:
+
+"I am a woman now, Luce, and it is only natural that I should wish to
+know other women--and men too."
+
+At that he laughed raspingly.
+
+"Why d-drag in the women?"
+
+She looked at him scornfully. It was ridiculous of him to pretend that
+men meant more to her than women.
+
+"It is unreasonable of you to expect me to spend my youth in secrecy and
+seclusion, just because you--" she stopped hastily.
+
+"Go on!" he said with a devilish gaiety. "'Just because _you_ happen to
+have a face like a mutilated b-baboon'--was that what you were going to
+say?"
+
+"Oh Luce, you _know_ it was not! Because ... because ..." she stood
+stammering with distress, while he stood grinning. "Because _you_ don't
+happen to care for the society of other people--was what I was going to
+say.... Don't think," she went on appealingly, "that I don't appreciate
+all you have done for me. I remember it every day and every night.... I
+shall never forget it ... and though I know I can never repay you, I
+will show you all the rest of my life how grateful I am.... But I don't
+see what difference it would make to you to let me know a few people ...
+you have so many friends ... surely you know some nice women who would
+call on me----"
+
+He broke out in a harsh voice, smiling no longer. "You are mistaken; I
+have no friends. The whole thing is out of the question and impossible."
+
+"I don't see why it should be at all," she pursued valiantly; "if you
+get me some pleasant woman as a chaperon."
+
+"In God's name what do you want with women?" he burst out. "A g-girl
+like you will never find a friend amongst them. They will hate you for
+your face, and your brains, and your youth.... They are d-devils
+all--lock, stock and barrel.... They'll rip you open and tear the story
+of your life out of you; if they once find out that you are a South
+African they'll never rest until they have nosed out the whole thing,
+and then they'll fling the t-tale to the four winds and the first thing
+you know you'll have your Bloemfontein aunt bearing down on you----"
+
+"Oh Luce! I don't believe they're as bad as all that----"
+
+"Then don't believe it," he retorted, with the utmost rudeness. "But
+understand one thing, I'll have no she-devils round this house."
+
+"Very well, let them be he-devils," she flung back at him. "I am
+accustomed to those."
+
+At that he stamped away from her towards the other door, gesturing with
+rage, and throwing broken words in her direction.
+
+"Isn't my life bad enough already?... Oh Hades!... I wouldn't stand it
+for a minute ... curse all women ... don't ever talk to me about this
+again ... I tell you.... It's monstrous ... a lot of thieves and
+blackguards.... You're driving me out of my own house ... I shall go to
+the Rand to-morrow ... why, by God, I!..."
+
+The door closed with a crash behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+At two o'clock one afternoon Sophie Cornell walked into her sitting-room
+and flung upon the table by the side of her typewriter a great roll of
+MSS. She was gorgeously attired in a hat massed with roses of a shade
+that "never was on land or sea," and a furiously befrilled gown of
+sky-blue silk-muslin. But her face was flushed and heated, and her
+eyebrows met in a scowl of decided ill-temper. Opening a door that led
+through a long passage to the kitchen, she shouted:
+
+"Zambani! Zambani! _Checcha_ now with my lunch. Send Piccanin to lay
+table. _Checcha wena!_"
+
+She flung her hat into one chair and herself into another, and stared at
+a telegram which she spread out before her.
+
+"'Sorry can't come,'" she read, muttering; "'something better turned up;
+you understand!' Yes, I understand well enough! Just like the rotter to
+study her own convenience and throw me over at the last moment. What am
+I to do _now_, I'd like to know?"
+
+She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black _boy_ in a
+blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his knees, who was laying
+a cloth on one end of the table.
+
+"Is there any soda in the house, Piccanin?" she demanded; and when he
+signified yes, ordered him to fetch it then and be _checcha_. In the
+meantime, she rose and unlocked from the sideboard a bottle of whiskey.
+
+Lunch was a slovenly meal, consisting of burnt mutton-chops, fried
+potatoes, and a beet-root salad liberally decorated with rings of raw
+onion. Miss Cornell, however, ate heartily, and enjoyed a
+whiskey-and-soda. She then proceeded to attack a wobbly blanc-mange
+beringed with strawberry jam. Occasionally she demanded of some
+invisible personage:
+
+"And what am I going to do _now_, I'd like to know?" and the scowl
+returned to her brows.
+
+Suddenly, upon the front door which stood slightly ajar fell a soft
+knock. Miss Cornell's hands slipped to her hair, the scowl disappeared
+from her face, and in a high affected voice she called:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+Entered, with a shy and demure air, a girl dressed in the simplest kind
+of dress made of thin black muslin, with a white fichu over her
+shoulders falling in long ends below her waist. Her large white-straw
+hat had round it a wreath of lilac, which was of exactly the same colour
+as her eyes. Her lips were amazingly scarlet.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft, entrancing voice. "I am sorry
+to disturb you at your lunch----"
+
+"That's all right," said Sophie affably; "I'm just done. Do sit down!"
+
+The girl seated herself daintily. Sophie, observing that she wore no
+jewelry of any kind except a ring, in which the diamond was so large
+that it must surely be paste, decided that her visitor must be "hard
+up." She (Sophie) had not much of an opinion of that "black rag of a
+gown" either, but she thought she detected the faint murmur of a silk
+lining as her visitor moved. The lilac eyes looked at her winningly.
+
+"I heard that you had a typewriting machine," she said, "and I wondered
+if you would be so good as to do a little typing for me--" She indicated
+a tiny roll of writing which she held in her hand. Miss Cornell sat up
+with an air.
+
+"Oh, I don't take in work!" she said perkily. "I couldn't be bothered
+with that sort of thing. I'm _sekertary_ to a gentleman who has an
+office down town."
+
+"Lilac Eyes" regarded her calmly and did not seem overwhelmed by the
+importance of this communication.
+
+"What a bother!" said she serenely.
+
+Miss Cornell became languid.
+
+"I get an enormous salary, and I have more work than I know how to get
+through already. Indeed, I am trying to get an assistant."
+
+"Really?" said the other girl. "I wonder if I would suit you?"
+
+"You!" Miss Cornell's face lit up with sudden interest and eagerness.
+She surveyed the other again. _Of course_, she was only a "hard-up" girl
+looking for work, and that air of gentle insolence that Sophie had been
+conscious of, was, after all, only "side" stuck on like the rose in the
+front of the simple black gown to hide poverty. Upon these reflections
+Miss Cornell's air became exceedingly patronising.
+
+"You? Well, I don't know, I'm sure. Can you type?"
+
+"Not at all. But I daresay I could soon learn."
+
+"Oh well! I couldn't give you much salary if you are only a beginner."
+
+"I shouldn't want any salary," said "Lilac Eyes"; but added quickly, as
+she saw the other's look of amazement: "At least, not for some months.
+If you would allow me to use your machine for my own work sometimes I
+should be repaid."
+
+At this Sophie had neither the wit nor the patience to conceal her
+satisfaction. Her haughty air departed and she beamed with delight. She
+had suddenly seen a clear way through a very difficult _impasse_.
+
+"You'll suit me down to the ground," she declared joyfully. "When can
+you move in?"
+
+"Move in?" the other gave her a wondering smile. "Oh, I couldn't come to
+live--only for a few hours every day."
+
+Sophie's face clouded again, but in a moment her eyes took on the
+absorbed look of a person who is rapidly reviewing a difficult
+situation. Presently she said:
+
+"Well, perhaps that wouldn't matter so much if you wouldn't mind
+_pretending_ sometimes that you live here."
+
+The other girl looked puzzled.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
+
+"Well, if there's any chance of you're doing as I ask you, I'll
+explain," said Sophie; "but, of course, I don't want to talk about my
+private affairs if it's no good. There's nothing in the reason for
+_pretending_ that you need object to," she added boldly. "What is the
+reason you can't come and live? Got a sick mother, or an old aunt, or
+something?"
+
+The other hesitated for a moment, then her lovely lilac eyes took on a
+curious expression.
+
+"Yes, I have an aunt," was her odd answer, but Sophie was no acute
+reader of eyes or odd answers.
+
+"More fool you," said she cheerfully. "I'd like to see the old aunt
+who'd get _me_ to support her. Well, all right now, if you think you'll
+come I'll tell you the whole thing."
+
+"Yes, I think I'll come. But as I have said, it will only be for a few
+hours daily; sometimes in the mornings, more often in the afternoons."
+
+"That'll do all right. Have a whiskey-and-soda and we'll talk it over."
+
+"I don't care for whiskey, thank you," said "Lilac Eyes"; "but I am very
+thirsty, and will have some soda, if I may."
+
+Sophie shouted to Piccanin to bring another glass, and pushed the soda
+and lemons across the table.
+
+"Make yourself at home," said she affably; "but I hope you're not one of
+those asses who don't drink!"
+
+"No, I drink if I want to--but not spirits."
+
+"Oh, I know--those old Cape pontacs. Save me from them!" Miss Cornell
+looked piously at the ceiling. The other girl, who had never tasted Cape
+pontac in her life, only smiled her subtle smile.
+
+Sophie seated herself in a lounge-chair, opposite her visitor, and
+crossed her legs, incidentally revealing her smart French-heeled shoes
+and a good deal of open-work stocking through which to lilac-coloured
+eyes her legs looked as though they were painted red. Piccanin meanwhile
+removed from the room the luncheon débris, his bare feet cheeping on the
+pale native matting and his long black eyes taking interested glances at
+the visitor whenever she was not looking his way.
+
+"And now let's get to business," said Miss Cornell. "First of all, you
+haven't told me your name yet."
+
+The lilac eyes were hidden for a moment under white lids, and a faint
+colour swept over the pale skin.
+
+"Rosalind Chard."
+
+"Well, I shall call you Rosalind, of course, and you can call me Sophie
+if you like. Sophie Cornell's my name. Rather pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"Very," said Miss Chard in her gentle, entrancing voice.
+
+"Well, now I'll tell you: I come from Cradock, in the Cape Colony, but
+I've been living all over the place since I left home. First, I went to
+stay with my sister in Kimberley. Have you ever been to Kimberley?
+_Man!_ I tell you it's the most glorious place--at least, it used to be
+before everybody went to Jo ... you know Jo-burg, _of course_?"
+
+Miss Chard shook her head.
+
+"Never been to Johannesburg?" Sophie's tone expressed the utmost pity
+and contempt. "Well, but you're an English girl, I can see. Not been
+long out here, have you?"
+
+"Only a week or so."
+
+"Great Scott! you've got a lot to learn!"
+
+Miss Cornell took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one.
+She then offered the packet to Miss Chard, who did not, however, take
+one.
+
+"Don't smoke either? Och, what! You're not _half_ a good fellow! Well,
+take off your hat, then. Do be sociable."
+
+Miss Chard unpinned her floppy white hat and wore it on her knee for the
+rest of the interview. Sophie noticed the piled-up crown of black, black
+hair; also, the peculiar branching way in which it grew above the girl's
+brows. ("I wonder if she uses bay-rum to make it all dry and electriccy
+like that?" was her inward comment. "And I'll bet she wears a switch.")
+
+"Well, to continue my tale--I had a lovely time in _darling_ old
+Kimberley: dances, theatres, suppers, everything you can think of; then
+my sister's husband must needs go off and buy a rotten old farm at the
+back of nowhere--Barkly East, if you love me! They wanted _me_ to come,
+too, but I said, Dead off! No, _thanks_! I want something more out of
+life than mountain scenery."
+
+Rosalind Chard looked at her and could well believe it. At the moment
+Sophie reminded her of nothing so much as a full-blown cabbage-rose,
+dying to be plucked.
+
+"And so you came here instead?"
+
+"Well, no; first I went to Jo-burg, and I _must_ say I had a heavenly
+time _there_; but--well--it didn't suit my health, so I became
+_sekertary_ to an old snook called Johnson. He had been in Rhodesia,
+poking about in some ancient ruins there, and--oh, my garden
+flower!--the stuff he used to give me to write and type! And the way he
+used to bully me when I didn't get through it! And then complained of
+my spelling, if you please. I didn't stay with _him_ any longer than I
+could help, you bet, though the screw was good. But I _must_ tell you,
+such fun--just as I was going to leave him I discovered from his
+correspondence that he was going up to Zanzibar to make some researches
+for some rotten old society or other, so I stuck to him for another
+month. I thought I might as well get a passage to Durban for nix. So I
+started with him from the Cape, but when the boat touched here, I said,
+Good-bye, Johnnie! Oh crumbs! The row he made when he found me
+trekking!"
+
+The listener's sympathy happened to be with the old snook, but Sophie
+was not asking for an opinion.
+
+"And do you mean to say," demanded the latter unexpectedly, "that you
+would rather live with your old aunt than in a sweet little house like
+this, with me?"
+
+Miss Chard did not mean to say anything at all as far as her own affairs
+were concerned.
+
+"Never mind about me, Sophie," was her reply. "Tell me some more of your
+interesting adventures, and how you came to live in this sweet little
+house."
+
+Miss Cornell's glance shifted from her new friend. She looked out of the
+window, round the room, at the pictures on the wall, at the
+typewriter--anywhere but into the two clear wells of lilac light
+opposite her, as she answered:
+
+"I rent it, of course. I told you, didn't I, that I am _sekertary_ to a
+man down town, named Brookfield. He thinks the world of me, and gives me
+a big salary; and then I get other work from a man called Bramham. Oh, I
+have more to do than I want, and I really _had_ to get help, so I wrote
+last week to a pal of mine up in Jo-burg, and told her to come and join
+me. She promised, and I expected her right up till to-day, when I got a
+telegram, if you please, to say that she'd got something better. Wasn't
+that a low-down trick? And after I had told Brookfield and Bramham and
+all! Brookie gave me the morning off to go and meet her, and I waited
+for the train and found she wasn't in it, and when I got back to the
+office there was the telegram! Fortunately Brookie was gone from the
+office when I got back, so he doesn't know that she hasn't come."
+
+"But why should it matter to him and to the other man whether she comes
+or not?"
+
+Again Miss Cornell's glance took flight.
+
+"Because of the work, of course--there's such tons to do ... and I can't
+get through it all by myself."
+
+Miss Chard watched her narrowly.
+
+"Well, but why do you wish me to pretend that I live here, and am your
+friend from Johannesburg?"
+
+"You see, it's this way ... Brookie and Mr. Bramham take an interest in
+me.... They don't think that I ought to live alone here, and all that
+sort of rot--and if I could show _you_ to them they'd think it was all
+right."
+
+Miss Chard looked startled.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't promise to meet strange men! I didn't suppose you would
+want me to do that or----"
+
+An exasperated look came over Miss Cornell's face.
+
+"You're not going to back out now, after me telling you everything?" she
+demanded angrily, but Miss Chard's scarlet lips took a firm line.
+
+"I don't wish to meet strange people," she said. To her surprise, the
+other girl at once became propitiatory and beseeching.
+
+"Well, but I won't ask you to meet anyone else. I'll keep you a deadly
+secret. And I can assure you that Brookie and Bramham don't matter in
+the least. Brookie is--well, to tell you the truth, he is entirely my
+property; he's crazily in love with me, and he won't bother you at all.
+Neither will Brammie, if it comes to that. He is an _awfully_ nice
+man--everybody likes him, and he's fearfully rich too. He's married, and
+his wife lives in England for her health, they say, but of coarse that
+must be all rot. Anyway, he never goes into society at all--only has men
+friends."
+
+"Well, what does he want here?" asked Miss Chard calmly, watching the
+flushed face before her.
+
+"Nothing--nothing at all. It's only a matter of business, and a friendly
+interest in me, and all that--and, you see, as he employs me as well as
+Brookie, I have to be civil and ask him to tea sometimes."
+
+It seemed to Miss Rosalind Chard that there was more in this than met
+the eye, but she was not able to fathom it at present. However, after
+listening to another long description of Mr. Bramham's inoffensiveness,
+she consented at last to be at the house one afternoon when he called.
+
+"As for Brookie----" began Sophie, ready to open up another chronicle of
+guilelessness.
+
+"No, no! I won't meet Brookie, I absolutely jib at Brookie!"
+
+Sophie became lugubrious. "But he knows that you were to have arrived
+to-day----"
+
+"Well," said Miss Chard decidedly. "Tell him that I came, but that I am
+as ugly as a monkey and as old as the sea. And now I must go, or
+my--aunt will be looking for me. I shall try and come in to-morrow and
+take a lesson on the typewriter. What time will be best?"
+
+"You'll have to teach yourself, my dear. I go to the office every
+morning at ten, and I lunch in West Street, and don't get back until
+above five in the afternoon. But I'll bring you all the MSS. there is no
+immediate hurry for--and you can do it one day and I'll take it back the
+next. We shall get along like one o'clock."
+
+"That's all settled then; good-bye!" Miss Chard had stepped out of the
+room into the verandah and was gone before Sophie could remove her high
+heels from the bars of the chair in front of her, where she had hooked
+them for extra ease and comfort. Inadvertently she listened for the
+click of the gate. But the gate did not click. Miss Chard, having got
+out of view of both house and gate, made a dash for the tall green hedge
+on the right side of the garden. Stooping down, she instantly
+disappeared.
+
+A few moments later Poppy Destin sat in the passion-leaved summer-house,
+delicately smoking a cigarette and brushing all traces of dust from her
+thin black muslin gown. Between little puffs of smoke she presently
+spoke to herself.
+
+"Certainly she is a terror ... a common mind, terrible clothes, Colonial
+slang ... I don't know that I can put up with her at all ... and those
+awful Brookies and Brammies! ... but it will be useful to be able to go
+through her garden whenever I want to make a little excursion into the
+world ... and, of course, I couldn't be there without some right or
+reason ... besides, it will be splendid to learn typewriting, and do all
+my own writing ready to send to the publishers ... but what a room! ...
+and those roses in her hat! Can such things be?... I must go and see
+whether Kykie has my tea ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days later it would have been hard to recognise the sitting-room
+of Sophie Cornell's little green bungalow. Books had spread themselves
+about the room, the tawdrinesses had been removed, flowers were
+everywhere, and a fine vine in a long glass crept delicately up the side
+of the mirror above the mantel. When Poppy had hinted that she would
+like to change the room a little, Sophie had good-naturedly given her
+_carte-blanche_ to do anything she wished, saying:
+
+"It was not _my_ taste either, you know; but the place was furnished
+when I came into it and I haven't bothered to do anything since."
+
+The only things Miss Cornell would not allow to be banished were the
+photographs of her numerous admirers, which she insisted on ranging
+along the narrow wooden ledge running round the room above the dado.
+They were in all degrees of preservation--some of them yellow with age
+or exposure, some quite new; all were autographed and inscribed. Some of
+the inscriptions ran thus: "From your loving Jack"; "To the best girl I
+know"; "To one of the best from one of the worst," etc. It was to be
+observed that the most ardent _mots_ were merely initialled. But Sophie
+was equally proud of them all, and would exhibit them on the smallest
+provocation, giving a short narrative-sketch of each person which
+included the most striking features of his character, together with a
+thrilling account of his passion for her and the reason why she did not
+marry him.
+
+"Now, isn't _he_ good looking? Such a dear boy too ... and _generous_!
+My dear, that man would have given me the boots off his feet ... but
+there--he had no money; what was the good?... He's in Klondyke now ... I
+do hope he'll have luck, poor boy...."
+
+"This is Captain Halkett. No, I don't know his regiment, and he never
+would give away his photos in uniform, though he had some perfectly
+lovely ones.... Someone told me he was a 'cashier' in the Army ... but
+that was silly, of course ... there are no such things as cashiers in
+the Army, _are_ there? ... he simply adored me ... he gave me this
+bangle ... such a darling ... but he was married--or, _of course_----"
+
+"Oh, _that_ is Jack Truman, of Kimberley. Everyone knows _him_ ... a
+fearful devil, but most fascinating.... Isn't he handsome? ... such
+eyes ... you simply couldn't look into them, they made you blush all
+over. The women were all crazy after him, but he told me he didn't give
+a pin for any of them except me.... He wanted me to run away with
+him ... but he had a wife in a lunatic asylum ... obliged to allow her
+forty pounds a month, and he was _dreadfully_ in debt ... they tried to
+arrest him at Cape Town, but he got away dressed like a woman ... and
+now he is in the Australian Mounted Police, they say.
+
+"And, _of course_, you know who this is? One of the biggest men on the
+Rand ... with _thousands_, my dear.... Och! you should see him in riding
+kit ... you never saw any one look so perfectly _noble_ ... he was
+_madly_ in love with me ... everybody said so ... he told me I was the
+only girl who could ever keep him straight ... but he behaved rather
+badly.... I always believe some snake of a woman made mischief ... and
+when he went to England, one of those English girls snapped him up ...
+they live out at Jeppestown now ... and they say she's the _living
+image_ of me ... funny, isn't it?... but I think it just proves how he
+adored me, don't you?"
+
+Listeners of defective vision and an over-developed sense of credulity
+might have believed that Helen of Troy II had come to town--unless they
+had been long enough in South Africa to realise that the best way to
+enjoy a little quiet humour is to take a Cape-Colonial girl at her own
+valuation.
+
+Poppy listened to all with tranquil eyes. She was willing to believe
+that it might be true that Sophie was admired and adored and desired.
+But in the type of men who formed the army of admirers and adorers and
+desirers she could not pluck up the faintest kind of interest. It seemed
+to her that it was impossible that any man worth knowing could forgive
+the size of Sophie's hands and the shape of her feet, the look about her
+mouth, the paint on her face, and the dust in her hair.
+
+She was aware, however, that life in South Africa is too busy and too
+eventful to allow men much time for digging into personality--and that
+it has to suffice, as a rule, if the surface-metal shines pleasantly
+and looks like the real thing. Sophie's surface, no doubt, had an
+attractive glitter, but Poppy felt sure that if anyone with the time and
+inclination for such occupation had ventured to go a-quarrying into the
+nature of Sophie Cornell, the output would be found to be surprising,
+even in a land where surprises are every-day fare and the unexpected is
+the only thing that ever happens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+In the meantime all went well. Secure in the knowledge that Abinger was
+away for some weeks, that Kykie would never search for her except at
+meal-times, every day found Poppy spending four or five hours at her new
+occupation--typewriting. She had determined that she would master this
+art before she went adventuring further into the world that lay beyond
+Sophie Cornell's gate.
+
+Sometimes she would arrive before ten in the morning, in time to see
+Sophie depart, gloriously arrayed, with the air of one due at the same
+garden-party as royalty.
+
+When she inspected the huge rolls of work which Sophie invariably
+brought back, she would sometimes wonder if the latter had indeed been
+to a garden-party and never put in at the office at all, except to fetch
+the MSS.
+
+The little house in the morning hours was always calm and peaceful.
+Through the trees of the garden Poppy could hear the world go buzzing
+by--the grating of the tram-cars on the lines, the clatter of horses,
+and the hiss of wheels going down hill, and an occasional street cry. No
+one ever came down the little pathway. Only the click of the machine,
+the voices of Zambani and Piccanin, busy with the pots and the pans in
+the kitchen and yard, broke the silence; or Poppy's trilling whistle as
+she corrected her proofs. By half-past twelve there would be piles of
+neat manuscript ready for Sophie to take back the next day, and Poppy
+would be speeding home through her own garden to luncheon. Sometimes in
+the afternoon she would finish early, and, going out into the kitchen,
+would toast buns and prepare the tea, and Sophie, coming home at five
+o'clock, would find it laid cool and dainty among flowers on the long
+table.
+
+One day, when Poppy had arrived almost directly after lunch, with the
+idea of getting in a long afternoon at her own work, she was
+disagreeably surprised to find Sophie stalk in a few moments later,
+flushed and handsome, and bringing with her a large bale of papers and
+the faint but unmistakable odour of good cigars.
+
+Poppy's little nose went up and a warmth ran through her; the smell of a
+good cigar unaccountably roused in her a vivid interest in life. For a
+moment she slightly envied Sophie, but a glance at the brilliant languid
+eyes and heavy mouth changed her mind, and singularly inspired her with
+the thought that good cigars were probably often smoked by hateful men.
+
+"Would you like me to order you a cup of tea, Sophie?" she asked
+presently.
+
+"No, thanks!" said Sophie, languidly stretching herself in a chair. "I
+couldn't drink tea. I've had a most tiring morning. Brookie brought Nick
+Capron in, and they simply _wouldn't_ let me work."
+
+After which calmly contradictory statement, she closed her eyes and
+fanned herself with a legal-looking document, chosen for its stiffness
+from among the papers she had brought, and which were now at sixes and
+sevens upon the floor.
+
+At the name "Nick Capron," Poppy gave a little start. How well she
+remembered the day she had heard that name from the lips of a beautiful
+woman in Bloemfontein! Could this Nick Capron possibly be the "most
+fascinating man in Africa" whom the gold-haired heroine was going to
+marry? She must try and discover.
+
+"I think a cup of tea would refresh you, Sophie," she presently said.
+
+"_Och ni vat!_ I can't eat or drink when I get worn out like this--I
+become a perfect wreck."
+
+Poppy surveyed the healthy, not to say opulent proportions stretched
+before her, and could not forbear to smile.
+
+"Oh, you should keep up your strength," she said, with irony entirely
+thrown away.
+
+"The only thing that would be the _slightest_ use to me, now," announced
+Sophie, "is a glass of champagne--and, of course, I can't have that."
+
+Poppy began to pore over her manuscript. She was in the mood for work
+and hated not to take advantage of it.
+
+"I wish I were rich enough to drink champagne whenever I am tired," was
+Miss Cornell's next contribution; and Poppy laughed without being
+amused.
+
+"You'd soon be bored with that."
+
+"Never!" said Miss Cornell fervently; then relapsed into languor.
+
+"I hope those papers are not important, Sophie, they are blowing all
+over the room."
+
+"Yes, they're _very_ important. They're all about a Malay abduction case
+which a friend of Brookie's is defending in the Courts next week. It's
+the greatest fun, Brookie and Capron were shrieking over it this
+afternoon."
+
+"Is Mr. Capron a lawyer?"
+
+"Oh, no--he isn't anything; just a pal of Brookie's. He's a
+Johannesburger, but he has a house here as well, and _tons_ of money,
+and a lovely wife--a perfect stunner, my dear--Brookie says she is the
+loveliest woman in Africa; but Capron has always got his eye on some
+other woman. By the way, Rosalind, to-day he was describing a girl he
+had seen in a rickshaw, and from the description I feel sure it was
+you. Your particular style of beauty appears to have struck him all in a
+heap."
+
+Miss Cornell made this statement as though she thought it humorous,
+which, indeed, she did, for that anyone should admire a girl so unlike
+her own type, and her own idea of beauty which that type represented,
+seemed to her really funny and incredible. Yet she looked intently now,
+and observed, so far as in her lay, "with the seeing eye," and for the
+first time since they had met--the girl before her. Nick Capron's
+unmistakable enthusiasm had made a great impression upon her.
+
+"He said that you were alone in a rickshaw," she told Poppy, "and that
+he and Mrs. Portal were walking together and met you. And Mrs. Portal
+said you looked like a Burne-Jones dressed like a Beardsley poster. What
+rot these society women talk! Who can understand a thing like that?"
+
+"What is Mrs. Portal like?" asked Poppy, remembering now the
+well-bred-looking woman who had been talking about Burne-Jones to the
+man with the dissipated eyes on the day of her arrival.
+
+But Sophie took no heed of the question. She was closely and furtively
+regarding Poppy, and thinking: "Has she any attraction for men, I
+wonder? She's not a bit smart ... and so pale ... and yet, and yet ..."
+Here Sophie's expression of thought gave out. If she could have
+expressed it, she would have added: "She is pale, and yet glows as
+though something within her is alight."
+
+"I hope you did not tell him anything about me?" asked Poppy suddenly.
+
+"No, I did _not_!" said Miss Cornell emphatically, and her annoyed look
+as she said it brought a ring of laughter from Poppy and a lovely
+mischievous glimmer to her eyes.
+
+Suddenly Sophie sprang up.
+
+"Great Scott! I _quite_ forgot to tell you--Brammie is coming to tea.
+That's why I came home so early. Do buck up, old girl, and make things
+look nice. Your papers are all over the place. I want the room to look
+as nice as possible for old Brammie."
+
+"Oh! blow Brammie," thought Poppy crossly. "I was just going to write
+something extraordinarily fine; now it will be lost for ever!"
+
+Nevertheless, she put her papers away with a good grace, tidied the
+room, laid the tea-things--as only she could--and went out to pluck
+fresh flowers for the vases. Sophie stood in her bedroom door buttoning
+a plaid silk blouse over her richly-endowed bosom.
+
+"That's ripping," she said approvingly. "Och! but you _can_ arrange
+flowers--I'll say that for you, Rosalind. Wouldn't you like to run home
+and change your dress, though?"
+
+"No," said Poppy, her head slightly on one side as she surveyed a great
+flaming hibiscus-blossom she had just put by itself amidst a heap of
+green on the mantlepiece. "Why should I change my gown?" she asked.
+"This is quite all right. And the man's coming to see you, Sophie, not
+me."
+
+"Oh, he really _wants_ to see you, and I think you ought to try and look
+nice. I'll lend you one of my silk blouses, if you like."
+
+"No, no, thank you," hastily. "It's awfully good of you, Sophie, but I
+think my gown is quite presentable."
+
+She looked absolutely charming in a pale-blue linen, perfectly laundered
+by Kykie; but Sophie considered anything less than silk very ordinary
+wear indeed.
+
+Poppy began to arrange her hair at the mantel-mirror, pulling out her
+little side-combs, running them through strands of hair, then plunging
+them in deeper, so that great waves leaned out on either side of her
+face and delicate fronds fell veil-wise just over her eyes. Then she
+took a bunch of green leaves and fastened them under her throat with a
+big, old malachite brooch she had.
+
+"Well, put some colour on your cheeks, or something," said Sophie
+discontentedly.
+
+Poppy flew into one of the fierce little rages that sometimes seized
+her. "I will _not_, Sophie! Why on earth should you suppose that because
+_you_ have a violent colour no one admires pale women? Do not make the
+mistake of thinking that everyone adores your type because _you_ do!"
+
+Sophie, utterly taken aback, was about to make a tart rejoinder, when
+there came a light tap with a crop on the front door.
+
+"Anyone at home?"
+
+Sophie flew to her room to complete her toilette, leaving Poppy to
+swallow her rage and open the door. A big, grey-eyed man, with a kind
+smile, was standing in the verandah. He was in riding-clothes and
+carried a crop in his hand.
+
+"Come in," said Poppy, without enthusiasm; adding: "Miss Cornell will
+not be long."
+
+"Are you Miss Chard?" said he pleasantly, and came in.
+
+He looked round in a friendly, boyish way that rather charmed her.
+
+"By Jove! How pretty you've made this place look! It's quite different."
+
+"Ah, I suppose you were here before, when it was a chamber of horrors,"
+said Poppy coolly. "I never saw a more impossible place in my life."
+
+He looked at her curiously as though greatly surprised. Then he said
+carelessly, and rather curtly she thought:
+
+"Oh, yes, I have been here before."
+
+He sat down in one of the easy chairs and Poppy began to put in order
+some books that had fallen from the book-case on to the floor. When she
+turned she found him still staring at her in that curious fashion, but
+without his smile. She missed it because it was a singularly
+heart-warming smile.
+
+"The last people here were rather addicted to antimacassars and
+glass-shades and things," she said, appearing not to notice his curious
+look; "and as it seemed to me a pity to let such things spoil a pretty
+room, I put them out."
+
+"Oh!" was all he vouchsafed. She felt chilled. But here Sophie burst
+into the room, very magnificent and highly coloured.
+
+"How _sweet_ of you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand up to her hair and
+the other outstretched, while her body performed the Grecian bend.
+
+"Rosalind, _do_ see about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure Mr. Bramham must
+be _parched_."
+
+Correctly estimating this as a hint to leave them alone, Poppy retreated
+to the kitchen, and did not reappear until she followed Piccanin in with
+the tea-tray. Sophie was saying, "_Do_ bring him around, Mr. Bramham. We
+should _just love_ to meet him."
+
+Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable curiosity to
+know whom she should _just love_ to meet; but she made no remark; merely
+sat down.
+
+"Shall I pour out tea, Sophie?"
+
+The latter nodded, but made no other attempt to include her in the
+conversation, continuing to monopolise Mr. Bramham entirely.
+
+In a short time Poppy became wearied of this state of affairs. After
+observing "Brammie's" boots, his fingers, his tie, the shape of his
+lips, his hair, the size of his ears, and his manner of sitting on a
+chair (all while she was apparently arranging the cups and looking into
+the teapot to see if the tea was drawing properly), the "eternal
+feminine," which is only another name for the dormant cat in every
+woman, awoke in her. She did not exactly want "Brammie" for herself, but
+she decided that he was too nice for Sophie.
+
+Immediately afterwards, Bramham began to realise that there was a
+charming personality in the room.
+
+"Do you take sugar?" blew like a cool little western wind into his right
+ear; while on his left, Sophie Cornell was bombarding him with
+instructions to bring someone to call.
+
+Poppy got her answer first, and a sudden glance of recognition fell upon
+the slim, pale hands amongst the tea-cups; then:
+
+"Certainly, Miss Cornell! I'll ask him to come, but I can't promise that
+he will. He's not much given to calling."
+
+"Bosh! I know he goes to the Caprons and the Portals--I've seen him with
+that horrid Mrs. Portal."
+
+"Ah! you don't admire Mrs. Portal?"
+
+"I don't see anything to admire," said Sophie. "She is not a bit smart,
+and her hats are simply awful!"
+
+"She is considered one of the most delightful women in South Africa,"
+said Bramham.
+
+"Oh, she may be," Sophie's air was unbelieving; "but I don't see where
+it comes in."
+
+She took her tea sulkily from Poppy's hand. Bramham looked bored. The
+little western wind blew again in his ear.
+
+"Perhaps her charm is not to be seen. Perhaps it is an essence--a
+fragrance----"
+
+Sophie scoffed at what she did not understand.
+
+"Oh, you and your old poetry----"
+
+"That's just what it is," said Bramham. "There's an odour of happiness
+about her that infects everyone who comes near her--no one cares a hang
+about what she wears or anything like that."
+
+"Well, I don't like her, anyway," said Sophie, now thoroughly
+ill-tempered, "and I don't see why you do. She's covered with freckles."
+
+That should have ended the matter, but Poppy's taste for torment was
+whetted.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Bramham doesn't know her as well as you do, Sophie," she
+said softly.
+
+Sophie glared. Mr. Bramham looked amused. They all knew that Mrs. Portal
+could never be anything but a name to Sophie--that it was really an
+impertinence on her part to be discussing Mrs. Portal at all.
+
+"Do _you_ know her?" she retorted rudely.
+
+"Of course not!" answered Poppy. "I know no one in Durban except you,
+Sophie--and now Mr. Bramham," she smiled, a sudden smile of great
+sweetness at Bramham, and at that he gave her his whole attention.
+
+"That's dull for you, surely!"
+
+"Oh, no! I have plenty to do; and books to read; and how can one be dull
+in such a lovely place as Natal?"
+
+The sun came out in Bramham. He was a Natalian and proud of it.
+
+"I believe she gets up in the morning and goes out to see if the sun
+rises!" said Sophie, as if denouncing the conclusive symptom of idiotcy.
+
+The cold look with which Bramham had at first surveyed Poppy had now
+quite disappeared, and his grey-eyed smile was all for her. He also was
+a sun-rise man.
+
+"Do you like books?" he asked. "I can lend you any amount. We get all
+the new ones, and as soon as they're read the Lord knows where they go!
+I'll send you some up, if I may."
+
+"Thank you, that _will_ be good of you," said Poppy with enthusiasm.
+
+"Send her up all the old poetry books you can find," jeered Sophie.
+"Personally, _I_ like a jolly good yellow-back."
+
+Mr. Bramham looked extremely bored by this priceless piece of
+information, and more so still when she returned immediately to the
+subject of the men she was anxious to meet. Poppy got up and, opening
+the piano, began to play a little gay air to which she whistled softly;
+she never sang.
+
+"I'm just _dying_ to know him," said Sophie ardently. "He looks as
+though he has committed every sin you ever heard of. And how _did_ he
+get that fearful scar right across his face? Vitriol?"
+
+The little air at the piano stopped suddenly.
+
+"I really couldn't tell you. He is not communicative on the subject,"
+said Bramham drily. "But perhaps he will unfold to you--do go on
+playing, Miss Chard!"
+
+He adored music, and had an excellent view of an extraordinarily pretty
+pair of ankles under the music-stool.
+
+Poppy complied, but she changed the air to something savage that made
+Bramham think of a Zulu war-chant.
+
+"Well, I shall certainly ask him when I meet him. I wonder you haven't
+been able to find out! He lives with you, doesn't he?"
+
+"He is staying with me, at present, yes." Bramham's tone was full of
+weariness.
+
+"And that dark, strange Irishman everyone is talking about--Carson--he
+is staying with you, too, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are they great friends?"
+
+"We all know each other very well."
+
+Miss Cornell laughed genially.
+
+"I should say you do--isn't it true that you are called the three bad
+men all over Africa--come now?"
+
+"I'm afraid someone has been filling your head with nonsense. Who
+spreads these stories, I wonder?"
+
+"Ah, yes, that's all very well, but you know it's true, all the same.
+You are three dangerous, fascinating men, everyone says so, and the
+Kaffirs have names for you all. What is yours, Mr. Bramham?"
+
+"Kaffirs have names for everybody if one had time to find out what they
+were."
+
+"Oh, I know--_Umkoomata_--that's what they call you. Now, what
+wickedness can that mean?"
+
+"Who tells you these wonderful things, my dear young lady? You really
+have a lot of inside information about everything. You should start a
+newspaper." Bramham was slightly exasperated.
+
+"Oh, I know a lot more besides that," said Miss Cornell, shaking her
+finger at him archly. "About you, and Mr. Carson, too. He is going up on
+a secret expedition into Borapota for the English Government, isn't he?"
+
+"_Very_ secret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How the devil do these
+things leak out?"
+
+"Something or other, yes," he said aloud.
+
+"They say the English Government thinks an _awful_ lot of him."
+
+"Yes, he's a clever fellow," said Bramham, casually. No one would have
+supposed him to be speaking of a man dearer to him than a brother.
+Bramham did not wear his heart where it could be pecked at by the Sophie
+Cornells of the world.
+
+Poppy got up from the piano, and Bramham got up, too, and looked at his
+watch.
+
+"I must be off," said he, with a great air of business-hurry, which left
+him as soon as he got out of the gate.
+
+"Now, don't forget to bring Mr. Abinger next time," Sophie called after
+him from the verandah; "and that Mr. Carson, too," she added, as an
+afterthought.
+
+Poppy positively blushed for her.
+
+"Sophie, how can you! It was perfectly plain that he did not want to
+bring the man--and that he doesn't intend to, anyway. Are you really as
+dense as you pretend to be?"
+
+"Bosh!" said Sophie, retiring to the table and beginning to make a fresh
+onslaught on the bread-and-butter. "They'll turn up here in a day or
+two, you'll see. Isn't there any jam, I wonder?"
+
+"I shall not see anything of the kind. I wash my hands of you and your
+men friends. I didn't engage to meet anyone but Mr. Bramham, and I've
+done all I promised."
+
+She had done a little more than she had promised, as she very well knew,
+but observation was not Sophie's strong point, as her next remark made
+plain.
+
+"Now, don't be cross just because he didn't admire you. I told you to
+put on my silk blouse, didn't I?"
+
+Poppy laughed her entrancing laugh.
+
+"Do you really think men care for clothes, Sophie?"
+
+"Of _course_ they do! They love to see a well-dressed woman--especially
+when they don't have to pay for the dress. Lots of men won't even be
+_seen_ with a woman unless she's _perfectly_ turned out. Brookie is like
+that; and I'll bet that man Abinger is, too!"
+
+"Is he, indeed! Then remove him far from me. I'm afraid you won't suit
+him, either Sophie," with a touch of malice.
+
+"Why not? Don't I pay enough for my clothes? I dress far better than
+Mrs. Portal does, anyway. She always has on faded old linens and things,
+and I've only seen her in two hats since I came here--both of them
+_awful_!"
+
+"I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her."
+
+"Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear. _I_ think she is a frump.
+Capron's wife now _is_ good looking, and always dressed
+mag-_nif_-icently. But it makes a person sick to see the way they freeze
+on to all the decent men and never let them meet anyone else."
+
+"But do the men want to meet anyone else? If one woman is witty, and the
+other pretty, what more is there to be desired?"
+
+"You talk like a book with all the pages torn out, and the cover lost,"
+said Sophie irritably.
+
+Poppy laughed provokingly, and lay back in her chair, thinking--the
+whole thing was rather amazing. Abinger still here, and moving amongst
+pretty and witty women, whilst he pretended to be up in the Transvaal!
+His friend _Umkoomata_ the _Sturdy One_, whom she had told herself she
+would like to know, here too, visiting Sophie Cornell, whom he plainly
+didn't like. Nick Capron! How odd the world was! She began to ponder
+about _Intandugaza_, too--whether he was the mysterious dark Irishman
+who went on secret expeditions----
+
+"_Man!_ Rosalind," broke in Sophie suddenly. "That fellow Abinger is
+just crazy to meet me. We ran into each other as I was coming out of
+Brookie's office yesterday, and he gave me a look that made me go hot
+all over. He's got those bad eyes that make you feel curly all down your
+spine--_you_ know!"
+
+Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance of certain recent
+sensations still burning within her, she could not say that she did
+_not_ know; but her mouth expressed weariness and disgust.
+
+"It seems to me that you are talking about some kind of brute, Sophie,"
+she said.
+
+"Brute! Oh, I don't know," said Sophie, and laughed. The laugh sent
+Poppy out of the room with her teeth in her lip.
+
+"I can't stand Sophie any longer," she said to herself in her own
+garden, looking at the rose-red walls of the house and the flaming
+flowers on the plant before the door. As she went indoors her thought
+changed; she began to smile subtly to herself.
+
+"So Luce is in Durban all the time! He simply pretended to go away, to
+avoid discussing that matter of going out with me! And Mrs. Nick Capron!
+If I were to go out here, should I meet her? And would she recognise in
+me, I wonder, the little wretched vagabond of six years ago?"
+
+She reached her glass, and looked in.
+
+"I think not."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bramham and Carson sat smoking in the verandah of Sea House. Before
+them, not two hundred yards away, lay the sea, washing and rippling on
+the beach under the full of the moon. Behind them, through the open
+French windows a number of large woolly moths were _buzzing_ in and out,
+much intrigued by the light that shone through a pink silk lamp-shade,
+which had been made and presented to the establishment by Mrs.
+Brookfield, on the occasion of her husband's accession to Bramham's mess
+for six weeks. The electric-lights had been turned out to keep the room
+as clear as possible of insects. It was Bramham's house, and they were
+Bramham's native servants who stepped so gently, removing the
+dinner-things deftly without clamour, making no sound but the rustle of
+bare feet on polished boards and an occasional softly-spoken Zulu word.
+
+Bramham's household included no woman, but there was no better-appointed
+one in Natal. Having laid bare the gleaming oak dining-table, one of the
+_boys_ solemnly spread down its centre a strip of silver embroidery,
+while another placed two silver bowls of roses at each end, and removed
+the lamp with the pink shade to a side table. Afterwards the ice-bucket
+was replenished and fresh glasses placed near the spirit-tantalus.
+
+Having performed these duties with the greatest decorum and ceremony,
+they withdrew silently to the back regions of the house, where their
+solemnity slipped from them as suddenly as water slips from a Kaffir's
+skin. They disported themselves amongst the pot-washers and dish
+cleaners, the cooks and stable-boys, with many a merry snicker and
+laugh, chattering like magpies, clicking and clacking, and crying "Hah!"
+over the affairs of the _Old Baas_ (the master of natives is always
+_Old_ whatever his age) and the various other _Baases_ who sat at
+Bramham's board with regular irregularity.
+
+Ha! ha! where was _Shlalaimbona_ to-night, they inquired among
+themselves. It is true that he would sleep here in the house of the _Old
+Baas_, as he had now done for many nights, but where did he eat
+to-night? In the house on the hill, where a white star was hidden by day
+and by night?
+
+No; the information was forthcoming that he dined to-night at the house
+of Por-tal--he who was gay always with an angry face and had the wife
+whose hands could smooth away troubles.
+
+And where, the cook particularly desired to know, was _Bechaan_? He whom
+the world called Brookfield--who had slept in the house of _Umkoomata_
+for the matter of six weeks now? Where was he to-night? Followed the
+tale of the return of Mrs. _Bechaan_, with particulars amazing.
+
+_Vetta_, Carson's personal servant, gave an imitation of the lady, from
+which might have been gathered that her chief characteristics were a
+kangaroo-walk and a face which in contour and complacency resembled a
+camel's.
+
+In the meantime, _Umkoomata_ and _Intandugaza_ smoked in the verandah,
+which was like the deck of a yacht, broad and white-planked, and lined
+with a long row of every kind of easy-chair, a Madeira lounge, and a
+hammock with Union-Jack cushions.
+
+Carson, with his head far back in a canvas chair and his hands behind
+it, was smoking a cigar at the mosquitoes, sending them in shrieking
+swarms to roost in the roof. Incidentally, he was trying to persuade
+Bramham that the fine weather indicated a three-weeks' trip into
+Zululand, to get some good shooting.
+
+"I have another three weeks to put in, Charlie, and what is the good of
+loafing here, at a loose end?" He gave a glance at Bramham seated by
+him, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, the picture of health and
+well-being. "And you are looking really seedy. A trip would do you
+good."
+
+Bramham immediately began to think himself precariously ill.
+
+"I know," said he uneasily; "I feel confoundedly slack. I must take a
+dose of quinine to-night. A trip would be just the thing to set me up,
+damn it!" He stared at the moonlit night, his eyes full of a wistfulness
+that was extraordinarily boyish in a man on the wrong side of forty. He
+thought of a lovely spot he knew up on the Tugela, where the moon would
+just be rising over a great Kop, and he seemed to smell the wood fires
+on the night air----
+
+"But I can't get away. I've got a big case coming on next month, you
+know." His face changed, the boyishness passed and the business-man
+reappeared. "Those fellows in Buenos Ayres are trying to do me up for
+five thousand."
+
+They smoked in silence for a moment or so, then Bramham continued:
+
+"My lawyer, of course, wants to see me almost every day on some point or
+another. I really couldn't get away at present, Carson. Why not take a
+run up to the Rand? By the time you are back I'll have those fellows on
+toast, and then we'll go off for a few weeks."
+
+"No," said Carson discontentedly, "everything is confoundedly dull on
+the Rand. I was sick of the place when I was there last month."
+
+"What's wrong with it?"
+
+"It is not the same as it was, Charlie. The old crowd has all gone away
+or gone to bits--Webb is in the Colony; Jack Lowther is mostly engaged
+(I think) in praying that his wife won't be too much for him when she
+comes out--she is on the water! The Dales are away. Bill Godley is up
+Inyanga way. McLeod's finances are in bits, and he's too busy keeping a
+stiff lip to be sociable. Clewer is now Public Prosecutor and has become
+a saint. Little Oppy has gone home. Solomon says he has met the Queen of
+Sheba at last, and expects that to account for his never being in
+evidence anywhere except in the stage box of the Standard Theatre."
+
+"Oh, damn it! disgusting!" commented Bramham.
+
+"And, anyway, the Rand air always chips the edges off my nerves, Bram.
+It's too high. Lord knows, I don't feel any too fit now! I believe I
+have another go of fever coming on."
+
+Bramham looked at him critically and affectionately. "You _do_ get some
+doses, but I hope you're not in for another, Karri!" he said. "By Jove!
+When South African fever puts her loving arms round a man she clings as
+only fever and a woman can."
+
+Bramham's face was clouded, but there was no real bite in his words. He
+had no quarrel with the clinging arms of women, or of fever. But he
+blamed these things for the look of bitter discontent and cynicism that
+lay across the beauty of the fine face beside him. Carson wore in his
+eyes the look, and round the mouth the marks, of one who has "wearied of
+every temple he has built"; or, as Bramham's thought expressed itself
+with no great originality, yet not without point--the look of a man who
+has got to the core of his apple and finds it rotten.
+
+"It's that look," Bramham told himself, "that gives women an instinct to
+comfort him; while if they had only let him alone from the first, maybe
+it wouldn't be there at all! And you can't comfort a man for his soul's
+bitterness, as though he has the stomach-ache. Besides which, Karri
+takes to comfort badly; he'd rather get a smack in the teeth any day
+from someone he can hit back!"
+
+Thus Bramham, musing and staring at the sea. In spite of its marred
+beauty, Carson's face seemed to him finer than that of any man he had
+ever known--and he knew most men of any consequence in South Africa.
+Meanwhile Carson, giving him another glance, wondered what kept him
+quiet.
+
+"Thinking of some woman, I suppose!"
+
+Presently Bramham did turn his mind to his own affairs.
+
+"I want your advice about something, Karri."
+
+"Fire away, Bram; let's hear all about her."
+
+At this Bramham, for reasons of his own, became slightly annoyed.
+
+"Don't be an ass, Carson."
+
+"Don't be a rake-hell, Bram. You know quite well you are always at some
+apron-string."
+
+Indignation dried up Bramham's eloquence.
+
+Carson mocked him further.
+
+"Why don't you lay the 'deadly doing' down, before it lays you out?"
+
+"Take your own excellent advice, my dear fellow. Or give it to Abinger;
+perhaps he needs it," said Bramham.
+
+"Poor old Abinger! I don't think it would be of much use to him. He
+scarcely does much 'roving by the light of the moon' these days."
+
+"Good Lord, no! the less moon the better in his case!" said Bramham
+grimly. "Where the deuce has he been all these years, Karri?"
+
+Carson shrugged.
+
+"Not much doubt about where he has been! He could give us some vivid
+inside information about the slow-fires that consume."
+
+They smoked a while in silence. Later, Bramham said:
+
+"Whatever Carmen Braganza found to do, she did it well! She told me that
+it had only taken her six months to learn to dance as she did--and _you_
+know how she danced! And, I suppose, if she had studied her man for a
+hundred years, instead of three months, she could not have got in a
+subtler revenge on Abinger--laying waste his looks like that! It's hard
+to believe what a magnificent specimen he was; and how mad the women
+were about him! Bah! it was a foreign devil's trick!"
+
+"But she _was_ a foreign devil. That was the point Abinger lost sight
+of."
+
+"Did you ever hear who the other woman was, Karri?"
+
+"Never. It was an amazing thing that it never leaked out, considering
+that the whole Rand was nose to trail. But the fact was, I suppose, that
+no one knew who she was except Abinger and his old housekeeper."
+
+"_And_ Carmencita herself. She swore to me afterwards that she had
+sprung upon them from behind a curtain in Abinger's room and slashed his
+face open before the other woman's eyes. Why she kept silence God only
+knows! More foreign tricks probably."
+
+"The other woman must have felt mighty uncomfortable all the months
+after, while Carmen stayed on dancing, and everyone was hot to find
+Abinger and get to the bottom of the mystery. There is no doubt that if
+he hadn't disappeared so neatly afterwards the police would have found
+some ground for rooting out the whole scandal for the public benefit,
+and the other woman's name would have been thrown to the beasts!"
+
+"Perhaps that was what Carmen was waiting for!"
+
+Carson got up to get another cigar and the subject dropped. When he came
+back Bramham reverted to his own troubles.
+
+"Colonial girls don't interest me at any time," he proclaimed
+aggrievedly; "especially the adventuress brand. I didn't think that
+even I was such an idiot as to get tangled up with one."
+
+Carson stared straight before him with a smile at the sea.
+
+"This girl is Brookfield's typewriter--confound him!"
+
+Carson's satirical eyebrows moved, but he said nothing.
+
+Bramham continued:
+
+"A tall girl, with a fine figure and a high colour--but what has that
+got to do with me?"
+
+"What, indeed?" an ironical echo from the canvas chair.
+
+This irritated Bramham.
+
+"If you think you're going to hear a tale of love you'll be
+disappointed. Nothing of the sort. It's a matter of highway robbery, if
+it's anything."
+
+Karri began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, come, Bram! This is not like you!"
+
+Neither was it. If Bramham made alms and oblations on strange altars, he
+was the last man to talk about it afterwards, or sigh over the stub-end
+of his cheque-book even with his closest friend. At this time, however,
+he was too much taken up with his grievances to defend his principles to
+Carson.
+
+"I don't say the girl isn't good looking," he now interpolated, as one
+who wishes to be quite fair and square; "and she _may_ be a good girl,
+for all I know," he added doubtfully.
+
+Carson grinned.
+
+"Any way, I'm quite sure the other girl is straight."
+
+"Great God of War! Are there two?"
+
+"What a fellow you are, Carson!" said Bramham peevishly. "Of course
+there are two, but the other one is quite different--English, I think;
+anyway, she's no Colonial. I don't know what to make of it, to tell you
+the truth, Karri. She's a friend of that Cornell girl and _that's_
+against her; yet she looks good----"
+
+"Do you mean that she is unlovely?" asked Carson with a wry smile.
+
+"No, I don't!" emphatically. "But the odd thing is that she didn't
+strike me at all at first; except as being bright and alive-looking--not
+like some of the dead ducks you see around these parts sometimes--then
+suddenly right under my eyes she blossomed out. You never saw anything
+like it--eyes, hair, feet, hands, everything--perfect; and her voice a
+melody."
+
+This was the most astonishing tale of highway robbery Carson had ever
+heard.
+
+"What next?" asked he.
+
+Bramham beat the bowl of his pipe against the balcony rail.
+
+"Cursed if I know what next!" he proclaimed. After a pause he added: "I
+wish you'd come and help me sift it out, Karri."
+
+Carson shrugged; his face grew a little weary.
+
+"I am not particularly interested in girls, Bram; I'm afraid I couldn't
+help you much."
+
+Bramham might have made a rude retort, but he didn't. He got up and
+leaned against a pole of the verandah, facing Carson.
+
+"Well, I should like to have had your opinion, Karri. What with that
+girl with the saint's eyes, and Brookfield's slippery ways----"
+
+"But where does Brookfield come in?"
+
+Bramham did not answer immediately. He appeared to be turning it over in
+his mind as to whether he should tell that part of the story at all.
+Eventually he roused himself to a point of indignation when he _had_ to
+tell.
+
+"Well, now, look here, Karri--this is the whole thing: About a month ago
+Brookfield came to my office with a yarn about his typewriter--pretty
+girl--good girl--knew her business, but fearfully poor, and he hadn't
+enough work to keep her going--would I give her some of my typing? It
+meant bread-and-butter to her, etc. _Of course_, I said 'Right!' But
+when it came to finding the work for her ... well, Milligan, my head
+man, put it to me that it meant taking away the typewriting from our own
+man, who can't do anything else, and has a wife and family ... and when
+I thought it over, anyway, I kicked at having a woman about the office.
+However, as I'd promised Brookfield to do something, I went round to see
+him about it and met the girl--Miss Cornell. I didn't take to her much;
+but she's poor, you know, and something had to be done to help her out."
+
+"I don't see what business it was of yours at all."
+
+"Karri, it's everybody's business when a woman's down on her luck--even
+if she has the shifty eye of Miss Sophie Cornell. All the same, I didn't
+contemplate having to tip up three hundred pounds, and I feel deuced
+sore about it."
+
+"Three hundred _what_?" cried Carson.
+
+"Well, look here, what was I to do?" said Bram sullenly. "Brookie
+badgered me into promising to do something; then the girl said she had a
+friend who wanted to come and join her, and if they could only get a
+little hole of their own they could set up an agency and take in work.
+Presently Brookie heard that some people called Lumsden were going to
+leave, and wanting to sell up their cottage--offered to sell the whole
+bag of tricks as it stood for three hundred, and Brookie said he would
+stand in for half if I would for the other half. I wasn't prepared to
+plank down one-fifty by any means, but the Cornell girl got hold of me
+and pitched me a long story about her friend, an English girl, who had
+got left in Kimberley by some people she was governessing for ... also,
+she was so full of gratitude about all our plans for them, that before I
+knew where I was I had promised. Well, Brookie asked me to arrange the
+thing quietly and take the house over from the Lumsdens in my name, as
+he didn't want to appear in the matter, because Mrs. Lumsden's sister at
+the Cape is a great friend of his wife's and he was afraid it might get
+to her ears. So I paid Lumsden one-fifty down on the nail, and the rest
+was to be paid in a month, and Miss Cornell settled in and the other
+girl turned up from Kimberley, and they've made the place all snug and
+seem as happy as sandboys. In fact, everything was going all right until
+this afternoon, when Brookie looms up with a face as long as a horse's,
+and says he's not prepared to pay the other one-fifty."
+
+"The little blackguard!"
+
+"Exactly. Just what I said to him. He said: 'Not at all!' Declared he
+hadn't let me in for anything.... I could get three hundred pounds any
+day of the week for Lumsden's place.... Just as if I could, or would,
+turn those two poor girls out now they're so happy! So, of course, I've
+just got to tip up the rest of the money and look pleasant ... and,
+after all, you know, Karri, why should I?... They're nice little women,
+and all that, and I'd gladly have done something, but three hundred!...
+I've troubles of my own, by Jove!... My wife doesn't live on Quaker Oats
+and barley water, by any means."
+
+"And then there's the pleasure of knowing you've been rooked. I never
+heard of such a piece of barefaced roguery in my life."
+
+"Well, what could I do? He said his wife was coming back unexpectedly
+and he couldn't raise the money."
+
+"You're three hundred different kinds of fool, Bram, if you let him rook
+you like that."
+
+"He's been too clever for me," grumbled Bramham, and shut his mouth on
+his pipe.
+
+"H'm! Mind the girl's not too clever for you too."
+
+A plaintive expression came into Bramham's face, mingled with
+irritation; he took his pipe out again.
+
+"My dear Karri, don't I tell you that I have nothing to do with the
+girl, or she with me? I was sorry for her and helped her out of a hole,
+and there the matter ends. I don't really regret the money--because of
+that other girl--but as you know, I am not a millionaire, and three
+hundred _is_ three hundred. What annoys me is that I should have been
+such a fool----"
+
+"Why did you pay? I should have refused."
+
+"Oh no, you wouldn't, because the women would have had to get out. No,
+that would never have done."
+
+"Well," said Carson, getting up and walking down the long verandah.
+"It's just as well that Mrs. Brookfield has come back. I wouldn't live
+in the house with Brookfield after this." He went indoors and began to
+negotiate a whiskey-and-soda.
+
+"Oh, come, I say, Karri!" Bramham got up and came and leaned in the
+doorway, one leg in the room and one in the verandah. "This isn't your
+affair, you know. Don't you get your back up about it. I've really no
+right to have told you; but you understand that I've been a good deal
+annoyed, and it's been a relief to speak of it. Of course, if Brookie
+had been here I should have gone into his room and blazed away at him
+after dinner and got rid of it that way. As it is, I feel better and
+there's no harm done. By Jove! what a glorious moon! Let's go for a
+tramp before we turn in."
+
+"Right!"
+
+They fortified. Later, without hats, they tramped off along the shining
+sands silvered by the light of a shimmering moon gazing at herself in
+the sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brookfield's wife having returned, he came no more to Sea House. But he
+hailed Carson blithely at the Club next day.
+
+"What do you say to a drink, Karri?"
+
+"I don't want a drink," said Carson shortly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Don't ask me why not. I don't want one, that's all."
+
+"O God! look here! Now, damn it, why not?"
+
+Brookfield was as easily infuriated as Carson.
+
+On this occasion Carson stayed cool.
+
+"Because I don't like you--if you must have it."
+
+Brookfield at once became calm; he prepared to argue out the matter.
+
+"Karri," he began plaintively, "I want to tell you one thing. I like you
+and Charlie Bramham better than anyone in this rotten country, but
+there's no one who can annoy me more than you can----"
+
+Carson yawned, got up, and walked out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It was a moonless night, but the stars were out in their legions, and
+the garden was full of a warm, silvery silence--the silence composed of
+the thousand tiny sounds and scents that make the charm and wonder of an
+African night. The moon-flowers were tolling their heavy, white bells,
+and some big flowering-bush, with pale, subtle blossoms, seemed to have
+all the fragrance of a beautiful woman's hair.
+
+Poppy walked in the gracious dimness, her bare, pale feet picking their
+way delicately amongst bright things lying like fallen stars in the
+grass. A green, clinging plant, waving long tendrils, clutched at her
+gown as she passed, and she broke it off, and, twining it into a crown,
+put it on her hair. It had tiny flowers dotted amongst its leaves. The
+trees shut her in from all the world, and it was as though she walked in
+some great, dim, green well.
+
+She had been all through the garden and was tired. At last she threw
+herself down and lay at full-length on the soft, short grass, in which
+there was no dampness, for a terrible pall of heat had lain all day upon
+Natal, and through the thin nainsook of her gown Poppy could feel the
+warmth still in the earth. She stared into the solemn velvet sky where
+Orion, in gleaming belt and sword, leaned above her, and the Milky Way
+was a high-road to Heaven, paved with powdered silver. Far away, in the
+town below, a church clock flung out eleven clear strokes upon the night
+air. Poppy turned on her side and lay with her cheek to the earth.
+
+"Old Mother Africa! What have you hidden in your bosom for me?" she
+whispered.... "I believe that if I sleep on your breast to-night I will
+dream my destiny. I love you, and you love me.... I am your child ... a
+poppy growing in your old brown bosom. You are the only mother I have
+ever known.... Whatsoever you give unto me, I will take and say it is
+good. I feel predestined to-night.... If I lay my ear to you, will I
+hear the foot-falls of my fate approaching?... What is there for me?
+Fame? Love? Those are the only two things in the world! ... but no one
+can have them both it is said.... Which have you for me, Mother? Will
+you tell me in a dream?... I will sleep here to-night," she said at
+last; and shutting her eyes she lay still.
+
+A man, coming very softly and wonderingly across the grass lawns,
+thought he saw a slim beam of moonlight lying there, and gave a startled
+exclamation when it sprang up and flickered into a cluster of tall
+shrubs.
+
+"That was an odd thing!" he said to himself. "I'll swear I saw.... And
+yet there is no moon to-night!"
+
+He stood long, looking into the darkness of the bushes until at last he
+imagined that he saw a moonbeam, shaped graciously like a woman's face,
+looking back at him. But when he approached it retreated. He stepped
+back again and it returned.
+
+"H'm!" he remarked; "I must have a bad attack when I see moonbeam faces
+on a moonless night!"
+
+The wedge of moonlight in the bushes seemed to him to give out two
+little gleams at that.
+
+"This is a fool's game," said the man aloud. "I must go behind these
+bushes and see where this thing begins and ends."
+
+Instantly the moonbeam disappeared altogether.
+
+"I thought so," he muttered. "Then it _is_ a woman, and I'm not
+delirious yet, though by the Lord my head feels.... I wonder if she will
+come back if I behave myself very nicely.... I'd like to see that face a
+little closer ... it looked.... Is it possible that I've made a mistake
+and this is not Portal's place at all? Perhaps I've found my way into
+Brookfield's zenana! It was _something_ like the gate Bram pointed out
+to me yesterday.... But what am I doing _here_, by the way?... I wish
+someone would tell me ... perhaps she will ... how can I get her to come
+back? ... it might be a good idea to light a cigar and let her see my
+guileless features.... I think I'll sit down too ... it's odd how queer
+I feel!" He sat down in the grass among the fallen stars, a tall,
+powerful figure in a light-grey lounge suit, and taking out a cigar he
+carefully lighted it, making as long a process of the lighting as
+possible. Then he threw away the remains of the match and looked up at
+the bushes, but his dazzled eyes could see no wedge of moonlight in the
+Egyptian darkness. It was there, however. And by the time the match had
+burnt his fingers, Poppy had been able to take a long absorbing look at
+what seemed to her the most wonderful face she had ever seen. She
+believed that in that short time she had read all that should, and
+should not, be written on the face of a man--strength, weakness,
+tenderness, tyranny, gentleness, bitterness, cynicism, gaiety,
+melancholy, courage, despair. But how came he here? How had he found
+his way through a locked gate? Was it possible that he had come
+through the _boys'_ compound? ... or by way of her secret hole in the
+summer-house? ... but he had not come from either of these directions.
+What did he want?
+
+In the meantime the man was holding his cigar between his knees and
+gazing in her direction.
+
+"O moon of my desire that knows no wane," he gently misquoted, "come out
+and talk to me!"
+
+His voice had a rustle in it of leaves before the wind. No woman could
+listen to it cold-hearted.
+
+"But what are you doing in my garden?" she said in her own entrancing
+tones.
+
+The man's veins thrilled in turn.
+
+"_Is_ it your garden? I was looking for the house of a friend. I'll go
+if you tell me to, but I'd much rather sit here and listen to your
+voice. I can't see you very well--" he finished with an air of
+complaint.
+
+"How did you get in?" asked Poppy. "Isn't the gate locked?"
+
+"My _boys_ have a name for me of which one translation runs--all gates
+open to him."
+
+"But it _must_ be locked."
+
+"It is not, I assure you. Though if this were my garden, it should
+always be--with me inside."
+
+"You talk very oddly," said she, trying to speak coldly; "nearly as
+oddly as old Khayyam himself ... I trust not for the same reason!"
+
+"You wrong me bitterly," he said. "I am trying to speak and behave with
+unusual decorum. It is the poetry of the night which affects me in spite
+of myself. You suspect some more occult reason, I see, but I can assure
+you on my honour that I dined quietly at the Club and drank no more than
+one whiskey-and-soda with my dinner."
+
+A silence prevailed.
+
+At last he said: "I think it would be a gentle and kind thing to do, to
+come and sit near me on the grass. I would like to look at you closely
+and see if you are a moonbeam I used to know long ago in Rhodesia."
+
+"I have never been in Rhodesia."
+
+"No? Then perhaps it was in my own land. The women there have voices
+like you.
+
+                  "There be none of beauty's daughters
+                    With a magic like thee,
+                  And like music on the waters
+                    Is thy sweet voice to me--"
+
+Poppy heard the rustle of leaves again through Byron's beautiful words,
+and a little shiver of happiness flew through her. She hoped he would
+sit there for ever, beguiling her with his sweet Irish tongue.
+
+"Tell me that you came from Ireland and I'll believe you with all my
+heart," said he next.
+
+"No; I was born out here."
+
+"In this bad, mad land?" His voice had a note of disappointment in it;
+he added: "I wish _you_ were mad and bad--but that is too much to
+expect, I suppose?"
+
+"Why do you wish it?"
+
+"Because then you would come and sit by me on the grass and talk to me.
+I am a very bad man, and I want company."
+
+"But," said Poppy softly, "_Il n'est jamais de mal en bonne compagnie._"
+
+"Voltaire in an African garden! O Lord! I _must_ be delirious," he
+muttered to himself. "I suppose you haven't such a thing as a pinch of
+quinine about you?"
+
+Poppy having very little about her at that time, began to laugh. Her
+laugh was rather like the first note of a bird's song, and she
+understood very well when he said:
+
+"O thrush, sing again!"
+
+"I think you must really be a little bit mad----"
+
+"If you would only be a little bit bad----"
+
+"Oh, I am--I often am----"
+
+"Where will you sit? On my right there is a patch of lesser darkness
+that smells passing sweet, and might be mignonette; on my left----"
+
+"No; I can't come over there; don't ask me."
+
+Her voice was tremulous now, for in her blood there was the strangest,
+wildest urging to come at his call. She wondered how long she could
+hold out against it--if he did not go soon.
+
+"Why should you want me to?"
+
+"Why? Because I want to know whether you are real ... or only a wraith,
+a streak of moonlight, a phantom of my brain. I want to be sure that the
+world is still going round, and that I am still in it. All I can see is
+a faint wedge-shaped gleam of white, crowned with strange stars. Have
+you tiny white stars in the darkness of your hair? Is your hair as black
+as the raven's wing, as night--as hell?"
+
+"Yes; it is."
+
+"And are your eyes long cameos of carved moonlight?"
+
+"They are indeed!"
+
+"Then Carissima--Adorissima ... come and sit on the grass."
+
+All the magic sweetness and sadness of Ireland was in his words. But he
+did not expect the slightest result from this impassioned entreaty, for
+he had long ago made up his mind that this strange witch of the night,
+who could throw the thrush's note into her voice, and quote Voltaire,
+and daintily but cynically suggest that he was drunk, was no simple maid
+to be beguiled by the tongue. This was a woman who knew her world and
+all the moves in the great game, and as a man who had played that same
+game often and well, and could appreciate a clever opponent, he awaited
+her next move, secure in the thought that it would not fail to be an
+interesting one.
+
+What he was wholly unprepared for was a glimmering fragrant presence
+beside him on the grass. The breath of her mouth was so close that he
+could feel it in little waves across his face. In the purple darkness he
+descried her white gown, and down each shoulder of it a long, long rope
+of blackness. The thought of a woman's hair had always some sorcery for
+him. He could never look at beautiful hair, even in the most
+conventional surroundings, without turmoil of flesh and spirit, inward
+curses at his own base nature, and revilings of all things feminine
+formed to lure the brain and bind the soul of man.
+
+At this moment every instinct of his being, every desire of his nature,
+fought with his self-control, desiring, inciting, almost compelling him
+to stretch out his hands to this witch-woman's hair and draw her nearer.
+Little beads broke out on his forehead; he dug his hands into the earth
+beside him. He could hear her breathing. A perfumed warmth came out of
+her and stole to him. He desired greatly that she should speak; but she
+did not; only sat there giving out perfume and weaving God knew what
+Ephesian spells to bind him. At about this time it seemed to him that
+this was a very fine dream and that a fine thing to do would be to get
+up and go hence before the dream could break. But that mood was soon
+inconstant. Silence enfolded them--a silence that was mutable and
+disquieting. At last he leaned towards her and spoke, dry-throated:
+
+"You win!" His voice was very low, and jarred like a fine instrument
+that has been struck.
+
+"Victory is to you! Tell me to go--or stay!"
+
+The girl, glowing and swaying beside him, could not speak; but her hands
+made some little motion to him that he interpreted as he wished. He
+grasped them in his, which were broad and powerful, but had eyes in the
+fingers: hands with the gift of discovery by touch. In that moment his
+heart and his purpose changed. At the greatest of all games he was no
+novice; but he had always played honestly as far as in him lay. It was
+his principle not to gamble unless the chances were equal for both
+players. As if they ever can be between a man and a woman! But,
+strangely enough, all honest men honestly believe it possible. By the
+feel of those soft hands quivering and burning in his, he had reason to
+believe that he had made a mistake--with regard to his opponent, at
+least.
+
+His head was far from clear that night in any case, and sitting there,
+with those hands in his, that fragrance ... those ensnaring plaits of
+hair ... was not conducive to coolness and sanity. It should be written
+down to him that he made an enormous effort to fight the sweet fumes
+that pressed upon him to cloud his brain and slacken his moral muscles.
+
+"Tell me something about yourself, Carissima," he said softly. "Tell me
+that you are married, and that your husband is a brute!"
+
+She drew her hands away swiftly. This was a jarring note that broke
+_her_ dream at least. What could he mean? How strange he was! Was it
+possible that he was mad? Was it at the bidding of a madman that the
+little cold stone in her breast was turning into something
+living--something that felt like a sweet red rose bursting into blossom?
+
+"Of course I am not married!" she said slowly and clearly. "I am only a
+girl of eighteen ... I do not understand why you say such things."
+
+He made a sound which might have been a groan.
+
+"My dear little girl, you must forgive me.... I believe I am ill
+to-night.... _Of course_ you are only a girl ... a good girl! ... gates
+and girls! ... gates!..." Suddenly he leaned closer to her and peered
+into her face, striving to distinguish the features he instinctively
+knew were lovely. "Who are you? What are you?" he strangely asked.
+
+"I am a poppy ... a poppy growing in Africa," said she, smiling subtly
+to herself, but trembling--trembling.
+
+"A poppy! ... then that is why your hair has that mystic odour!... 'Give
+me of poppy and mandragora.'... Poppies give sleep ... I believe that is
+what I want ... I am a sick man ... like Peter's wife's mother, I am
+sick of a fever ... and you are--a girl ... O Lord God!"
+
+"Oh, you really are ill!" she cried "Let me go to the house and get you
+something--some brandy. Rest here a while----"
+
+"Rest here, by St. Anthony!... No, no, nothing, it's nothing ... I'll
+go." He sprang up and stood at his full height above her. She, too, rose
+on her feet. She put out her hands to him, but he did not take them.
+
+"Good-night, Carissima ... I'll go home ... be good.... Girls should
+always be good ... and gates ... I must find the gate----"
+
+Strangely he went, striding away as silently as he had come through the
+darkness, and leaving her standing there on the grass. Later, she flung
+herself down and burst into bitter crying.
+
+"Oh, what a brute!... how I hate him!... how my heart hurts!... O God!
+what shall I do?... where has he gone?... I shall never see him
+again ... I wish to die! I wish to die!... Does he love some other
+woman?... Oh, I cannot live any longer ... he despises me because I am
+a girl.... How my heart hurts!... There is a knife in it.... If I could
+only hear him speak again!... I shall never see him again!"
+
+Suddenly she sprang up and ran swiftly across the grass, in the
+direction he had gone--the direction of the gate. But the gate was a
+long way off, and the way was dim. She ran into trees, and hurt her feet
+on stones and thorns, and presently, as she ran, she stumbled and fell
+over something or someone lying prone on the grass. In horror and fear
+she sprang away, but the figure did not move, only breathed heavily. She
+stole closer and peered down. It was he. She recognised the tall figure,
+the pale-grey clothes, the faint aroma she had recently known.
+
+"Oh, what has happened to you?" she tearfully cried, leaning over him.
+"Are you dead; are you dead?" Using her utmost strength she lifted his
+head and leaned it against herself as she half kneeled, half sat upon
+the grass. He was leaden-limbed as the dead, but his loud breathing
+reassured her; peering into his face she could see that his eyes were
+closed. She considered swiftly what thing she could do that would be
+best, presently resolving to run to the house and get brandy and restore
+him; and quinine, too, as he had asked for it--she knew that Abinger
+always kept a supply in his room. But first she would try and prop him
+against this tree-trunk. She dragged and strained at his arms, trying to
+move him, but he was a dead-weight. Tears of terror and distress
+streamed down her face and fell hot on his.
+
+"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "What is it with you?" Just as she made
+to let his head gently to the ground again, he stirred, and his
+breathing changed to that of a conscious, wakened man. In a moment he
+had dragged himself up into a sitting pose, with the tree-trunk at his
+back. She still remained kneeling by him--breathless, glad, afraid, and
+he leaned his handsome head against the laces of her bosom.
+
+"Are you better?" she whispered tremulously, joyously. "I am going to
+fetch you some restorative if you will let me leave you an instant."
+
+"You must never leave me again, dearest of all women," he said, and
+flung his arm about her. "I love you! Give me your lips." He slewed his
+head round suddenly and his mouth was hard on hers, dragging terrible
+kisses from it--kisses that shook her through and through as with some
+strange ague. He felt the trembling of her and laughed with his hand on
+her heart to still its loud beating.
+
+"'Your mouth is as sweet as bracket,'" he said, quoting some old song
+that sang in his brain, and kissed her again; then took her hair in his
+hand and wound it round his throat, holding the long plaits across his
+face and smelling them as though they were wonderful flowers.
+
+"And I never knew that your hair had this mystic fragrance!... What is
+it? It is not only sweet, it has some other essence, some fragrance that
+has a touch of earth in it, and pet, by God! it breathes of Heaven,
+too!... I think it is a flower that grows upon the eternal hills ...
+those strange red flowers.... Ah! poppies smell so, I think!... yes,
+poppies! poppies!... Dearest, if I were stricken blind and deaf in this
+hour, from ten thousand women I could search you out by this sweet scent
+of your hair."
+
+He kissed the soft sprays that fell over her eyes. "Speak to me!" he
+cried down on to her lips. "Speak to me in the voice I love!... _O! Ci
+risuoniamo in cristallo_ ... _wine in a crystal beaker_.... I never knew
+until to-night there was so beautiful a voice in the world!... Speak to
+me----"
+
+"If I could tear the heart out of my breast," she said, "I would put it
+into these two hands. I love you! I give you my life."
+
+"God forgive me, I will take it!... I will rob you of all your gifts!"
+
+"I give them to you ... I was born for this hour!" she whispered.
+
+A wave of the great sea that can submerge all the world rushed over
+them, beat them, drenched them, kissed them, crushed them to its breast;
+lapped them round, blinded them--flung them quivering and broken on the
+sands; left them.
+
+He said: "I cannot see your face, darling ... I will never forget this
+night. There has never been a night like it in all my life, and never
+will be again."
+
+"I love you! I love you!" her voice cried faintly.
+
+"I have loved you for so long," he said gently. "But always you have
+turned your face from me ... though I knew you were mine. I saw it in
+your eyes ... but always you denied me even the touch of your hand ...
+and I never knew that your hair smelled so sweet until to-night....
+_Loraine_, dearest of all women, kiss me again...."
+
+A terrible chill crept through the veins of Poppy Destin. Now she lay
+like one dead against the wild, loud-beating heart under the grey coat.
+Her own had ceased to beat; what words were these?
+
+He held her closer. The seeing fingers touched the fabric of her gown,
+and the slim, boyish body beneath.
+
+"Why, you're only a girl!" he muttered wonderingly. "You have slipped
+back to girlhood for love of me. God forgive me my sins! I am not worthy
+to touch your little bare feet, Loraine."
+
+At that she wrenched herself from his arms, sprang to her feet, and ran
+from him, blindly; she knew not, cared not, where. At one time she
+stumbled into a Christ-thorn bush and tore her hands and gown, but she
+felt no pain nor the warm blood running down. She only stopped at last
+because she found herself in the street with a rickshaw boy demanding
+where she wished to go. That recalled her to her senses and she stepped
+back hastily out of the light of his lamps, and stood in the shadow of
+the gate.
+
+"There is a _M'rungo_ in here who is ill. Come and help him to your
+rickshaw," she said, suddenly inspired.
+
+"Where does he want to go?" demanded the boy. "I go no more on the Berea
+to-night--only townwards."
+
+"Yes, that will do." She collected her thoughts hastily. He would
+probably not be able to give the boy his address, the safest thing would
+be to send him to the Club, where he had dined and was probably well
+known. She added, therefore: "He wishes to go to the Club."
+
+"Ker-lub!" repeated the boy and nodded sagaciously; _Ker-lub M'rungos_
+always paid well!
+
+Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gates and over the
+soft, dark lawns to the tree where the _M'rungo_ was sitting. She spoke
+in a clear, cold voice:
+
+"Here is a boy with a rickshaw; you had better let him help you home.
+You are certainly ill."
+
+He rose easily, and stood up like a well man, but his voice was hoarse
+and vague.
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mrs. Capron--you are always kind. I shall be all right in
+the morning. Good-night!" He went away muttering, followed by the
+rickshaw boy. Poppy stood like a stone woman.
+
+Later, she heard the gates clang and the rickshaw bell begin to tinkle
+down the long hill. Then she broke into dry sobbing, clutching at her
+throat with both hands, like one suffocating. At last some wild words
+burst from her lips.
+
+"Oh, I could kill myself to-night!... but first I will kill that woman
+Loraine!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A storm shook the house next day when Luce Abinger returned. Kykie's
+shrill crescendo, expostulations and denials, were smothered like little
+frothy waves in the breakers of her master's wrath. Once the words "key"
+and "gate" came floating up the staircase and reached Poppy where she
+lay on her pillows, as she had lain until dawn, staring at the walls and
+the ceiling with dry eyes, and her pale lips took a wry and bitter
+curve. Later, pandemonium was extended to the yard and stables; then,
+after all these voices there was peace.
+
+Behind her locked door Poppy was vaguely thankful for safety from
+Abinger's fury and tyrannical questioning; and not all Kykie's
+cajoleries and threats could make her emerge.
+
+"Go away, Kykie. I'm not well. I want nothing," she repeated
+monotonously to all demands, until at last Kykie, from sheer weariness,
+obeyed.
+
+The strange emotions and events of the past night had left the girl
+numb. The ecstasy of hatred which had possessed her for that other
+woman, the birth-pains her heart had suffered, the anguish of
+humiliation and defeat had all passed. She felt nothing. She thought of
+nothing. Only sometimes as she lay there staring at _Monna Lisa_ on the
+wall, she had the fancy that she was a little wrecked boat, lying broken
+and useless on a beach where of late had raged a cruel storm.
+
+In the torrid afternoon hours she slept a while--dead, dreamless sleep,
+that revived her into at least some mechanical resemblance of herself;
+so that when Kykie once more pounded upon her door and demanded
+admittance with a tea-tray, she arose and let the anxious flustered
+creature in.
+
+"For goodness' gracious, and what do you look like, Poppy!"
+
+"Kykie, stop asking questions, or go!" was the answer given so fiercely
+that the old woman thought it wiser to say no more on the subject. She
+inveigled Poppy to sit down and take some tea and some delicately
+prepared sandwiches; in the meantime, she unfolded the tale of her woes
+to the girl's unhearing ears. Luce had beaten her best kitchen _boy_,
+and he had run away, so that she had been obliged to do all his work as
+well as her own. Every dish at luncheon time had been sent out untasted,
+and nothing eaten but bread and cheese--a terrible insult to poor Kykie!
+
+"And he's been prowling round the house like a lion all the afternoon,
+wanting to know what's the matter with you. Promise to come down to
+dinner, Poppy, or in the name of gracious me I don't know what I shall
+do."
+
+"I'll come down, Kykie," said Poppy dully. "What is all the trouble
+about?"
+
+"Just because the front gate was left unlocked all the time he was away.
+Of course, we little knew that it was open. But he said that I or the
+_boys_ ought to have found out and looked for the key in his room and
+locked it. _Me!_ Me that is on my weary feet in that kitchen all day
+thinking of his stomach--heavenly me! Take some more tea, my poor child;
+you look like a spook."
+
+"No, I have had enough, Kykie. Go away now, and see about your dinner.
+I'll be down."
+
+"Let me brush your hair first; you know you always like me to when you
+feel bad." The old woman took up Poppy's hair-brushes and approached
+the long ruffled plaits of hair; but the moment she touched them the
+girl sprang away from her like a white flame.
+
+"No, no, Kykie; never dare touch my hair again!" she cried violently.
+
+"In the name of--!" Words failed the indignant Kykie. She grabbed her
+tea-tray and floundered from the room.
+
+At dinner-time, white and fateful as a narcissus with a broken stalk,
+the girl faced Abinger's curious eyes across the table. But there was
+more than curiosity in his glance as it swept over her. The same
+peculiar quality was in it that had troubled her at their last dining
+together. Only now she did not notice it. If she could have given her
+thoughts to anything at all but weariness and despair, she might have
+wondered to see his very real concern at her appearance.
+
+"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?" he said. "You look half
+dead. Here, drink this wine at once." He poured out a glass of champagne
+for her, and would eat nothing himself until she had partaken of one of
+the _hors-d'oeuvre_. And when the soup appeared, he waved hers away
+and ordered an _entrée_ to be brought at once. The wine flew into
+Poppy's cheeks and sent a little scarlet to her lips. She felt a warmth
+stealing into her being that had been sadly absent since the past
+midnight. Presently she smiled a little wan smile across at him.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Luce! Only I didn't sleep much last night ... the
+heat----"
+
+"We'll get out of this infernal place--" he began.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" she cried violently, then pulled herself together and
+added more calmly: "I like the place, Luce--and the garden ... is so
+lovely ... I should hate to go away."
+
+He was curiously amenable.
+
+"Very well, we'll stay if you say so. And I've been thinking over what
+you asked the other day, Poppy ... we'll change things. You could go out
+if you want to ... we must talk about it ... I want to talk ..." he
+halted a little in his speech--"to you."
+
+"I'm not keen about it any longer, Luce. I don't want to know people,
+after all. I think I'll shut myself up and work for ten hours every day.
+I mean to write. I will write a wonderful book. Surely people who work
+hard are happy in a way, aren't they, Luce?" Her voice and her eyes were
+wistful. "One would never want anything else--after a time--but to go on
+writing wonderful stories of life, would one?"
+
+He smiled grimly. She thought he was going to hurl a barb at her, but he
+only said with the same unusual gentleness:
+
+"Work will never fill _your_ life, Poppy. You are the kind of girl who
+will live the wonderful stories that the other women write."
+
+The lilac eyes in the _troublante_ face opposite gave a sad long look
+into his; then fell. She shivered a little.
+
+"Some wonderful stories are terrible, Luce," she said in a low voice.
+
+When she rose from the table, he said:
+
+"Come and smoke in the garden with me."
+
+She turned her face away from him, staring vaguely at a picture on the
+wall.
+
+"I don't care about the garden to-night, Luce. The drawing-room, if you
+like--but I am very tired."
+
+"I shan't keep you long. There is something I want to say to you."
+
+He followed the slim, upright figure walking with such weary grace and
+trailing her white chiffons behind her, to the drawing-room, where the
+lights were low, the windows open to the night scents, and the big
+chintz-covered chairs and sofas held out rose-clad arms to them. She
+went straight to one she knew well, and dropped into it, laying her
+cheek against the cool, shiny chintz. Close beside her was an open
+window, and Abinger came and stood in it, his face in profile to her,
+staring out into the darkness. His hands were clasped behind him tightly
+gripping a cigar which he had taken out but did not light. Poppy closed
+her eyes and the lids burned against them. She had a great longing to be
+alone with her thoughts. But Abinger had begun to speak.
+
+"Now--about your going out, Poppy, and meeting people, and all that; my
+chief reason for being disturbed when you mentioned the thing the other
+day was that I was unprepared. I hadn't had time to think out what was
+the best plan for you--for us. Of course, you know--it was very well for
+you to travel all over the place as you have done as my sister; but the
+thing is, that it won't do here. I can't spring a sister on people who
+know that I haven't got one."
+
+"No, I suppose not," said she vaguely, from the depths of her chair.
+
+"You realise that then?" he went on evenly. "Well, you see, you rushed
+me before I had been able to decide what was best to do, and of course I
+got mad. I'm sorry, Poppy, I beg your pardon, I'm sure."
+
+Poppy, dimly surprised at this unwonted penitence, would have murmured
+something, but he went on quickly:
+
+"Had _you_ any plan? How did you think of accounting to people--women
+particularly--for the fact that you were living here alone with me?"
+
+"Accounting to them?" she echoed faintly. "Will they ask me?"
+
+"Well, not exactly you, but they'll ask anyone who can tell them, and
+expect a satisfactory answer before they take you to their breasts."
+
+"But, Luce, you could tell them, or let it be known. I shouldn't
+mind ... _not_ how I first came to you, starving and ragged and beaten;
+I couldn't bear anyone knowing that ... but they could know how good you
+have been to me, bringing me up and educating me and being a guardian to
+me."
+
+"And you think that would satisfy them?"
+
+"I don't see why not. Of course, it is unconventional. But I believe it
+is not unheard of for a girl to have a guardian ... and guardians are
+not always old."
+
+"That is so. Unfortunately, my dear girl, there is one thing you omit to
+take into consideration."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"I happen to be a dog with a bad name."
+
+Poppy made a little weary exclamation. In truth, she did not see any use
+in prolonging the discussion. The desire to go out into Durban and meet
+men and women no longer burned within her. In her present state of
+weariness she believed she would never again have any taste for human
+society. Abinger, however, pursued the course of his remarks.
+
+"It is very sad, but my reputation is not one that would commend me to
+the good ladies of South Africa as the guardian-angel of a young and
+remarkably pretty girl."
+
+Poppy sat silent.
+
+"I regret to say that the very notion of my appearance in such a _rôle_
+would be received with ribald shouts of laughter by all the men who have
+the pleasure of my acquaintance, and in Durban and Johannesburg it would
+be considered the best joke ever told in the clubs."
+
+At last the girl was moved out of her apathy. She shrank back in her
+chair with her hands before her face. She thought of the Durban Club and
+a man in it listening and laughing.
+
+"O God!" she softly cried.
+
+"As for the women," continued Abinger calmly, still staring out of the
+window. "Well, generally speaking, all the women out here are of the
+genus crow, and their virtue is a matter of whitewash. Of course, there
+are degrees. Some of them have managed to assume four or five coats of
+it, and there's not a speck to be seen anywhere. These are saintly far
+beyond the understanding of you and me, my child, but as they mostly
+live in Johannesburg and we don't, we won't worry about them. There are
+others there too, who are only in the grey, or one-coat stage, and I've
+no doubt they would extend a claw of welcome to you, if you'd like to go
+and live up there. Durban is another matter altogether. This, I must
+tell you, is a city of the highest moral rectitude. The whitewash is
+within, as well as without. It flows in the women's veins. Some of them
+are solid blocks of it! I'm afraid, Poppy, that by the time their
+husbands have handed the highly delectable tale of my guardianship round
+the morning tramcars on the way to office, and discussed it in the
+evening while having their high-teas in carpet slippers, you will not
+stand much chance of being received into the 'white and winged throng'
+which makes up Durban society. You will be black-balled."
+
+Poppy sat up in her chair now, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.
+
+"Why do you say all this?" she demanded haughtily. "If it is as you say
+and through your fault, you must put the matter right. I do not wish to
+know these women, but I do not choose that they shall shake their skirts
+at me, because you have a vile reputation. You will have to find some
+way out----"
+
+Abinger looked away from the window at last and at her. There was a tall
+lamp to his hand, and he turned it up high, and she saw that he was
+smiling--a smile none the less unlovely because it had in it the same
+unusual quality of gentleness that had distinguished it all the
+evening.
+
+"But, of course, my dear girl!" he said with a note of surprise in his
+voice, "that is what I am coming to. I have told you these things simply
+to show you the impossibility of your living any kind of social life
+here, unless you are prepared to let everybody know the real state of
+affairs. When everything is known it will be a simple affair for you to
+take your place, and you will have an assured position that no one will
+be able to cavil at. It is for you to say now, whether or not you are
+ready for the truth to be published."
+
+Poppy's look was of amazement.
+
+"The truth? But what do you mean, Luce? You have been at great pains to
+tell me why they won't accept the truth."
+
+He stood looking down at her vivid face for a moment. There was an
+expression on his own that she found arresting too, and she said no
+more; only waited till he should speak. He turned the lamp down again.
+
+"Poppy," he said in a very low, but clear voice, "do you remember the
+old French Jesuit coming to the White Farm?"
+
+She stared at him. Her expression reverted to irritation and surprise.
+
+"Father Eugène? Of course I do. And I remember how furious you were,
+too. And how you stormed at each other in French for about twenty
+minutes, while Kykie and I stood wondering what it was all about."
+
+"Do you remember any other details? I'm not asking out of idle
+curiosity," he added, as she threw herself back impatiently in her
+chair. She wrinkled her brows for a moment. Her head really ached very
+badly, but she wished to be reasonable.
+
+"I didn't understand French at that time, but you explained the meaning
+of it all to me. You remember you took me into your study and told me
+how he thought you frightfully immoral to have a young girl living in
+your house without her parents, and that he wished you to make a solemn
+set of promises to him to the effect that you would be a good friend and
+guardian to me all your life. You said it was a fearful nuisance, but
+that if you didn't do it, he meant to get to work and find my proper
+guardians and make things generally unpleasant."
+
+"You remember that clearly?"
+
+"Certainly I do, and so do you. What is the use of this tiresome
+repetition? It is quite beside the point."
+
+"No, it is not. Just one more question--you remember going back into the
+dining-room to the priest and making the promises, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; we stood before him and _you_ made the promises. I didn't--though
+I certainly said '_Oui_' whenever you told me to, and some words after
+him once. It was then you gave me this ring that I always wear. By the
+way, Luce, I'm tired of wearing it. You can have it back."
+
+"Thank you, my dear girl; but I wouldn't think of depriving you of it.
+It is your wedding-ring."
+
+"My--? I think you have gone mad, Luce."
+
+"Not at all. That is your wedding-ring, Poppy. When we stood before the
+priest that day we were being married."
+
+She burst out laughing. "Really, Luce," she said contemptuously, "you
+are developing a new form of humour. Does it amuse you?"
+
+"Not much," he said drily; "not so much as it does you, apparently. I
+don't see anything funny in a marriage ceremony. I remember being
+exceedingly annoyed about it at the time. But I have come round since
+then." As he went on, Poppy ceased to smile contemptuously; when he had
+finished speaking, her mouth was still disdainful, but she was
+appreciably paler.
+
+"Of late," said Abinger in a voice that had a meaning, "I have begun to
+find the fact that you are my wife wonderfully interesting."
+
+She sprang up from her chair.
+
+"This is the most ridiculous nonsense I ever listened to!" she cried
+excitedly. "I don't want to hear any more about it. I refuse to listen."
+She turned to go, but he caught her by the wrists and stood holding her
+and looking into her deathly pale face.
+
+"Am I the kind of man who wastes time talking nonsense? Kykie was a
+witness. She knows we were married that day."
+
+"Kykie! I'm _sure_ it is not true. She has never spoken of it----"
+
+"I forbade her to do so. I told her that she'd go out at a moment's
+notice if she did. Further, as you are so very hard to convince, Poppy,
+I will show you the marriage certificate signed by Father Eugène."
+
+He took a paper from his pocket, and held it towards her. But she had
+suddenly sunk back into the big chair with her hands over her scared and
+ashen face.
+
+"Oh, Luce! Luce!" she cried pitifully. "Say it is not true! say it is
+not true!" and burst into wild weeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Sophie Cornell sat at her breakfast-table looking pasty-faced and
+unwholesome, without any colour on her cheeks, her good looks
+effectively disguised in hair-wavers and a hideously-figured heliotrope
+dressing-gown.
+
+Poppy stared at her in dull amazement, wondering how she could have so
+little vanity as to allow another girl to see her look so unlovely.
+
+"She will probably hate me for it, but that doesn't matter," was the
+thought that came into her mind as she encountered Sophie's eyes,
+sleep-bedimmed, but distinctly resentful, taking her in across the
+table. As a matter of fact, Sophie's vanity was so great, that it never
+occurred to her that she could appear unlovely to anyone--even in her
+unpainted morning hours. Her resentfulness was roused entirely by reason
+of the fact that this was the first time she had laid eyes on her
+assistant typewriter for a full three weeks, and that even now the
+recalcitrant only came to say that she didn't feel quite equal to work.
+
+"Och! nonsense!" said Miss Cornell, eyeing her coolly. "You look all
+right. A little pale, but, then, you're always as washed out as a
+_fadook_."[4]
+
+  [4] Dishcloth.
+
+Poppy's lips performed a twisted, dreary smile. She was entirely
+indifferent to Miss Cornell's opinions of her looks. To anyone's. As she
+stood there in the little black muslin gown she always wore to come to
+Sophie's house in the morning, she might have posed for a
+black-and-white drawing of Defeat.
+
+Sophie saw nothing but the prospect of another two or three days' hard
+work, and she didn't like it.
+
+"You're a fine sort of assistant," she grumbled, her mouth half full of
+toast. "And another thing: Bramham's been here several times inquiring
+for you, and the whole place is littered up with parcels of books and
+magazines he has sent you. I couldn't think what excuse to make for his
+not seeing you, for, _of course_, he thinks you live here, so I told him
+at last that you had a touch of dengue fever and wanted quiet. He's
+stayed away ever since, but he's been sending flowers and fruit. You've
+evidently made a mash."
+
+Poppy had no inclination to disguise her feelings from Miss Cornell.
+
+"Sophie, you make me sick!" she said and turned away.
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but you made a bargain with me, that you
+would meet Bramham sometimes, and if he likes you, so much the better.
+You don't seem to know when you're lucky!"
+
+"Lucky?" Something broke from her lips, that might have been only an
+exclamation, but had the sound of a moan.
+
+"Pooh!" said Sophie. "Some fellow's been kidding you, I suppose, and you
+don't like it. Oh! I know all about it."
+
+"You know some wonderful things, Sophie!" said Poppy at last, in her
+soft, low voice. "Your mind must be a treasure-house of dainty thoughts
+and memories."
+
+But irony was ever wasted on Sophie. She got up and stretched her
+well-shaped arms above her head until the heliotrope sleeves cracked and
+gaped at the seams.
+
+"Well, all I can say is that you are a donkey not to want to meet nice
+fellows when you get the chance. Don't you ever intend to marry?"
+
+Poppy, who had gone over to smell some flowers, probably Bramham's,
+which were clumsily bunched in rows on the mantel-shelf, faced her with
+an air of insolent surprise.
+
+"What can that possibly have to do with you or your men visitors?"
+
+"Oho!" said Sophie aggressively. "You won't get many chances of marrying
+without _my_ assistance, my dear. Perhaps you don't know it, but men
+don't come to Africa with the idea of entering into the holy state of
+matrimony. When they _do_ marry, it's _quite_ by accident, and the girl
+has to work the accident. You don't know much about that business, my
+child," she added contemptuously. "Better take a few lessons from me."
+
+"Why? Have you been very successful?" Poppy's tone was one of polite
+inquiry. The other girl flushed.
+
+"Jolly sight more than _you'll_ ever be, with your white face and thin
+figure," she retorted, adding pleasantly: "Your eyes remind me of a
+snake's."
+
+Poppy sauntered carelessly towards the door.
+
+"And _you_ remind me of the man who, when he was getting the worst of a
+discussion on original sin, said to the other man: 'If I were you, I
+would not drink with my mouth full.' I am quite willing to believe
+anything you like to tell me about your conquests, Sophie; only please
+don't bother to hunt a husband for me. The good God kindly supplied me
+with the same instincts as other women. I can do my own hunting."
+
+She went out and closed the door behind her with a gentle, sad movement,
+as though she was shutting in the light of the world and regretted doing
+it. A little colour had come to her face. She felt better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Abinger had gone away. This time his destination was really the Rand,
+for the _boys_ had taken his luggage to the station and seen him leave.
+He had told Kykie that he would be away for six weeks at least.
+
+After that stormy scene in the drawing-room, when he had left Poppy
+wrapped in wild weeping, nothing further had passed between them on the
+subject of their marriage. Indeed, she had not seen him again. But he
+had left a letter for her, and enclosed was a copy of the marriage
+certificate, to show her that he had not been inventing. He further
+informed her that Father Eugène was still alive, and that by writing to
+the Jesuit Monastery in the Transvaal she could at any time ascertain
+the simple truth. The rest of the letter was written in a strain of
+casual indifference, that Poppy found singularly reassuring. His
+attitude appeared to be that of a man rather bored with the subject
+because it bored her; but, facts being facts, he plainly felt it his
+duty to show her that there were less pleasing and many more boring
+things in life than to be called Mrs. Abinger. He told her first of all,
+not to be a foolish girl and make herself ill about nothing; that it
+would be in every way to her advantage to make her _début_ in South
+African society as the wife of a well-known man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have not disguised from you," he wrote, "that I have what is called a
+bad reputation, but that will not affect you--rather redound to your
+credit in fact, since the wives of rakes are always looked upon as
+possessing something unusual in the way of brains and charm. As my wife,
+your lines will be laid in not unpleasant places. You may have as many
+friends as you like, and I will allow you five thousand pounds a year to
+entertain them and yourself upon. In making the matter public, no
+painful details need be gone into. All that is necessary is that you
+give me permission to make the truth public. Tell me when you are ready
+to assume the title of Mrs. Abinger--I'll do the rest. In this, dear
+girl, as in all things, pray please yourself. Only, remember that if
+you don't choose to accept the situation, the situation still
+remains--_we are married_. And it is only under the conditions stated
+that I can permit you to live any other life than the one you have lived
+so long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When first she received this letter, Poppy read it and flung it from
+her. But in the calm that came after a week's intolerable torment of
+longing, and despair, she read it again. The fierce fires that had
+consumed her were burning low then, and cast but a faint and dreary
+flicker down the pathway of the future. That future looked a land all
+shadows and gloom, whatsoever pathway she chose to take towards it. The
+simplest thing to do seemed the most desirable; and surely it was
+simplest just to let things stay as they were! She would tell Luce
+Abinger that her choice was to let things remain as they had always
+been, and then she would live on, drifting through the weary days and
+months and years, working a little every day, until work at last would
+become everything and fill her whole life. Perhaps, as she had missed
+love she would find fame. It did not seem to matter very much whether
+she did or not.
+
+All she asked was to find peace. Knowing very little of life she did not
+realise that in asking for this she asked for everything. For no woman
+finds peace until she has tasted of all the poisoned dishes at the
+banquet of life--and then the peace is either of the dead body or the
+dead mind.
+
+After those seven days of suffering, Poppy sat with her broken
+love-dream, like a pale child with a broken toy. She thought because she
+was numb that all was over then, except the dreary living through the
+dreary days. But the young have a great capacity for suffering, and she
+had forgotten how very young and strong she was, and how hot the blood
+ran in her veins. After a day she was back again in the trough of the
+sea. When at last she emerged she was a child no longer, but a woman
+with something to hide from the world--a wound that bled inwardly and
+would always ache.
+
+Abinger had been gone nearly three weeks then, and wrote to say that he
+should probably be away for two or three months, as he was selling all
+the property he owned on the Rand, and the final settlements would take
+him quite that time. The thought of the long respite from his presence
+was a great relief to the girl, and by unconsciously lifting a little of
+the strain from her mind helped her to come back the sooner to her
+normal self. Kykie's delight was enormous when Poppy was to be seen
+wandering aimlessly through the house once more and into the garden;
+though _there_ she never stayed long now, and there were parts of it she
+did not go near.
+
+From Kykie she learned incidentally, and without resentment, that the
+front gate was locked once more and the key safe with Abinger. That
+reminded her of her secret exit, and then she remembered Sophie Cornell,
+whose image had quite faded from her memory. It occurred to her that she
+ought to visit her self-imposed employer, and make her excuses and
+farewells as simply as possible, for something in her now strongly
+repudiated further association with the Colonial girl.
+
+The visit and quarrel had braced her in a remarkable way. Afterwards she
+felt that in spite of all she was really alive still, and she found
+herself regretting that through Sophie's garden must lie her only way
+into the world beyond. The restrictions of the house began to irk her,
+and she was afraid of the garden. She felt she _must_ go out. She
+determined to visit the sea and explore the Berea; choosing such times
+as would be safest to make entries and exits through the little opening
+in the passion-flower house. In the early mornings she knew well that
+wild horses might pass through Sophie's garden without her knowing or
+caring--and again, under cover of darkness it would be simple to slip
+through unseen. She told Kykie that in the future she always desired
+dinner at six-thirty; and Kykie, who had grown curiously meek and
+obedient of late, made no demur. This arrangement gave Poppy a long
+evening to herself, and she had never allowed anyone to intrude upon her
+evening hours. It would be supposed that she spent them in the garden,
+for always she had found great pleasure in wandering in the moonlight,
+and in the early morning hours, and the servants were well acquainted
+with her habits.
+
+So she took to going forth. As soon as darkness fell she would depart,
+darkly-cloaked and with her head draped mantilla-wise, to see what the
+forbidden world looked like "'twixt gloam and moon." Her favourite route
+was by the Musgrave Road, a long thoroughfare that leads to the top of
+the Berea. Over gates would come to her glimpses of charmingly-lighted
+rooms, and pretty women sitting down to dinner, or sauntering with their
+husbands, enjoying the gardens after the heat of the day. Past one house
+and another she would go, catching little pictures between the trees, at
+windows, and through open doors--sometimes an exquisite little vision of
+a mother romping with her children and kissing them good-night; or a
+husband standing back with a critical cock to his head to get a better
+view of his wife's new gown, or the way she had done her hair. She never
+stayed for the kiss that would come after the verdict, but flew swiftly
+on with her eyes suddenly hot and teeth set in her lip. Other sights
+were amusing: a face contorted and a head and arm screwed in the agony
+of fixing a collar-stud; a man grooming his head before an open window
+with two brushes, and a drop of something golden out of a bottle. Once
+she saw quite a sensible-looking man practising a charming smile on
+himself in the glass, and at that could not restrain a little jeer of
+delight at the "nobler" sex. When she caught children at windows in
+their nightgowns, peering out, she just gave a weird "_Who! Who!_" like
+the lesser-owl common in Natal, and they scuttled like rats.
+
+These things affected her variously. Times she mocked the peaceful
+citizens of Natal for Philistines and flesh-potters. Times her heart
+came into her throat and tears scalded her eyes, and she felt like a
+prowling hungry jackal. But most often she flung a bitter laugh to the
+wind and said:
+
+"I have the best of it--better prowl the veldt lean and free, than be
+caged and full."
+
+Once or twice she had occasion to recall a French saying she had come
+across while her French was in the elementary stage. She had studied the
+phrase for an hour or two, and applied the dictionary to it, and
+eventually it read to the effect that if all the roofs in Paris were
+lifted one night the devil might be observed in every house lighting the
+fires to make the pots boil. The remark seemed to have lost some of its
+original point in translation, but it still bore an air of significance,
+and came singularly to hand once or twice, startling Poppy to the
+thought that Paris and Durban are both under the same sky, and that fuel
+of fire is the same all the world over. On these occasions it was she
+who scuttled, and she did it with good-will, almost cured of her taste
+for living pictures. But the pastime was fascinating to a lonely and
+lonesome creature, and she returned to it.
+
+Many of the houses she passed stood hidden away in thick gardens, with
+nothing to indicate their presence but glimmering lights and voices, or
+sometimes music, or the clank of dinner plates. But if sound attracted
+her, Poppy was not deterred by gates or gravelled paths. With a fleet
+foot, a sweet tongue, and an excellent imagination, there is little to
+fear in forbidden gardens, or anywhere else for that matter. The chief
+thing is to have the bump of adventure sufficiently developed!
+
+Sometimes she found that there were others abroad for adventure
+also--some of these of a sociable temperament most inconvenient. Once a
+magnificent person in evening-dress followed her so persistently, that
+she was driven at last to the expedient of walking under the glare of a
+street lamp with her shoulders humped and her skirts held high enough to
+display to all who took an interest in the matter a pair of knock-kneed
+legs and horribly pigeon-toed feet. The device worked like magic; she
+was followed no further.
+
+On another occasion she allowed a youthful Romeo to sit beside her on a
+bench, only to discover that she was afflicted with a painful sniffing
+cold--about forty sniffs to the minute. She was soon left sole occupant
+of the bench.
+
+There were other _contretemps_. Once her evening out cost her sixpence,
+and she was very much annoyed, for her stock of sixpences was low.
+Abinger paid all bills and did not expect her to have any need for
+money. It was her habit, if she saw a native policeman eye her
+suspiciously, to step quietly up to him with a most grand air and tell
+him to send her a rickshaw when he reached the main road, as she was in
+a hurry and could not wait for the car. The minute he was out of sight
+she would scud down a side street. But upon this occasion a rickshaw was
+so close at hand that she was obliged to take it and boldly direct the
+boy to Sophie's front gate. Arrived there, she ran full into a man
+coming out. The light from a passing car showed her his face, dark and
+dissipated, but keen. He was carrying his hat in his hand, as men do on
+hot nights, and she observed that his hair was parted down the centre
+with a curl on either side.
+
+"Ah! What Luce calls a German from Jerusalem!" was her comment.
+Incidentally she smelled a smell she was familiar with, from daily
+contact with Sophie and sheets of MSS. This made her certain that it was
+the redoubtable "Brookie" himself whom she had encountered.
+
+Often as she glided like a wraith through Sophie's garden the sound of
+laughter and the flavour of smoke came to her through the trees, or
+Sophie's voice, outraging the gentle night by some sentimental ballad.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One late February evening, when all the world was steeped in silver
+light, Poppy's heart seemed to her to be lying very still in her breast.
+As she walked over the trembling moonlight shadows a curious feeling of
+happiness stole across her.
+
+"Am I at peace already?" she asked herself wonderingly at last. "Has my
+soul forgotten what I did to it, and how I found it only to give it away
+to a man who called me by another woman's name?"
+
+It must have been late, for carriages and cars passed her, bearing
+homewards people who had been to the theatre or dining out. She caught
+scraps of conversation concerning the play, and little intimate remarks
+about people were flung freely to her upon the night wind. But her ears
+heeded nothing, for she had a companion who singularly engrossed her
+attention. She believed it was herself she walked with--a new-found,
+detached, curiously-contented self. She did not know that it was Destiny
+who had her by the hand.
+
+At the top of the Berea Hill, not far from her own gate, she stopped a
+moment under the deep shadow of some wayside trees. All in black she
+seemed part of the shadow, and she stood very still, for she heard
+rickshaws coming up the hill, and she thought she would let them pass
+before she essayed the glare of a street lamp a few yards ahead. As it
+happened, the first rickshaw stopped at a double white gate which was
+full under the light of the lamp. A man descended, turned, and held out
+his hand, and a woman stepped daintily down. She was a thin, slim woman,
+wrapless, in a black satin gown with silvery sleeves. She looked as
+interesting, though not as wicked, as the Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. In
+the lamp-light her hair, which was dark brown, appeared to have seven
+red lights in it. Her face was neither beautiful nor pretty, but
+well-bred and harmonious, with a sort of glimmering gaiety about the
+eyes. Poppy instantly recognised her as the woman she had seen on the
+day of her first arrival in Durban and had subsequently ascertained to
+be Mrs. Portal. She was carrying on a desultory conversation with the
+man, and they continued it as he stood feeling in his pockets for money
+for the _boy_.
+
+"Why don't you flirt with her yourself, Billy--Bill?" said she. "You
+would be good for her and she wouldn't do you any harm!"
+
+He was a heavily-built, sullenly-handsome man, who looked as though he
+had never said a good-tempered thing in his life.
+
+Poppy was astounded when he blithely answered:
+
+"Darling, when there is only one woman in a man's life, he can't
+convincingly imply to the woman he is with that she is the only one in
+the world----"
+
+Mrs. Portal fell to laughing.
+
+"Billy, you fraud! You know you always carry along on top-ropes when I'm
+not there."
+
+"Not with Mary," the man asseverated. "Mary would want too much of a
+deuce of a lot of convincing. She would smell a rat."
+
+"Don't be subtle, Billy," cried Mrs. Portal, laughing and going in at
+the gates.
+
+The other rickshaw drew near, and "Billy" waited to receive it. As it
+passed Poppy, two scraps of conversation floated to her.
+
+"I've a great mind to persuade Nick to go with you--and to take me too,"
+said the woman, laughing a little.
+
+"Yes, why don't you? 'Better a bright companion on a weary way, than a
+horse-litter,' you know. But it would be too rough a journey for you,
+I'm afraid."
+
+The man's voice sent all the blood in Poppy's body rustling to her ears.
+She burnt and glowed at the thought of his nearness. _Now_ she knew that
+it was Destiny who had walked with her. Now she knew that peace would
+never be hers so long as this man's feet trod the earth.
+
+The rickshaw appeared to be filled with something resembling yellow
+foam--billows and billows of it fell everywhere, even upon the shafts
+and the folded hood behind. The moment the bearer stood still, the man
+called Billy came forward and put out his hand to the woman in the
+rickshaw, and she regally descended. The watching girl, through eyes dim
+with jealous pain and anger, seeking nothing but the dark face that came
+after, still saw that the woman was very beautiful and recognised in her
+the heroine of her childhood's days. It was, indeed, Mrs. Nick Capron!
+
+She also was cloakless, with magnificent bare arms and shoulders
+gleaming white above the rippling waves of yellow chiffon. Her hair
+rippled and waved too, and shone in masses on her head, and diamonds
+twinkled in it. She seemed almost too bright a vision for the naked eye.
+
+"And what did you think of _that_ for a play?" asked the sullen-faced
+one as he opened the gate.
+
+"Enchanting," said she vivaciously. "So full of introspection and
+retrospection, and all that, and----"
+
+"Yes, and mighty little circumspection," was the ready answer, and they
+passed in, laughing.
+
+The last man, moving with casual deliberation, came slowly to the
+side-walk, and stood there speaking to the bearer, a powerful Zulu, as
+he paid him, asking if he had found the pull uphill too hard. The _boy_
+laughed in response and shook his winged arms boastfully, saying:
+
+"_Icona._"
+
+Afterwards both rickshaws jingled away. The man should have followed the
+others in, but he stood still. He stood still, with a yellow chiffon
+wrap flung over his arm, and distinctly snuffed the air.
+
+"Poppies!" he muttered. "What makes me think of poppies?... God! I could
+almost dream that dream again...."
+
+For an instant his brilliant moody eyes stared straight into the black
+shadows where Poppy stood, watching him with both hands on her heart.
+Then the voices of the others called, and he turned abruptly and went
+in.
+
+Poppy fled home to dark, sad dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+One blue-eyed morning, about a month after Abinger's departure, Poppy
+was down on the sea-beach. She sat in the loose sand, and ran her hands
+restlessly in and out of it, making little banks about her. She was
+wondering if she would be able to sleep if she came out and lay in these
+cool white sands some night. She was so tired of never sleeping.
+
+The sun had not risen, but there was a pale primrose dado painted across
+the East.
+
+Presently the girl became aware of another woman sauntering along close
+to the edge of the sea. She was digging a walking-stick in the sand
+every few yards and watching the hole fill with water afterwards. She
+carried the tail of her white-linen skirt under her chin, and her feet
+all wetted by the little incoming waves, had caught the pale light and
+seemed shod with silver as she walked, singing a little French song:
+
+                    "Le monde est méchant, ma petite,
+                      Avec son sourire moqueur:
+                    Il dit qu'à ton côté palpite
+                      Une montre en place du coeur."
+
+When she came opposite Poppy she left off singing and stood for a minute
+looking at her. Then came slowly sauntering up the beach to where she
+sat. Poppy recognised Mrs. Portal. Mrs. Portal recognised the
+Burne-Jones eyes; but she wondered where the gladness of living was all
+gone.
+
+"You look like a pale, sea-eyed mermaid, forsaken by your lover," she
+said. "Why aren't you combing your hair with a golden comb?"
+
+"What is the use, if my lover is gone?" said Poppy, with a smile.
+
+"Oh! if you did it a new way he might come back," laughed Mrs. Portal,
+and sat down by her side. "I thought I was the only sun-worshipper in
+Durban," she remarked, as one continuing an ordinary conversation with
+an old friend. "I have felt rather superior about it, and as lonely as a
+genius."
+
+"I am often down here in the morning," said Poppy, "but it must be
+lovely at night, too. I was thinking that I should come and sleep here
+one night when it is moonlight."
+
+"_Never_ sleep under the moon," said Mrs. Portal darkly, "or an awful
+thing will happen to you--your face will be all pulled out of drawing."
+
+Poppy unconsciously put up one hand and felt her face. But Mrs. Portal
+burst out laughing. "You have done it already? Well, she must like you,
+for she hasn't done you any harm."
+
+"I like _her_," said Poppy.
+
+"And well you may. She's the only woman who knows everything about one
+and yet doesn't give one away." Mrs. Portal plugged her stick deep in
+the sand and made a support for her back. She then clasped herself about
+the knees and continued her remarks:
+
+"Yes ... she knows too much ... but she keeps on smiling. I suppose it's
+because the old pagan is so used to sinners.
+
+        "'There's not a day: the longest--not the 21st of June--
+          Sees so much mischief in a wicked way
+        On which three single hours of moonshine smile----'"
+
+"And yet she looks so modest all the while!" Poppy finished.
+
+Mrs. Portal reproved her.
+
+"I consider you too young and good looking to read Byron."
+
+"Do you think he wrote for the old and ugly?" laughed Poppy. "And how
+came you to read him?"
+
+"What! The retort flattering! _You're_ no Durbanite. _You_ don't grow in
+the cabbage garden. Ohé! I can say what I will to you. Ding-Dong!"
+
+Her little, high-bred face was neither too sunny nor too sad, but had a
+dash of both sunshine and sorrow about the eyes and lips. She screwed it
+up in a way she had, and began to sing her little French song again:
+
+                    "Le monde est méchant, ma petite:
+                      Il dit que tes yeux vifs sont morts,
+                    Et se meuvent dans leur orbite
+                      A temps égaux et par ressorts."
+
+The odour of happiness which Bramham had spoken of began to make itself
+felt. Little fronds and scents of it caught hold of Poppy and enfolded
+her. Looking at the face beside her she saw in it no signs of any mean
+content with life. There were fine cobwebby lines around the eyes and
+mouth, and a deep one between the brows, and Poppy wished that they were
+upon her face, too, for they were beautiful. Yet they could only have
+come through suffering, for Mrs. Portal was not old.
+
+"She has had sorrows, too--but not shameful ones. She wears them like
+jewels," thought the girl.
+
+The woman beside her had indeed greater gifts than mere beauty. She had
+seven red lights in her hair, which was always extraordinarily tumbled
+without being untidy; a heart of gold; and a tongue of silver.
+
+Many men loved her, as fine men cannot help loving what is lovable and
+sweet, and gentle, and kind, and brave, and gay, and wise.
+
+Even women loved her; and so the worst thing they could find to say of
+her was that she must have been quite pretty--once!
+
+In return, she loved all men, and was kind to all women, loving one
+steadfastly.
+
+But now, half in pity, half for some reason she could not fathom, she
+found a place in her heart for Poppy Destin, too. She was touched by the
+girl's beauty, on which her seeing eyes saw the shadow of tragedy.
+
+"_Quite_ a child!" was her thought. "Too young to have so much to hide
+behind those lovely eyes!" A line from Pater's monograph on _Monna Lisa_
+came into her mind:
+
+    "Hers are the eyes that have looked on all the world; and the
+        eyelids are a little weary."
+
+She put out her hand to Poppy. If Poppy had eyes like _Monna Lisa_, she
+herself had the hands of that Mother of all saints and sinners--only a
+little browner.
+
+"I would like to be your friend," she said quietly.
+
+Poppy flushed, and then became pale. The hand Mrs. Portal touched
+stiffened a little, and the lilac eyes looked away at the sea rather
+than meet the kindness of the other's glance--but they were dim with
+tears. Mrs. Portal's warm, Irish heart felt a chill. She was a little
+sore too, for her friendship was more often sought than proffered, and
+never before had she known a repulse. She could not know that the girl
+before her felt honoured as never in her life before, and was filled
+with gratitude and affection. But Clementine Portal was a creature full
+of intuition and understanding. Possibly some of the girl's feeling
+subtly communicated itself to her, for she became aware that the rebuff
+did not come of rudeness or indifference--or coldness of heart; but of
+some other strange feeling.
+
+"Is it possible that she's afraid of me?" she thought at last. "Poor
+child! doesn't she know an enemy from a friend? It must be that she has
+found all women her enemies!"
+
+They had been saying little ordinary things to one another in the
+meantime, while they gazed before them to where the risen sun was
+transforming the curved, purple waves into a sheet of dazzling copper.
+
+Presently Clementine got up from the sands, very reluctantly.
+
+"I must go home to breakfast, or my household will be searching for me,"
+she said, with a mournful smile, shaking her skirt into shape. "Heaven
+meant me to roam the deserts and run in the woods; but Fate laid upon me
+the burden of respectability and planted me in the cabbage garden. I
+must run and catch a tram-car!"
+
+Poppy laughed at her; but her laugh ended on a queer note.
+
+"Being a wild ass of the desert has its drawbacks, too!" said she, with
+something of bitterness.
+
+Clementine put out her hand and touched the girl's. "Well, don't be a
+wild ass any more. Come and see me. I hold agricultural shows on the
+first and last Fridays of the month, and you will find the best kinds of
+turnips and cabbages in my drawing-room. But if you seek me in love and
+charity as a friend _should_, come on Sundays. You never told me your
+name, yet, mermaid!"
+
+Poppy held the brown, thin hand and answered firmly:
+
+"Rosalind Chard."
+
+But afterwards, when the other had gone a little way, she ran after her
+and caught her up and said:
+
+"But I wish you would call me 'Poppy.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nevertheless, it was not until a month later that she visited Mrs.
+Portal. Strongly attracted by the kind, gay ways and looks of that
+fascinating woman, she yet feared to know her better. And she feared,
+too, that in the house of Mrs. Portal she might meet the man whom she
+knew not whether most she loved, or feared, or hated; for whose sake she
+gashed herself with the knives of defeat and despair. She knew that he
+belonged to Mrs. Portal's circle of friends, and she had heard from
+Sophie Cornell that the chief of these was Mrs. Capron. _Mrs. Capron!_
+That was the name in which he had bidden her good-bye, speaking in his
+drunkenness or delirium, she knew not which. Mrs. Capron, the splendid,
+milky creature, who had been with him in the rickshaw, and whom Poppy
+had so clearly recognised! Would _she_, too, recognise Poppy? The girl
+was not so certain now of the improbability of such a thing, for of late
+it seemed to her that she had begun to present a singular resemblance to
+herself as she had looked in those unhappy, far-off days. The strain of
+suffering had told upon her terribly, and her face was tragically drawn,
+with a sharp, childish look of suffering about her mouth, and soft,
+though not unlovely hollows, in her cheeks. Her eyes looked larger and
+more unreal for the shadows beneath them.
+
+The day she decided to go to Mrs. Portal's found her examining herself
+in her glass with apprehensive eyes, keen for every defect. She was a
+woman now, examining her weapons for battle, and her courage misgave her
+as she saw her reflection. She had put on a white gown that was all
+simple lines and soft laces, and she really looked very young and
+girlish, but she hated her appearance when she thought of those two
+charming-looking women of the world with their eloquent clothes. What if
+she should meet _him_ there and he should compare her with them? What if
+either the thin, vivacious, sunburnt woman, whom she herself could
+hardly help loving--or the regal-milky-woman of yellow chiffon should be
+that _Loraine_ whom he so loved?
+
+"With either of them what chance should I stand?" she asked herself,
+desperate-eyed. "Why have I got these vile, purple shadows?--and holes
+in my cheeks? I never had them before!" She burst into tears, and at
+this juncture Kykie thought fit to make her entrance unannounced with
+her everlasting tea-tray.
+
+"Now, Poppy, to goodness! what you ought to do is to take off that tight
+frock and put on a nice cool gown and rest," said the beldame
+importantly.
+
+"You're mad, Kykie--and I wish you wouldn't come into my room without
+knocking." Poppy made occasion to fling a towel over her hat and gloves
+which lay on the bed, and which it was not desirable Kykie should see.
+
+"Ah! you needn't mind old Kykie, darling," was the response; and Poppy,
+unused to such blandishments, stared at the yellow face which continued
+to waggle archly at her.
+
+"What will Luce say when he comes back, if I haven't taken care of you?"
+
+The girl suddenly sickened at her tone.
+
+"How dare she speak to me like that!" was her furious thought. "As if
+Luce has any right over me or my health!" She could have struck the
+leering smile from the woman's face; she turned away trembling with
+anger to her dressing-table.
+
+"So you knew all the time about Luce and me being married?" she said in
+a toneless voice, when she had presently mastered herself.
+
+"Heavenly me! yes, and I knew it would all work out and come right in
+the end. But I think you ought to wear your wedding-ring now, Poppy....
+All right, all right, you needn't look at me like a _mal-meit_!... I'm
+going now ... I wouldn't stop with you another minute when you look like
+that ... you and Luce are a nice pair for temper ... surely to goodness
+one would think all would be peace and love _now_--" The door was
+closed and locked on her and she was obliged to continue her soliloquy
+on the stairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later found Poppy letting herself in at the double white gates
+of Mrs. Portal's garden. It was neither the first nor last Friday in the
+month, nor yet Sunday afternoon; but she had not come for society. She
+came because she must; because of her bitter need of some word
+concerning the man she loved.
+
+The house was a big, red-brick villa, with many verandahs and no
+pretentious, except to comfort. An English maid, in a French cap and
+apron, showed her into a drawing-room that was full of the scent of
+flowers, with open windows and drawn shades. Almost immediately Mrs.
+Portal blew into the room like a fresh wind, seized her hands, and shook
+them warmly.
+
+"I knew you would come to-day," she said. "I dreamed of you last night.
+Poppy, I have a feeling that you and I are going to be mixed up in each
+other's lives somehow."
+
+A creature of moods and impulses herself, Poppy thoroughly understood
+this greeting, and it warmed her sad and lonely spirit gratefully; she
+let herself be beguiled to the fireside of Clementine Portal's
+friendship. Before she realised it, they were seated together in a deep
+lounge just big enough for two people, and a pile of cushions with cool,
+dull-toned surfaces, talking like friends of long standing. Mrs. Portal
+was quite in the dark as to who the girl was, but that did not bother
+her at all, and her remarks contained no shadow of a question. It was
+enough that she "had a feeling about her," and had dreamed of her and
+believed in her.
+
+To ordinary persons these might not seem very cogent reasons; but
+Clementine Portal was in no sense ordinary. Her judgment concerning
+things in general, and women in particular, was both keen and sound;
+but she never allowed it to interfere with her inspirations, which she
+considered far safer. Apparently intensely practical and conventional,
+she was, in reality, a woman who lived the most important part of her
+life in a hidden world. She had the seeing-eye and the hearing-ear for
+things that went unnoted by the every-day man and woman. Being Irish,
+she was packed full of superstition, but, fortunately, a strong vein of
+common sense counterbalanced it. As for her humour, that most fatal gift
+in a woman, it sometimes resembled a fine blue flame, that scorched
+everything in reach; and sometimes, to the consternation of the
+conventional, was the rollicking wit of a fat and jolly Irish priest
+addicted to the punch-bowl. She had a wonderful way of attracting
+confidences from people about the things they most cared for in life. In
+a little while Poppy had told her what she had never told to a living
+soul before--about her little book of songs--and her great ambitions as
+a writer. For some unknown reason the girl felt these ambitions very
+much alive in her that afternoon. Clementine Portal sat like a creature
+entranced, with her lips slightly apart. When Poppy had given her, upon
+urgent requesting--a halting, eloquent outline of her novel, Clem said:
+
+"I _know_ it will be good.... I can feel that it will have big bits of
+open space like the veldt in it, with new sorts of trees growing by the
+wayside as one passes along.... I hate the modern woman's book, because
+it always makes me gasp for air. It is too full of the fire that burns
+up all there is in life."
+
+"You would write far better than I, probably," said the girl. "I know so
+little of life--only what I feel. You know everything----"
+
+"Dear girl, you are better as you are. When you know everything, you
+will have discovered that the world is full of sawdust, and the people
+stuffed with shavings, and no one worth writing about--then, where will
+your fine books be?"
+
+"Have you ever thought of writing?"
+
+"Often," she began to laugh. "And when I discover a real good man in the
+world I shall burst into glory in a novel. But no such man exists. He
+died when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Here
+is tea. We'll drown my pessimism in the cream-bowl, shall we?"
+
+She went to the tea-table. The maid drew up the window-shades, letting
+the lovely rose-lights of late afternoon into the room. It was a real
+woman's room, full of flowers and photographs, and cushions, and piles
+of magazines and weeklies everywhere. There were no wonderful pictures
+on the walls, or valuable china in cases. Only a few well-arranged
+native curios, a good piano, and the kind of things people from home
+gather about them when they are sojourning in a foreign land. As Poppy
+followed to the tea-table, her eye caught a full-length photograph on
+the wall over the writing-desk, and she stayed a moment to look. It was
+a woman in her presentation gown--two long, lovely eyes smiled
+contentedly on the world. Underneath, in a woman's writing, were the
+words: "To Clem, from Mary."
+
+It was the regal-milky-woman--Mrs. Capron. Mrs. Portal turned round from
+her tea-cups.
+
+"Ah! everyone looks at that photograph! She is very beautiful. The
+remarkable thing is that she is good, too. That _is_ remarkable, isn't
+it? I'm sure if I had a face like that I should go to my own head and be
+a perfect divil."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Poppy, still before the smiling picture.
+
+"My friend, Mrs. Capron."
+
+"Is that her name written there?"
+
+"Yes, hers and mine. She is my dearest friend, and so she is allowed to
+call me Clem; you may, too, if you like."
+
+Poppy came, thanking her, and sat by the tea-table. She felt suddenly
+happier, for now she could follow the dictates of her heart and love
+this woman--whose name was _Clem_.
+
+As they took tea the door opened gently and a little figure stole into
+the room straight to her mother's knee.
+
+"I like you, and love you," said she solemnly.
+
+"Hyacinth, what have you been doing?" Mrs. Portal asked anxiously.
+
+It was easy to see that they were mother and child, for they had the
+same golden-brown eyes, full of dots and dashes and shadows, and the
+same grave-gay mouths. There, however, all resemblance ceased. The
+child's physique consisted of a head covered with long, streaky brown
+hair, and a pair of copper-coloured legs which apparently began under
+her chin.
+
+"I love and like you," she repeated glibly.
+
+"Then I know you have been doing something very wicked, Cinthie. You
+always have when you like and love me."
+
+"_Pas!_" said Cinthie, now gazing calmly at Poppy.
+
+"I shall go and find out," said Mrs. Portal. "I have to go, anyway, to
+speak to cook about dinner; do forgive me for five minutes, dear;
+Cinthie will look after you. Cinthie, I hope I can trust you to be good
+with Miss Chard for five minutes."
+
+The moment she was gone Cinthie made a boastful statement.
+
+"My face is bigger than yours!"
+
+Poppy put up her hand and felt her face carefully; then looked at
+Cinthie's with the air of one measuring with the eye.
+
+"Well, perhaps it is!" she acceded.
+
+"It's bigger'n anyone's," continued Cinthie, even more bragfully. "Who
+are you married to?"
+
+This was an awkward and surprising question, but Poppy countered.
+
+"Why should you think I am married, Cinthie?"
+
+"Everybody's married," was the swift response. "_I'm_ married to Mammie,
+and Mammie's married to Daddie, and Daddie's married to the moon, and
+the moon's married to the sun, and the sun's married to the sea, and the
+sea's married to the stars, and the stars are married to the
+stripes--Daddie says so. Let me sit on your lap, I'm as tired as a bed."
+
+Poppy lifted her up, and Cinthie, lolling against the white, lacy dress,
+gazed for a space into the lilac eyes. She then carefully selected a
+long streak of her own hair and put it into her mouth, thoughtfully
+sucking it as she continued her remarks:
+
+"I think you had better marry Karri," she said. "I like Karri better'n
+anyone, except Daddie. His face is bigger than anybody's."
+
+"Is Karri a man, then?"
+
+"Yes; but he's got two women's names, isn't that funny? One's Karri and
+the other's Eve. I'll show you his photo."
+
+She ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a frame from a table, and
+brought it back triumphantly.
+
+"There!" she cried, and dumped it into Poppy's lap.
+
+Poppy stared down into the pictured face of the man she loved.
+
+Mrs. Portal reappeared.
+
+"Oh, Cinthie, I've heard all about it from Sarah, and I'm very angry
+with you. I knew you had been doing something specially wicked. You're a
+_petite méchante_."
+
+"_Pas!_" said Cinthie stoutly.
+
+"You are. Go away, now, to the nursery. I'm very angry with you."
+
+Cinthie retreated, bitterly reasseverating:
+
+"_Pas! pas! Pas petite méchante! Pas!_"
+
+Clem observed the photograph in Poppy's lap.
+
+"She has been showing you her hero--the hero of us all. Everyone in this
+house genuflects before Eve Carson."
+
+And so at last Poppy knew the name of the idol before which she, too,
+worshipped!
+
+"By the way, did Cinthie mention that his face is bigger than anyone's?
+That is the final point of beauty with Cinthie--to have a big face.
+Well, Evelyn Carson's face is not so big, but his ways are, and his
+ideas, and those things make for bigness of soul----"
+
+Poppy said nothing: only she prayed with all her soul that Clem would
+continue to talk upon this subject; and Clem, looking dreamily at the
+girl, but obviously not thinking of her, responded to the prayer.
+
+"He is a wonderful person, and we all adore him, even though our
+judgment sometimes asks us why, and our ears sometimes hear the untoward
+things that are not compatible with reverence," she was smiling. "I
+daresay you have heard of him."
+
+"Yes," said Poppy, in an even voice.
+
+"Most people have, by now--he's been one of the foremost figures in
+South African life for years, one of the many Irishmen who have left
+their native land, burning with the sense of England's tyranny, only to
+go and strive for England's fame and glory in some other part of the
+world. We met him first on the Rand, where all the interesting
+blackguards forgather at some time or another; but he was always in
+trouble there, for, you know, Oom Paul doesn't approve of Imperialistic
+Irishmen, and invariably contrives to make anyone of the kind
+exceedingly uncomfortable. Karri Carson has been a marked man, watched
+by the Secret Service, and his every action and every word reported,
+with the result, of course, that he has said and done many daringly
+foolish things, and nearly been deported over the border once or twice.
+Fortunately, there are more interesting places than the Rand, and there
+is always a rumpus going on in _some_ quarter of Africa, and he has been
+in all the rumpuses of the last fifteen years--Uganda--Matabelel
+and--anywhere where there was anything in the wind and where _real men_
+were wanted. He's earned the V.C. a dozen times, though he's only got
+the D.S.O. But it is not love of honours that is his moving spirit--just
+an Irishman's lust for being in the "redmost hell of the fight." Between
+intervals of active service he has gone off into the wild deeps of
+Africa, where no one has ever been before--discovered a new quadruped
+and a new tribe of natives. The Royal Institute is _dying_ to trim him
+up with blue ribbons and exhibit him in London, but Africa has kissed
+him on the mouth, and he will not leave her." Clem drew a long breath.
+"I can't think what we shall all do now that he is gone," she finished
+sadly.
+
+"Gone!" Poppy wondered what kept her voice so calm while her soul cried
+out within her.
+
+"Yes, gone away to Borapota: a little red-hot spot in the red-hot heart
+of Africa. It is very conveniently situated for us--not too far from our
+lovely Mombassa harbour--and it is very rich and fertile, and in every
+way desirable, and the Imperial Unionists think we ought to own it, and
+the Liberal Little Englanders think we ought to get it--without spilling
+a drop of blood or saying a single bad word to anybody. And Evelyn
+Carson has gone to get it for us _sans_ Maxims and _sans_ men and _sans_
+anything much besides a high heart and a squad of _boys_ who have been
+everywhere with him. He has gone on a _peaceful expedition_ into the
+midst of one of the fiercest tribes in Africa to barter or bargain for
+Concessions that will eventually extend the Empire by sixty thousand
+square miles, and add a country crammed with coal and iron and ivory and
+a dozen other lovely things to the pink part of the map. And he has gone
+without even _official_ permission, so that if he succeeds--why, hurrah!
+for the Union Jack and everything under it! And if he fails--only
+another reputation buried in an African grave! No one will care a rap,
+and everyone will forget him except the people who love him. The only
+thing I care to think of in the matter is, that the Borapotans are said
+to be extremely intelligent and reasonable men, who will make splendid
+soldiers--and then everyone knows what a way Evelyn Carson has with all
+natives! The Zulus and the Basutos, and all the war-loving tribes,
+simply adore him! Still, there's no denying the fact that he's gone with
+his life in his hand. Even if the natives prove to be sweet and
+reasonable, there are half a dozen other deaths lurking in every mile of
+the Interior."
+
+"Has no other white man gone with him?" Poppy heard herself asking.
+
+"No one except his _boys_ will go with him once he starts on the
+unbeaten track--but our friends the Caprons have sailed with him as far
+as Mombassa, and Mrs. Capron declares they will accompany him inland,
+too, until he drives them back. Of course, he's sure to do that before
+they reach the danger zone--but isn't it intrepid of her?"
+
+Poppy did not know what she answered. Darkness engulfed her spirit,
+almost her senses.
+
+"They started about a month ago, and I am terribly lonely without them
+all. Mrs. Capron and her husband will be back within three months, I
+expect, but we feel--_everybody_ who knows--very anxious about Eve
+Carson, more especially because he is very susceptible to malarial
+fever. He had a frightful attack about six weeks before he left; he was
+found raving in a rickshaw one night, and for nearly a fortnight
+afterwards was practically delirious. However, no sooner was he out of
+danger than he took up his preparations again, and in spite of the
+doctors, he sailed on the date he had originally fixed."... Mrs. Portal
+looked extremely mournful, but presently she added: "We are so thankful
+to think that Mrs. Capron will be with him for a while, because her
+husband has often had fever, and she thoroughly understands it."
+
+"I must go home," said Poppy suddenly; and Clementine, roused from her
+reverie by the strangely sounding voice, stared at the girl.
+
+"You look quite ill, dear," she said gently. "I am so sorry; I have been
+wandering on, about all the things that interest _me_!... Will you lie
+down a little while? or shall I ring for some wine?"
+
+"No, no, I must go home ... it is nothing ... I feel odd sometimes ..."
+she spoke vaguely, but she stood up, arranging her veil and pulling on
+her gloves. Clem came with her through the garden, and they stood for a
+moment with the low double gate between them, bidding each other
+good-bye. Mrs. Portal kissed her and told her to come again soon, but
+the girl answered nothing. Suddenly a visionary look passed like a veil
+across Clementine Portal's face.
+
+"Poppy," she said in a dreamy, yet intent way; "there will be deep
+waters around you soon! ... you will need courage, resolution, _and_
+silence ... those are a woman's greatest friends in this world ... but,
+in so far as one human being can count on another--count on me, too, for
+a friend."
+
+Already the swirl of the waters was in Poppy's ears, but the kind, brave
+message came to her like a friendly oar in the dark sea of trouble. For
+a moment she clung to the older woman's hand like a child afraid; then
+they parted. Poppy walked away through the vapoury, delicate light shed
+by a slender fragment of moon, and Clem Portal stayed staring
+abstractedly over the gate. It was three years before they met again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Poppy lay upon her bed like a drowned woman. She had come in almost
+fainting, and Kykie, meeting her on the stairs and seeing her face, had
+flown after her to her bedroom with water and brandy. The old woman had
+taken the girl in her arms bodily, and placing her on the bed, proceeded
+to drench her face and hair with ice-cold water and eau-de-Cologne, and
+to force doses of brandy between the white lips.
+
+At last, reviving somewhat under this vigorous treatment, Poppy found
+breath and sense to remonstrate:
+
+"What do you mean, Kykie? Do you want to choke me? Stop that ... I'm
+nearly drowned."
+
+"You were drownded enough before you came in," responded Kykie with
+asperity; "your dress is soaking. Where have you been?"
+
+Poppy had been lying in the dew-drenched grass of the garden for some
+two hours or more after her return from Mrs. Portal's, but she was not
+conscious of the fact.
+
+"... And, Luce coming home without warning, and you not in to dinner,
+and everything in the world to aggravate a gracious Christian woman!"
+continued Kykie, panting like a stout sheep.
+
+"Luce? Dinner?" said Poppy vaguely. "What is the time, Kykie?"
+
+"I think you're going cracked," said Kykie with fresh ire, "not to know
+the time! Half-past nine it is, indeed, and me not in bed yet, when you
+_know_ what I suffer if I don't get my night's rest. You and Luce
+simply haven't the consideration of a _cow_ for me."
+
+"Oh, go to bed!" said Poppy wearily.
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort, thank you, extremingly. I will not go to
+my bed until you have eaten some dinner. Do you think I want all the
+trouble of a funeral in the house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Poppy, not taking any care of yourself, knowing what you do----"
+
+The old woman paused with some significant intention, but Poppy only
+waved a pale hand in her direction.
+
+"Go away and hold your peace, Kykie, for the love of Heaven!"
+
+"I'll only go away to get you some food ... and you're to eat it, Poppy
+dear," she began to coax. "I'll bring you some nice hot soup, lovey, and
+a little chicken mayonnaise, and you _will_ try and eat it, won't you?
+and a little glass of champagne."
+
+"I couldn't Kykie ... only leave me alone...."
+
+The old woman promptly seated herself upon the side of the bed with the
+air of an immovable rock.
+
+"Well.... Oh, all right, then ... _anything_ ... why can't you leave me
+alone?"
+
+Kykie did; but she took the precaution of removing the bedroom door-key
+and taking it with her, for she knew her mistress's ways well. In a few
+moments she was back again, with half a pint of champagne and a little
+pile of caviare sandwiches, which she warranted to put life into a
+corpse if she could only force them down its throat. She almost
+proceeded to this extreme measure with Poppy, threatening, cajoling, and
+complaining all the while.
+
+Eventually she took her departure with an empty plate and glass, and as
+she went she threw back a last menacing remark to the bed.
+
+"And _I shall stay up to speak to Luce_ when he returns from the Club."
+What she could mean by this Poppy neither knew nor cared. Revived a
+little by the wine and food, but with a body and mind demanding rest,
+she closed her eyes and fell into dead slumber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the candles which Kykie had lighted in the tall silver sticks on
+the dressing-table had burnt far down from their scarlet shades, Poppy
+awakened to the fact that someone was moving about her bedroom. She
+opened her eyes, but did not stir or make a sound.
+
+A man was standing by her writing-table humming softly to himself while
+he took up each little ornament and article upon it, and gently broke it
+between his hands. There were several paper-knives of wood and silver
+and tortoise-shell; quaint pens, and two gold-set rose-glasses. He broke
+them all gently between his hands, and the snapping of them was like the
+snapping of little bones. He then tore up some photographs, and a
+black-and-white etching of the Bay of Naples, and piled the pieces into
+two little heaps. As he walked away from the writing-table towards the
+lighted dressing-table, the candles gleamed on his profile, and Poppy
+saw that it was, as she supposed, the profile of Luce Abinger. He was
+humming between his teeth, a little tune--an odd noise resembling much
+the sort of monotonous hum made by black fighting ants when they go out
+seeking battle with other ant tribes.
+
+Something resembling panic stole over the girl as she listened, and once
+she saw his distorted mouth smiling terribly, and could have cried
+aloud, but she controlled herself and continued to lie still with
+half-closed eyes, watching his strange proceedings. From the
+dressing-table he took up her two beautiful ivory brushes with her name
+written in silver across their backs, and bending them in his hands,
+snapped off their handles, laying the broken bits down. Then carefully
+and methodically he broke every one of the silver articles on the
+table. The sound of them snapping seemed to give him acute pleasure.
+Even two tall vases of silver and cut-glass were not too strong for his
+skilful hands; nor was a little porcelain trinket-tray, with a scene
+from the _Tokaido_ inlaid upon it (for which he had paid thirty pounds
+at Yokohama), spared.
+
+A handful of rings and bracelets, which Kykie had removed from her
+fainting mistress and placed in a little heap upon the table, he dropped
+upon the floor and ground his heel upon.
+
+With no look towards the bed where Poppy lay, he left the table then,
+and sauntered to the walls, from which he stripped the wonderful chalk
+drawings and flung them in ribbons to the floor. His eye caught the
+silver and ivory crucifix.
+
+"Ah, Christ! I had forgotten you," said he, speaking for the first time,
+in a soft and pleased tone, and picking up a boot-tree left carelessly
+by a chair he approached, and struck a ringing blow upon the beautiful
+ivory face, shattering it. Again and again he struck until it lay in a
+hundred tiny splinters on the ground. Poppy's eye had sought the door
+and found it closed; the lock gleamed and there was no key to be seen.
+She came to the conclusion that she was locked in with a man who had
+gone mad. The house was absolutely silent.
+
+"If he chooses to kill me, he can; no one will hear my calls," she
+thought, and she continued to lie very still.
+
+In smashing the crucifix Abinger had for the first time made a noise
+louder than the gentle cracking and crunching of bones; but he had now
+awakened to the charm of breaking things with a crash. He beat the
+boot-tree full into the smiling face of _Monna Lisa_.
+
+"Stop smiling, you leaden-jawed Jewess," he said softly.
+
+The glass flew in jingling showers in every direction, but the strong,
+quiet face remained on the wall in its frame; and though the mouth was
+full of splintered glass, the eyes smiled gravely on--the eyes of a
+woman who had seen many such violent scenes come and go.
+
+There was a tiny bronze bust of Daniel O'Connell, standing on a little
+cedar-wood shelf, which Abinger caught up and flung with a calm, sure
+aim at the long gilt-edged mirror, making a great white radiating
+asterisk full in the centre of it.
+
+All vases and flower-bowls he took from their places and dropped upon
+the floor. The sound of their breaking was not unmusical.
+
+He still continued to hum. At last there was nothing left to destroy
+except the books arranged in their shelves round the room. A few he
+pulled from their cases and tore them across, but the sound of their
+tearing was tame and had no charm for him after so much exciting noise.
+Leisurely he left them at last and came to the foot of the bed and stood
+looking down upon the girl lying there. She met his eyes with a calm and
+quiet glance, though the soul within her was apprehensive enough.
+
+The smile on his mouth was like the carved smile on the mouth of some
+hideous Japanese mask, and his eyes resembled the eyes of a gargoyle. He
+was in full evening-dress and very immaculate, and his fair hair lay as
+smooth and sleek upon his head as a sleeping child's.
+
+"Awake?" he asked, with continual and unfailing pleasantness.
+
+"You hardly expected me to have remained asleep?" asked Poppy equably.
+She saw very well now that he had not lost his reason. His eyes were not
+an insane man's eyes, though they were lit by some frightful emotion,
+and he was plainly in the grip of one of his extraordinary rages: the
+worst she had ever witnessed. It did not occur to her that she could in
+any way be the cause of his anger, and she felt wearily indignant that
+it should be obtruded upon her at this time. She did not mind much about
+all her beautiful things with which he had made such holocaust, though
+her possessions had always had for her that pathetic value and meaning
+which the lonely attach to inanimate things. But her whole life was
+_bouleversé_ now, and she understood that such things mattered little.
+
+Abinger was looking at her with a tinge of something that might have
+been expectancy in his fury. Was he waiting for her to demand what he
+meant by this unprecedented outrage on her privacy? Ill and careless of
+life as she felt, she still had strength to rebel against this new form
+of tyranny, and to meet it with courage and disdain. It seemed to her
+that it would be more insolent not to ask him what he meant, but to
+simply take such vile and brutal conduct as a matter of course. So she
+stared back calmly at him from her pillows, not knowing what a strange
+picture she presented, lying there. Her arms wide from her, revealing
+the long, curved line of her boyish young form; her subtle face, pale,
+with strong ivory tints in it against the whiteness of the pillows, the
+blue scornful light of her eyes, and her drowned black hair lying like
+gorgon ropes about her. Passion-racked and pale as Magdalene, she was a
+sight to kindle the fires of pity and chivalry in any good man; but the
+lust of Luce Abinger's eyes was for the grace and bloom and beauty of
+her, that even misery and fatigue could not rub out, and these things
+kindled his blood to such a fury of savagery and desire that he scarce
+knew what he did. With one quick movement he had left the foot of the
+bed and was sitting beside her with an iron hand on each of hers. So she
+lay there, like a pinioned bird, with his tormented face above her.
+
+"Harlot!" he whispered, still smiling; and the word leapt from his lips
+like a shrivelling flame and scorched across her face.
+
+"Harlot!" he repeated softly. "Tell me the name of your lover!"
+
+That bleached her. Disdain departed from her looks and she lay there
+quivering under his hands; her dry lips parted, but her tongue was stiff
+in her mouth. The blow was so utterly and profoundly unexpected. What
+did he mean? What could he mean? How could he know of that secret idol
+in that secret grove of her heart, before whose altar she had slain her
+girlhood--and his honour? How could he know of that sweet shameful
+secret that she shared with a mad or drunken man--but mad or drunk, the
+man she loved? Had she not buried the secret deep and sworn that no one
+should ever drag it from the depths of her? Was it possible that she had
+not buried it deep enough? Was it written across her face for all the
+world to see? She searched the scorching eyes above her and then at last
+she was afraid; her own fell and the lids closed over them.
+
+Vile epithets fell again and again from his lips, and under each her
+face blenched and shrank as though little flickering flames or drops of
+corrosive acid had touched it; but her eyes were sealed and her lips
+gave forth no word.
+
+At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly to overcome
+Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's hands, his tense
+features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over his face.
+
+Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly and vaguely,
+made his way from the room.
+
+In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the door and locked
+it soundlessly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor. "Well," said he.
+"Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am. As soon as she feels well enough, I
+shall send up my carriage, and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh
+air."
+
+"Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some time yet," was Miss
+Cornell's answer. "She is very dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised
+if she croaked."
+
+Bramham gave her a searching look.
+
+"Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in. I'll ask Ferrand
+to call. He's my doctor, and the best I know----"
+
+"Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've called a doctor in
+already, you know."
+
+"Who have you got?"
+
+"I must go--I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly. "Good-night."
+
+Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and Bramham was left to
+pick his way through the dark garden as best he might.
+
+After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole from among the
+trees to the verandah, softly opened the front door and walked in upon
+Miss Cornell, who was in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda.
+The drink spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart.
+
+"My God, Rosalind! What a _shrik_[5] you gave me! _Man!_ What's the
+matter with you?" At the end of her question her voice fell into a
+whisper. She stared with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before
+her: Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched hair,
+a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.
+
+  [5] Start (fright).
+
+"_Gott!_ Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has someone been trying
+to murder you?"
+
+"Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here for safety. Will
+you take me in, Sophie?"
+
+"Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet--or has your old aunt gone
+up the tree?"
+
+"Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if I have to talk. Only,
+hide me and never let anyone know I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The
+girl fell exhausted into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a
+long face. It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind
+Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However, she saw that
+this was no time to argue the point, and that her present pressing
+business was to get the exhausted girl to bed.
+
+This she proceeded to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy back to health and a
+remote interest in life was Charles Bramham.
+
+One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and asked him to come and
+call.
+
+"I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she looks like a dying
+duck, and I believe she _will_ die if someone doesn't buck her up. It
+would be a _real_ charity if you would come and talk to her."
+
+Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted the invitation with
+vivacity, for he was much _intrigué_ on the subject of Miss Chard, and,
+further, he had not forgotten the romantic and piquant sensations she
+had inspired in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now, piquant
+and romantic sensations are very valuable in South Africa, and should
+always be followed up in case of life becoming too monotonously saltless
+and savourless. Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived one
+afternoon in Sophie's absence.
+
+He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl. He came upon her
+suddenly, sitting in the verandah with her hands laced round her knees
+and her eyes staring straight in front of her with a look in them that
+was not good to see.
+
+"Why! _you_ ought to be away up in the country somewhere, out of this
+sweltering heat," was his first remark after ordinary conventionalities.
+She observed him coldly and assured him that she was perfectly well.
+Her invitation to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite,
+but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt Charles Bramham when
+he was looking for sensations. Besides which, he felt a genuine and
+chivalrous interest in this desperate-eyed girl.
+
+"This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he said pleasantly.
+"It's quite unfit for white men in summer--to say nothing of a delicate
+English girl unaccustomed to it."
+
+A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description of herself,
+and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went on to tell her about just
+the ideal spot for her to recover her health.
+
+"At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you can stand on hills
+that undulate to the sea five hundred feet below, with the whole veldt
+between brilliant with flowers."
+
+Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face. She believed
+Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had such a scrutinising,
+business-like look about him. But to her astonishment he went on to tell
+her of a valley where arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked
+like miles of snowdrifts lying on the grass.
+
+"All along the south coast," he continued, warming to his subject,
+"there are thousands of acres covered with flowers--red and variegated
+and white. I think the white ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of
+the sea wind blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or
+soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added wistfully, and
+the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd way.
+
+"But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly.
+
+"No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the quail come down,"
+was the artless rejoinder. "Not that _that_ will be for a long time
+yet; September is the time. But I like that place."
+
+And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help it. She remembered
+now that she had experienced the same pleasure in his frank, kind
+glances and direct remarks the first time she had met him. Certainly
+there were dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain too, if
+one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is something attractive
+about a man who can forget he is talking to a woman and remember acres
+of flowers instead--and get that boyish look into his eyes at the same
+time! She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the charm of
+Charles Bramham. When he had finished with Upper Natal, he fell to
+telling her of a woman, a _great_ friend of his, who had once lived in
+Durban, until the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad.
+
+"Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham gravely. "She said
+her temperament did it; but _they_ said it was wickedness. So she went
+away and wrote a book about them. She let some of them down on a soft
+cushion, but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging there
+yet--food for the aasvogels."
+
+"She must be very clever," said Poppy drily.
+
+"She is. She's a _bird_," said Bramham with enthusiasm. "When her book
+came out everybody here black-guarded her, and said it showed what an
+immoral wretch she was to know such things about men and women." He gave
+Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something else that was hot
+on his tongue, but he decided that she was too innocent-eyed.
+
+"All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and looked at the
+Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across the counter: 'Please send
+me two copies of _Diana Amongst the Wesleyans_ at once; wrap each in the
+_Sunday at Home_ and despatch to my office.'"
+
+Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:
+
+"Is she here now?"
+
+"Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France, where, she says,
+they understand temperament better than out here, and I believe it. Last
+night I went to a dinner-party--a thing I never do, and it served me
+right--and a woman opposite started tackling me about her; said she had
+seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she was older-looking than ever."
+
+"'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love with her than
+ever.' At which she giggled, and they all turned up their mirthless eyes
+at me. That woman is an old enemy of mine, and she always trains her
+guns on me whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruyère, and
+if ever you meet her, beware!"
+
+"'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she snippered at me.
+
+"'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but not _too_ old. She may be
+ugly, but not _too_ ugly. She may be bad, but not _too_ bad. It is a
+pity you didn't find someone to tell you about this before,' I finished.
+That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."
+
+Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something like two hours, and
+then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left
+her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She
+went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.
+
+"What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly, "that I can laugh
+and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things."
+
+Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was
+away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with
+the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling
+with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but also
+fresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her
+personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in
+the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But
+not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth
+through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly
+original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and
+everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying
+there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a
+swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at
+last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for
+she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when
+she saw it.
+
+That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with
+the "black butterflies" swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What
+was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The
+poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being
+born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when
+the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own
+time.
+
+Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the
+black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only
+knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.
+
+In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun
+to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for
+Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof
+over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought
+her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden.
+Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate
+and had escaped that way, or else through the _boys'_ compound.
+Certainly he would never dream of seeking for her in the house of
+Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her
+presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was
+exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that
+the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of
+the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and
+assistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the
+astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own
+quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at
+the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was,
+in the slang of the day, either "moth-eaten," or "cracked."
+
+At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by
+telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she
+feared would find her out.
+
+Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His
+visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts,
+a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her
+a strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the same feeling
+for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.
+
+She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's
+man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he
+was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure
+of existence--to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very
+often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no
+doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature.
+
+"Life out here is saltless and savourless--just one day's march nearer
+_voetsack_, unless someone takes an interest in you," was the
+disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that
+was even more direct than his words.
+
+"But you must have heaps of people who do that," Poppy answered evenly,
+"and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure
+you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life."
+
+"How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily.
+
+"Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured look of a man whose
+future is secure."
+
+"You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!"
+
+"Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money
+merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting
+than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when
+he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?"
+
+"Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham, grinning.
+
+"Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals
+of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His
+endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose
+there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach
+success."
+
+"You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There are plenty of men out here
+who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties,
+and come out top-dog."
+
+Poppy smiled sceptically.
+
+"Difficulties, yes--but poverty and bitter want?
+
+                 "'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'
+
+"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often
+starved, but never their bodies, and there is always the sunshine, to
+clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs
+filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be
+happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real
+meaning of the word poverty--you, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a
+Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part
+of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I
+thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will
+notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten--there's
+the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't
+suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and
+go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"
+
+Poppy _could_ understand; but she was so much surprised that she said
+nothing.
+
+"My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a
+pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of
+ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and
+teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out
+of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as
+we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a
+profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth
+and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and
+had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an
+undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business
+and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was
+invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of
+auctioneers, and the experience I got _there_ has been mighty useful
+too. But their place of business was a long way from Chelsea, and I
+couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the
+mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself
+on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day
+meal--a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what
+is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to
+that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on
+for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was
+always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put
+heart into me for my long walk--and she would be waiting for me in the
+evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done
+without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some
+astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle
+with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a
+brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader--I don't think
+the life of _any_ famous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put
+heart into _me_ to know that finer men than I had gone through the same
+mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say
+that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a
+wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his
+help never went any further than writing letters of advice and
+forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to
+come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I
+can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars
+sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet
+him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those
+collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used
+to be."
+
+Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what the worst mental suffering
+had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.
+
+Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.
+
+"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out
+here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother
+and I had our memories all to ourselves."
+
+He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her
+elbows among the papers on the table listening intently.
+
+"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight
+for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever
+should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the
+time."
+
+"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it
+up to her afterwards."
+
+"She died just when things were beginning to come our way," said
+Bramham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Poppy and Bramham were alone together as they had been many times
+before. The verandah being the coolest place, they were sitting there,
+on a low basket-lounge affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and
+squares of light that stretched through the open windows and door of the
+sitting-room, falling across the verandah and losing themselves in the
+massed greenery of the garden. The little red glow at the end of
+Bramham's cigar gave enough light at times for him to observe that upon
+the face of his companion the strained, tortured look which often
+haunted it, was getting full play under cover of the dimness. She
+laughed lightly, however, at his sallies as they talked--the disjointed
+intermittent conversation of people who are far from the subject under
+discussion.
+
+By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were seated rather close
+together; so close, that when Bramham's arm, which was lying along the
+back of the sofa, slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her
+waist. Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light enough he
+could not see the troubled look that flashed across it. She sat
+perfectly still, however, and said nothing. It _might_ be an
+accident--she would wait and see. But presently she felt personality and
+magnetism in the touch of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her;
+and she knew that this was not an accident.
+
+"Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless, but there was a
+_timbre_ in her voice that chilled. Bramham instantly removed his hand.
+
+"Why not?" he asked discontentedly.
+
+"Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone pleasant and
+friendly again.
+
+Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended, but he chose to
+pretend to be. His experience of women presently prompted him to make a
+remark which he had discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt.
+
+"I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."
+
+Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot had missed fire,
+and, having no other ready at the moment, repeated it with as much
+disagreeableness as he could muster--which was not any very great
+amount.
+
+"It must be unpleasant to be so cold."
+
+"Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding, with a touch of
+malice: "and there are always plenty of fires where one can warm
+oneself, _quelquefois_."
+
+"I think that what _you_ need is a bonfire." Bramham was feeling
+distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily at this _mot_ that his
+good-humour was restored. He began to smoke again, sitting sideways now,
+because he was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be no
+object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:
+
+"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright flame."
+
+Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and she desired to keep
+him friendly; only, there was a thing he had to understand clearly. She
+was learning to make use of any twist of the tongue in difficult
+situations, but she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type
+and it seemed indicated that a _little_ of the truth would not be out of
+place at this juncture--a little only! the real, bitter, wonderful truth
+she would share with no one in the world!
+
+"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said at last, very
+gently. "But I happen to want you for a friend, not an enemy."
+
+Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this. However, he
+declared stoutly that he had never been a woman's enemy yet.
+
+"Then you must often have been your own," she retorted, with a little
+glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the conversation flagged again.
+Bramham had missed his cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat
+sullen expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had lost a
+lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled her with sadness.
+Only God and she knew how much she needed a friend; and she was sure she
+could find no stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man,
+if she could only get him away from these shoals of emotion on to the
+firm ground of friendship.
+
+But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his forefinger at the
+end of his cigar, as though he had no further use for it. Obviously, he
+was thinking of making a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand
+and touched his, resting on his knee.
+
+"You are quite right, I _am_ cold," she said softly; "starving with
+cold; and you can never know how charming and attractive your fire looks
+to me, but--after all, the best seat is already taken isn't it?"
+
+Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something. This was the first
+time his wife had been mentioned between them. She did not falter.
+
+"Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside of my very own?"
+She spoke with the soft bird note in her throat, and her smile was a
+wistful thing to see.
+
+Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and gave it a great grip.
+
+"By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."
+
+A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his words. Her eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+"Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and added, on a swift
+impulse: "The fire I want seems to me the most wonderful in the
+world--and if I can't be there, I'll never sit by any other."
+
+She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking at him with a
+smiling mouth, while the heavy drops fell down her cheeks. Bramham
+thought that, because of the smile, he had never seen any woman look so
+tragic in his life.
+
+"Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully. "I can't bear to
+see a woman cry. Do you love someone, Rosalind?" he asked, using her
+name shyly.
+
+"Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is a knife in my
+heart." She turned from him now, and looked away, that he might not see
+the despair and humiliation in her face.
+
+"I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't understand at all.
+You are altogether a mystery to me; I can't understand, for one thing,
+how a girl like you comes to be living with Sophie Cornell----"
+
+"I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him. "I have always
+meant to tell you, though I know that for some reason Sophie doesn't
+want you to know. I walked into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using
+a typewriter, and I came in and asked her to take me for an assistant."
+
+"What! But weren't you a governess to some people in Kimberley, and an
+old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?"
+
+"No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw Sophie until I walked
+in here some three months ago. The girl you take me for never came at
+all, and Sophie was glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But,
+indeed, it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful. I
+will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money will repay for
+anything." She added this rather bitterly, for, indeed, Sophie never
+ceased to make her feel her obligations, in spite of daily slavery on
+the typewriter.
+
+"Well, of all the--!" Bramham began. Later, he allowed himself to
+remark:
+
+"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his eulogy on Sophie
+Cornell.
+
+"But how comes it that a girl like you is--excuse me--kicking about the
+world, at a loose end?--How can any fellow that has your love let you
+suffer!--The whole thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say
+stands. You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to----"
+
+"I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If I could tell
+_anyone_, it would be you--but I can't. Only--I want a friend,
+Charlie--I want help."
+
+"I'll do anything in the world for you--all you've got to say is
+'Knife.'"
+
+"I want to get away from Africa to England, and I haven't a penny in the
+world, nor any possessions except the things I am wearing now."
+
+"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to
+go to in England?"
+
+"I have no friends anywhere--except you.
+
+                      "'I have no friend but Resolution
+                          ... and the briefest end!'
+
+"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I
+love it most--as _you_ did, Charlie. There are things to do and things
+to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean
+to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."
+
+She jumped up and stood in the light of the window, and Bramham could
+see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a
+beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking,
+derisive hand at Fate.
+
+"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a
+child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and
+beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her
+yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and
+pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it
+will be _my_ turn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly,
+but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my
+face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a
+little beauty, something of wit--and I can write, Charlie. Don't you
+think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws
+of that brute Life--a little Fame, a little Love----?"
+
+"I should just say I _do_," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all
+through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+                 Nothing is better I well think
+                 Than Love: the hidden well water
+                 Is not so delicate to drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Poppy sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that run direct between
+Natal and England without touching at East London or the Cape.
+
+"If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down with diamonds at
+breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds at lunch, and the whole
+jewel-box for dinner, take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And
+then, of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively.
+"Personally I like them; but _you_ look to me like a girl who wants
+rest, and to forget that there is such a place as Africa on the map."
+
+Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats before, and thought
+them excellent places--for anyone who values above all things a little
+quiet humour. Also, persons returning from Africa with little else than
+a bitterly acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting their only
+possession upon the sound basis of contempt for riches. For herself, not
+only was she able to sustain life for three weeks without scandals and
+the elevating sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each
+other and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed and prayed
+with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with nothing about her but
+the blue sea and the horizon.
+
+The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and to prepare that she
+must have time and rest. First, there must be some bitter days spent in
+wiping from her mind, and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She
+realised that if the greater part of her thought and force was afar
+from her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was deep in the heart
+of Africa, it would be futile to expect anything great of the future.
+Abinger and his soul-searing words must be forgotten too; and Clem
+Portal's fascinating friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes
+and generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If she admitted
+thoughts of them into her life, they would eat her time, and her
+strength, which must austerely be hoarded for the future.
+
+Courage, resolution, silence--those were three good things, Clem Portal
+said, to be a woman's friends. And those were the things the girl strove
+to plant firm in her soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless
+eyes, the retreating coast of her beloved land.
+
+She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed hours of thought
+and study in some canvas-shaded corner; or swinging up and down the
+decks, drinking in the freshness of the wind. Before many days were
+past, care departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her face.
+Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart Evelyn Carson had
+waked to life, sang like a violin in her breast. Her feet were on the
+"Open Road" and she loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:
+
+    "Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night,
+    brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet
+    things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."
+
+She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound of women's feet
+upon the Open Road. Its long, level stretches are easy to the feet of
+men, but for women it most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and
+the going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the pack the
+journey was commenced with. Youth and Love are stout friends with whom
+to begin the climb, and Poppy knew not that she had a pack at all.
+Certainly she suspected nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and her
+own wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still she went
+glad-foot. No one who watched her could have believed that she was a
+girl out in the world alone--a girl breaking away from a past that was a
+network of sorrows and strange happenings, to face a future that lay
+hidden and dark.
+
+The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be middle-aged, and not
+greatly curious about the affairs of other people; but they often
+pondered idly among themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed
+girl with the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to what
+had happened to her chaperon at the last moment; for they thought it
+would be ridiculous to suppose that she was travelling alone, except by
+accident.
+
+Only one person thought differently--the ship's doctor. He had seen her
+eyes the day she came on board, and he knew a few things about women's
+eyes. Indeed, it is certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as
+much attention to medical science as he had divided between the
+engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table, he would not
+have been preparing black-draughts for able seamen, and treating
+passengers for _mal-de-mer_, in return for a passage home. He was a good
+doctor gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy,
+ambition--anything but brains. Ten years of roaming through Africa found
+him at last kicking its dust from his feet with his achievements and
+fortune ably represented by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the
+prospect, at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic
+liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven face that would
+soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness--physical and mental; intellect
+gone to rack and ruin; savage boredom with the world in general--these
+were the things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart the
+few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women, and the men who only
+went to the smoke-room when it was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game
+of whist. And always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat
+dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck--trying to place her and
+read her story. He was sure that she had a story. He considered her
+clothes, and her manners, and her walk, distinguished, and in keeping
+with the general theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally
+travelling alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had
+seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the conclusion she was
+facing life on her own responsibility. He told himself _then_, that they
+were the eyes of a girl who had come to a bad bit of the road, and
+though she had wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye,
+blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress and storm.
+Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad bits of the road. He had
+stumbled through muddy and broken places himself, and seen others do the
+same; some dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the
+wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct for a
+fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not deliberately blunted.
+Therefore he greatly desired to make the acquaintance of "Miss R.
+Chard," as the passenger-list described her. Moreover, he was attracted
+by her unusual beauty.
+
+However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did not wish to form
+acquaintances. When the women made pleasant little overtures, she smiled
+a kind of cold vague smile, and let _that_ be her answer. And she simply
+looked through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several times on
+deck and on the companionway, forcing her to meet his eyes, but she
+remained composed and indifferent under their bold glance. He had almost
+despaired of ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could
+lay claim to, intervened.
+
+On a hot day in the tropics the ship's _chef_ had resort to tinned
+supplies, and amongst other things sent to the luncheon-table was an
+_entrée_, which had the appearance of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly
+wreathed with lettuce and cress. Most people attracted by the greenery,
+partook of this dish, and though they immediately discovered themselves
+to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly continued the cannibalistic
+performance, for "bully beef" is too old and close a friend to be
+despised by any South African sojourner. However, on this occasion
+"bully" was an enemy--perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really present
+at last (in portions)--for before night everyone who had partaken of the
+fascinating bewreathed _entrée_ was _hors de combat_ with a mild attack
+of something in the nature of ptomaine.
+
+Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means the worst. She was
+ill enough to require the services of Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful
+for them. He was always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than
+a few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her health. Soon
+she was up on deck again; but for a few days he continued to
+professionally superintend her doings. Afterwards he fell naturally into
+the habit of staying to talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these
+things are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to talk to
+someone. In the few days spent below she had grown weary of herself, and
+Newnham was an interesting interlude--as interesting as a character on
+the down-grade always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the
+wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But efforts that are not
+natural cannot be kept up long. The old Adam soon reasserts himself.
+Poppy began to get prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid
+under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and they sickened
+her. She knew too much about white savages, and she much preferred the
+real thing--Zulu or Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for
+the sake of the curious things he knew about people in different parts
+of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the Karoo to the Kalahari, from
+Boshof to Blantyre, and from Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.
+
+Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history made, and in the
+telling of these things he possessed that idle eloquence so often found
+in men of a dissolute type. In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the
+trained observation of his student years, was specially striking.
+
+At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence, he had been in
+charge of a native Hospital in one of the mine compounds. He said he had
+cut off enough Kaffirs' legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft.
+
+"If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it into a reason for
+cutting his leg off," he said malevolently. "I hate the brutes."
+
+"I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled lip of disgust.
+"You know very little of natives, if you think they all come under
+_that_ heading."
+
+"Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart that goes with the
+tender-foot. If you only knew as much of them as I do----"
+
+She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it at that.
+
+Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa, where a man
+forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through fevered swamps, with no
+companions but his faithful _boys_, upon whose courage and staunch
+loyalty his life must of necessity often depend--and not depend in vain;
+for "good men" (the expression has nothing to do with morals) trust
+their _boys_, and are trusted by them to the death.
+
+Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts from across the sea.
+That way madness lay! She gave her ears once more to Newnham and the
+Rand.
+
+He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred and admiration everyone
+who has ever lived there feels for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of
+money, and tragedy, and suffering.
+
+"It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding: "At least,
+that is what all the old residents say, and you can understand the
+emotion with which they say it when you consider that most of them came
+out as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into millionaire
+squires and dames of society."
+
+"But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?" smiled Poppy.
+
+"Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It lures them across the
+sea. A poignant longing comes to them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for
+the glitter of galvanised-iron and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand--and
+the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do precious little
+for the place that has done so much for them," he sneered. "I should say
+that with the exception of the Barnato ward, and an open space for
+games, not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify or
+benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot' has always been the
+watchword. But I suppose it isn't in human nature for a debtor to love
+his creditor!"
+
+Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa. The evenings, which
+were all blue and gold--sea and sky alike thickly sown with stars--she
+loved to dream away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the
+taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves reflected on her
+face. But when Newnham sought her out she would either walk, or have her
+chair put where a big electric-light blazed on the face of her
+companion.
+
+"Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," was a Spanish proverb
+well known to her, and she had another of her own:
+
+"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man you distrust."
+
+She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to say, but she
+distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went ashore with him at Teneriffe and
+they wandered about the narrow débris-strewn streets, and were stared at
+by the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and rouge upon their
+handsome olive skins and grow stout so early in life.
+
+Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna, but Newnham
+looked lugubrious at the idea--probably his muscles had long been out of
+gear for climbing or any other physical activity--and hastily suggested
+that the boat would not be making a very long stay. So they roamed about
+the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched the barefooted women in
+the washing pools, and did some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her
+travels to have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought,
+quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five pounds, the
+remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed Bramham to lend her (she had
+been obliged to expend twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with
+rapture, upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five pounds
+without the turn of an eyelash. It was only afterwards that she realised
+her foolish extravagance. As they were returning to the ship followed by
+two men carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham, he
+suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous.
+
+"What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive manner.
+
+"Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a sudden thought. "Do you
+think the woman would take that lace back again?"
+
+"That five pounds' worth? No--not for a minute. I saw the gleam in her
+eye when she stowed away your fiver. But why--don't you like it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered that I can't afford
+it."
+
+"Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back. But _I'll_ buy
+it, if you like?"
+
+"You? What for? What would you do with it?"
+
+"Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but she flushed and her
+manner instantly became cold.
+
+"I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I like it and will
+keep it myself."
+
+"I wonder how many times to the minute a woman changes her mind!" he
+jested, but he was secretly much amazed.
+
+"She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the picture had not
+presented itself to his mind before, and it "gave him to think." He
+later resolved that he would offer to buy the lace from her to give to
+his sister--and then get her to take it back under the name of a
+"keepsake" when they reached England.
+
+"I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.
+
+But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the next day she let
+Newnham see very plainly that she was offended. For two more days she
+kept the atmosphere about her so frigid that he did not dare venture
+into it. He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing to do but
+sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that he was born, between
+drinks. On the third evening she relented and allowed him to approach
+her under the blaze of electric-light.
+
+"Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded almost violently. "What
+have I done to make you angry?"
+
+He half expected that she would--as girls generally do--first feign
+ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow herself to be persuaded that
+she had never been angry at all. But she was not of the same kidney as
+the girls Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten years. She
+spoke at once, and to the point.
+
+"I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give me five
+pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much taken aback, could only find
+tongue to utter:
+
+"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent."
+
+"Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and when I remember the
+way you looked, I wonder that I allow myself to speak to you again."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you would take it in
+such a way. It was an ordinary thing to do, I thought. Most women or
+girls in Africa would think nothing of taking a little bit of lace."
+
+"I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa," was the cool
+response. "However, I will say nothing further about it, Dr. Newnham.
+Only please, if you care to talk to me, behave yourself--and don't ever
+mention _lace_ again."
+
+Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by a woman since he
+came to Africa, and he did not take to it at all. But he was afraid to
+show his resentment for fear she would carry out her threat and never
+speak to him again. And if she turned her back on him now, he believed
+he should go mad. It had come to _that_ with him. He was half-crazed
+with passion for this girl who could look at him so composedly and speak
+to him so contemptuously. But together with his passion was bitter rage
+with himself and with her. He was torn between primitive emotions. At
+one moment he longed with all the malignity of a mean weak nature to
+fling coarse words at her that would make her crouch before him; in the
+next he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck, his body, his
+soul to her feet.
+
+While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations, breathing hard at
+her side, she composedly arose and left him with a cool good-night.
+
+He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward busy for the next two
+hours; and when at last, by reason of the emphatic dimming of the
+electric lights, he roused himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a
+conclusion and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!
+
+All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was never far from her,
+and the look in his eyes stirred her to discomfort and foreboding,
+although it was not comprehensible to her. Something in his eyes she
+understood only too well--she began to expect _that_ in men's eyes now!
+But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression mean? She
+resented it extremely; but her curiosity was aroused. In the evening,
+therefore, she let him pull his chair next to hers in the usual corner.
+Only, the electric light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone
+had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while to do so, for
+this was the last night at sea and the ship was to dock on the morrow.
+They were creeping near the grey-green English coasts now, and the
+English weather was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and
+the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness in the
+late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar of her coat and take
+shelter under the lee of her chair cushion.
+
+Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some trace of emotion:
+
+                        "O to be in England
+                        Now that Spring is there."
+
+But his emotion was neither for Spring nor England. He led the talk to
+London with the hope of getting her to speak of her destination; but she
+went off at a tangent and began to tell him about the wonderful shades
+of blue to be found in the interior of a glacier. He ignored that, and
+made occasion to give her his card with a Kensington address written on
+it, saying in rather strained fashion:
+
+"If ever you want a friend--doctors are sometimes useful people, you
+know."
+
+She thanked him and took his card, holding it carefully in her hand. But
+she offered no information on the subject which so engrossed his
+thoughts. An uncomfortable pause followed. Suddenly in the darkness she
+felt a hand hot on hers.
+
+"Miss Chard ... Rosalind ..." he had discovered her name--"I will do
+anything for you."
+
+It was far from being a surprise to her that he should make some kind of
+avowal. But his words seemed to her rather odd--and somehow in keeping
+with his odd looks at her. She very gently drew away her hand from under
+his and put it behind her head. The other was quite out of his reach.
+
+"Thank you, Dr. Newnham," she said kindly, but with no particular
+fervour.
+
+"Do you understand what I mean?" he said huskily, after another pause.
+"I can help you."
+
+He could not see the expression on her face, but he saw that she turned
+her head to look at him as she answered:
+
+"What can you mean?"
+
+"Oh, you needn't beat about the bush with me," he spoke with coarse
+irritation. "I know what you have to face."
+
+"You must be wonderfully clever," she said, with a touch of sarcasm;
+"but I should like to know just what you mean."
+
+Irritation now became anger.
+
+"You know well enough," he said brutally. "What is the good of playing
+pure with me! It is my business to see what isn't plain to other
+people."
+
+In the darkness she grew pale with anger at his tone, but she had fear
+too, of she knew not what. Her wish was to rise and leave him at once;
+but curiosity chained her--curiosity and creeping, creeping fear. Dimly
+she became conscious of the predestined feeling that once or twice
+before in her life had presaged strange happenings. What was she going
+to hear? She sat very still, waiting.
+
+The man leaned close to her and spoke into her ear. His breathing was
+quick and excited, but he had some difficulty with his words; he
+muttered and his sentences were halting and disjointed.
+
+But Poppy heard everything he said. It seemed to her that his lowest
+whisper pierced to the inmost places of her being, and reverberated
+through her like the echoing and resounding of bells. Afterwards there
+was a terrible quiet. He could not see her face. She appeared almost to
+be crouching in her chair, all bundled up, but he did not venture to
+touch her--some instinct kept him from that. Pity, mingled with his base
+passion and scorn. He regretted that he had spoken so violently. He
+feared he had been brutal. At last she spoke, in a faint voice, that
+seemed to come from far away.
+
+"I don't know what you mean ... I think you must be mad."
+
+Newnham laughed--derisively, devilishly.
+
+"I'll bet that's what you are going home for, all the same."
+
+While he was furiously laughing, with his hand flung above his head, she
+flamed up out of her chair, and spoke for a moment down at him in a low,
+vibrating voice:
+
+"You vile man! Never dare speak to me again. You are not fit to live!"
+
+Then she was gone.
+
+After a time he got up and stumbled towards the smoke-room, intending to
+get drunk; but he changed his mind before he reached it, and went to his
+cabin instead. Having closed his door, he sat in the berth and stared at
+his boots. He said at last:
+
+"H----! What a beast I am! But what is worse, I am a fool. I am no good
+any longer. I made a mistake in my diagnosis. That girl is straight!
+Pure as the untrodden snow! I had better cut my throat."
+
+However, he did not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poppy, lying on her face in her cabin, was tasting shame. Bitter-sweet,
+mysterious, terrifying knowledge was hers at last--and with it was
+shame. Shame that the knowledge should come to her from profane and
+guilty lips! Shame that the child of the king of her heart should be
+unworthily born; that a king's child should be robbed of its kingdom;
+that the mother of her child should be one to whom men might throw vile
+words. Shame that she was a transgressor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+London was not new to Poppy. She had lived there for months at a time,
+but always at the best hotels and under luxurious conditions. Now, she
+hardly knew where to seek a home in accord with her limited means, but
+she had heard of Bloomsbury as being the resort of writers and artists
+and people whose riches are rather to be found in their heads and hearts
+than in their purses; so she took her way thither.
+
+She walked the old-fashioned squares the day after her arrival and found
+them all green-tracery, and darts of spring sunshine that touched the
+gloomy houses with the gilt of past romance. After much roaming, and
+knocking, and climbing of stairs, and making of awkward adieus to angry,
+disappointed landladies, she eventually discovered a tall, white house,
+whose front windows overlooked the pigeons pecking in the straggly grass
+that grows in the courtyard of the British Museum. A room on the top
+floor but one seemed likely to suit her purse and her tastes, and she
+seized upon it eagerly. It was big and bare, with no noise overhead,
+except the footsteps of two tired maids, who crept to bed at eleven
+o'clock with very little to say to each other. It seemed to Poppy that
+she could not have found any better place to start hard work in, and
+yet, from the first day there, a dreariness crept over her spirit--a
+kind of mental numbness she had never known before, oppressed her. She
+supposed it must have something to do with her physical condition and
+the shock she had lately received, and that after a few days it would
+pass. Instead, it increased. Her nights became indescribably weird and
+unhappy. Always it seemed to her that she heard someone calling
+somewhere, and she used to wake up, thinking that she had been urgently
+roused to fetch something. Sometimes, still half asleep, she would get
+up and begin to dress to go out; then, gradually becoming conscious of
+what she was doing, she would light the gas and stare round the room,
+looking for the person who had been speaking to her. In the daytime it
+became impossible to work, though she perpetually goaded herself to her
+writing-table. The only time she could get any ease from the intolerable
+restlessness and depression that filled her, was when she was half out
+of her window, leaning above the street, watching the intermittent
+stream of uninteresting-looking people who passed up and down the broad,
+dingy steps of the Museum, and listening to the roar of London afar.
+Trying to interpret the street calls was an idle amusement, too,
+wondering why the coal-carters should shout _Ko-bel_, and the cry of the
+oyster-man be exceeding dolorous like the cry of a soul in the depths.
+
+_Clam ... Clam ... clamavi._
+
+In the afternoons, when still haunting sadness obsessed her, she would
+put on her hat and visit a picture-gallery, or walk in the park, or roam
+the streets looking at the shop-windows and into the strained, anxious
+faces of the hurrying passers-by. She speculated as to whether she would
+ever get that look, and always she wondered what was worth it; then one
+day, as she walked, she felt what seemed tiny fluttering fingers
+clutching at her heart-strings, and she _knew_! Flying home on swift
+feet, she nailed herself once more to her work-table. She _must_ work,
+she told herself feverishly; and when she could not, frenzy seized her,
+then terror, then despair. Yes, those were the things she had seen in
+the strained, hurrying faces that passed along--frenzy, terror,
+despair; not for themselves, but for _others_. _She must work!_
+
+But Inspiration hid Her face; and shadows came out of the four corners
+of the room and closed in upon her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breakfast was always brought on a tray by a maid called Kate. For the
+rest of her meals she frequented A.B.C. shops, and the like, existing on
+cups of tea and boiled eggs and glasses of milk, after the manner of
+women who live alone and have to economise. But sometimes in a wild
+burst of extravagance she would wend her way to Soho and order a little
+Italian meal all _hors-d'oeuvres_ and thin Chianti. She loved to hear
+the French and Italian chatter about her, and felt more at home there
+than anywhere, not minding the men's bold, dark glances, for in her
+travels with Abinger she had learnt to know that there was really little
+of harm in them. Of course, she attracted much attention and often had
+uncomfortable adventures in her lonely goings and comings; but she did
+not let these ruffle her greatly, telling herself that all such things
+were part and parcel of the fight. She minded nothing, in fact, except
+the tragic atmosphere of her room, which engulfed her spirit as soon as
+she entered. The nights began to be even more eerie. She lay awake often
+until dawn, and presently longings and urgings came upon her to procure
+something that would produce sleep. She had never known anyone who took
+drugs or sleeping-draughts, and could not imagine what put such an idea
+into her head--indeed, having read De Quincey's _Confessions_, she had a
+horror of such things, and so, fought the suggestion with all her might.
+But still it returned. Once when she was sitting at her table, with a
+throbbing head, biting her pencil before a blank sheet of paper, she
+distinctly heard someone softly say:
+
+"Go and _buy_ some inspiration."
+
+She stared about the empty room.
+
+"What can be the matter with me?" she demanded of herself, after a time,
+and strove with all her strength to work and drive such insane thoughts
+from her. But the writer within her was mute, the poet dumb, and her
+woman's body was very weary.
+
+One day, she had been striving with herself for many hours, writing down
+dry, banal words that she almost dug out of the paper a moment
+afterwards. At intervals she sat with her head on her arms, wondering
+what had ever caused her to dream that she was born to the pen; brooding
+over the possibilities of her chances as a shop-girl, a waitress in a
+tea-shop, a chorus-girl, a housemaid--as _anything_ but a writer of
+poems and romantic fiction, at which she was obviously a dismal failure.
+
+At last she flung papers and pencils to the four corners of the room,
+and left the house. Out of doors it was raining fearsomely. After
+tramping for an hour or so, soaked through, she found herself back near
+home, in Theobald's Row--a hateful street that smells of fish and rank
+cheese, where men bawl out the price of pork-chops, and women come
+furtively stealing from side-doors, wiping their lips. She made haste to
+get into Southampton Row, which has a sweeter savour to the nostrils and
+a staid, respectable air. At a corner she passed a paper shop, which had
+many news-boards exposed, with the "sheets" hanging dripping and torn
+from them. One yellow sheet stood out boldly with the words "_South
+Africa_" in black letters across it. A pang of joy shot through her. She
+could have fallen down before that tattered paper and kissed the magic
+words. The name of her own land! The land that had beaten her and
+bruised her and flung her out to seek a living and safety in another
+country--but her own land! Some words came to her lips:
+
+                "She said: God knows they owe me naught.
+                  I tossed them to the foaming sea,
+                I tossed them to the howling waste,
+                  _Yet still their love comes home to me._"
+
+So far she had forbidden herself entirely the luxury of journals and
+magazines, saying that she could not afford them; but now she went into
+the shop and recklessly bought up everything that had any connection
+with South-African affairs.
+
+Afterwards, going home, she saw a flower-girl crouching in a doorway
+with a bale of wet daffodils and narcissi in her arms. Flowers, too,
+were luxuries, concerning which she had laid down a law unto herself;
+but the girl made a piteous appeal, and without a thought of dwindling
+funds, Poppy bought up the whole wet fragrant bale. Before she reached
+home she was reproaching herself bitterly.
+
+"How _can_ I be buying magazines and flowers with money I have not
+earned?... I am becoming degraded! ... a parasite!"
+
+Only the smell of the narcissi reassured her, and changed the trend of
+her thoughts, for they reminded her of Charles Bramham and his acres of
+flowers seen from the hilltops.
+
+"He would be glad to think that his money brings this rift of blue into
+my grey sky," she thought; and she turned her dreary room into an
+enchanted spring garden, extravagantly ordered a fire and sat before it,
+tearing the news out of the papers with her eyes, searching for the name
+of Evelyn Carson. She had not far to look. In every paper she found news
+of him. His party had arrived at Borwezi, a spot in Central Africa, the
+last civilised touching-place before they plunged into the savage
+unknown. He had made a long stay there--for it was on the banks of a
+"fever river," second only to the Pungwe. Carson was reported to have
+been laid up with malarial fever for a week, and a doctor who had joined
+the expedition at Mombassa had been so ill from the same cause as to be
+obliged to abandon his intention and to be taken back to civilisation
+under the care of people who had accompanied the expedition as far as
+Borwezi. One paper mentioned the names of Mr. and Mrs. Nick Capron as
+being of the returning party. This was as far as the actual news went.
+Rumours there were in plenty. One arresting story, brought into Borwezi
+by native runners, was that the natives of Borapota were departing from
+every part of their country to assemble in the capital, where the King
+would receive Carson and his men--whether in a friendly or hostile
+spirit was unknown. Several papers devoted articles to Carson himself,
+dealing with his achievements in different parts of Africa, his
+personality, his influence with the Zulus and Basutos, and other
+less-known tribes. One journal headed an article with the
+word--_Intandugaza_: fortunately the writer did not attempt to translate
+the Zulu word, nor explain how Carson came to bear it. (Perhaps that was
+"one of the untoward things about him not compatible with reverence,"
+thought Poppy sadly.) After she had drunk in every word of him, the
+papers lay scattered at her feet, and she, lapsing from the decree she
+had made not to think of him, lost herself at last in dreams of him. She
+had lived according to the rules of Alice Meynell's _Renouncement_:
+
+          "I must not think of thee; and tired yet strong
+            I shun the thought that dwells in all delight,
+            The thought of thee: and in the heaven's blue height:
+          And in the sweetest passage of a song----"
+
+Now she forgot the fine, firm words, and long, long sat dreaming by the
+fire, with her hands before her face. Anyone looking into the room would
+merely have seen a girl lying back in her chair resting, asleep
+perhaps. But only the lesser part of Poppy Destin was there. The spirit
+of her wandered in a moonlit Natal garden, listening to a voice with a
+rustle in it, and from thence ... far, far!
+
+Afterwards, she reconstructed all the chapters of her life since the
+magic night that began so wonderfully and ended in despair with the
+uttering of another woman's name. Of that woman--_Loraine_, she thought
+little now, having fought down and killed the bitter hatred of her, as
+once she had wished to kill the woman. There was no room in her awakened
+heart for hatred--only Love could be there. Love of the man who had
+awakened it, and to whom, whether he loved her or not, she believed
+herself to be secretly linked for ever; and to whom, whether she saw him
+again or not, her hopes, her future, her life were dedicated. But she
+_would_ see him again!--of that she was blindly, fatalistically certain:
+and he would know her for his mate, as she knew him--or of what use her
+beauty, her wit, her charm, her life at all? All things would entangle
+themselves, she told her heart. As soon as she had money enough she
+meant to free herself from the marriage with Luce Abinger that was no
+marriage at all; and from which he knew a Court of Justice would free
+her as an innocent, unwitting victim. As she sat thinking, many things
+that had been dark became clear. The meaning of Abinger's fearsome
+conduct was plain to her now--he _knew_! Kykie had told him. That was
+what she had stayed up for, supposing herself to be the herald of glad
+tidings.
+
+It made the girl recoil and quiver to think that those two had known and
+spoken of what had been hidden from _her_; of what, even now, she dared
+hardly consider with herself because of its wonder and terror--something
+that no one in the world should know except just two people: so it
+seemed to her.
+
+"But, oh, Mother of God!" she cried aloud and bitterly. "Why is this
+thing so sweet, and yet so terrible to bear?"
+
+Even while she asked she knew, and gave herself the answer.
+
+"I am a Transgressor----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last, far into the night, she undressed and went to bed; so tired
+from emotion that she fell at once into dead slumber. But no sooner was
+she asleep than she was dreaming that a woman lay by her side on the bed
+whispering into her ear, pleading, asking for something, begging,
+urgently demanding. With a wrench Poppy threw off sleep and sat up
+staring into the darkness of the room. She was only half-awake, but she
+was certain--she could have _sworn_ that a shadowy figure rose, too,
+from the bed, and slipped into the far shadows.
+
+Beads of fright sat on her forehead.
+
+"I am going mad!" she thought. "There was a woman on my bed ... she is
+still in the room. I am going mad!"
+
+She was afraid to lie down again, and afraid to get out of bed. She sat
+there in cold terror until she thought herself turned to stone. Then,
+slowly, reason reasserted itself, and courage. She clenched her teeth
+and nerved herself to move, to get from the bed and from the room. The
+whole house was wrapped in darkness. Instinctively she made for the room
+above her, where she knew the servants were. Reaching the door she
+knocked and then entered. One of them was awake at once.
+
+"Who's there? What do you want?" said an excited voice, ready to scream.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Kate ... I am the girl who sleeps in the room
+below ... Miss Chard.... I don't want to disturb you--only--let me stay
+here until morning, will you?... I'm afraid to be in my own room."
+
+Kate was "a good sort." She struck a match and stared at the intruder
+before answering; then she said: "Lock the door," and was obeyed with
+alacrity.
+
+The maid hopped out and soon had a blanket round Poppy's trembling form.
+She made room on the bed, and they sat whispering together. The other
+maid slept on like the dead.
+
+"What did you see?" asked Kate.
+
+"See? I don't know ... there was something strange----"
+
+"It was _'er_, sure enough!"
+
+"What do you mean, Kate?" Poppy felt her spine curling.
+
+"I'm new here," whispered Kate mysteriously; "but I got five minutes'
+talk with the last girl, though the missis tried hard to keep us from
+meeting. Miss--_no one ever sleeps in that room long_. A lydy cut her
+throat there!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes--sure as I'm sitting here. I've been afraid to creep up the stairs
+at night for fear of _her_. How you could a _slep_ there, Heavin knows!"
+She lowered her voice to a whisper: "She used to take them drugs. She
+was a hactress, and she and her 'usbin had that room. She was very
+clever, they said, but she hadn't had no work for a long time, and she
+used to eat away at them drugs night and day, and 'er 'usbin never knew.
+And at last, one day he found 'er out, and there was an awful shindy and
+he said as 'e'd leave her if she didn't knock it off. And she tried and
+tried. For a whole three days she did without ... walked the room all
+day and would go out and no sooner out than in again ... she told the
+girl it was _'ell_. Every time anyone came to the door she would stand
+up and just say, ''ell! 'ell! ell!' very quiet to herself all the time
+they was speaking. Then on the third night she went out and got _it_.
+And the 'usbin found out as soon as he came in. She was so gentle and
+sweet-like, and began to 'elp 'im off with his coat. He gave her a
+look ... like _hanythink_, then 'e put his hat and coat on again and
+walked out. And that very night she done for 'erself with one of the
+razors 'e left behind. _She done it in the very bed you bin sleeping
+in._ I says to cook I says it's a shime of the missis to do it!--but
+there! she's one of them would sell 'er mother's shroud for sixpence.
+I shan't stay here no more after this, don't you believe it, miss--not
+for a thousand pound; and nor won't you, I reckon."
+
+Poppy's reckoning came to much the same sum. When she stole down in the
+morning light, it was to dress herself and pack her belongings swiftly
+for departure. Kate stayed by the door until all was done, casting
+fearsome glances about her, ready to fly at a sound. They left the
+flower-decked room then, to the poor, disquieted spirit that haunted it,
+and sought the mistress of the house. But she discreetly excused herself
+from an interview, and only sent the cook to demand a week's extra money
+in lieu of the notice that should have been given. Poppy expostulated,
+but it was of no use: she was told that it was the rule under which
+rooms were let and that her luggage could be detained. When she had
+paid, she realised that this extra expense would force her to seek still
+cheaper lodgings. That evening found her installed in a dingy room in
+Hunter Street--another top-floor-but-one.
+
+How she wished at this time, that she had betaken herself from the first
+to Paris, where, she had been told all top-floors are white-and-gold
+rooms, with faded true-lovers' knots festooning the ceiling, and wide
+oak fireplaces in which burnt little bright _briquette_ fires. Once,
+wishing to have a picture in the Louvre copied for Luce, she had visited
+a clever but penniless girl-artist in such a room, in quite a poor part
+of the _Quartier_; and the girl had carelessly told her that there were
+plenty of the same kind to be had.
+
+In her new quarters Poppy had barely room to turn round: but she was
+more content. No tragic ghosts kept vigil there, it was certain. A
+healthy scent of Irish stew pervaded the atmosphere, and the walls were
+decorated with smiling faces and charming figures. The landlady, a
+stout, breezy woman on the right side of forty-five, had once been a
+chorus girl at the Gaiety, and her circle of acquaintances had evidently
+been large. Little now remained to her of beauty, but she had an
+attractive _bonhomie_ and a wide charity for the world of women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+In Hunter Street, Poppy put the finishing touches to her book of
+poems--as far as anything is ever finished until it appears in print.
+For it is certain that a writer will always find something new to do to
+a book as long as it is in MS. and within reach. But with Poppy, time
+pressed. She knew that shortly she would be wanting money. Moreover, she
+was horrified to reflect that after nearly four months in England she
+had nothing ready for publication but the poems, which had been the work
+of years. The thought came to her that if she could get this book
+accepted and published it would bring courage and inspiration back, and
+so spur her on that she would presently come to her own on a full tide.
+With this hope high in her, she sent the poems to a publisher whom she
+had read of in a literary journal as having a reputation for encouraging
+new authors on new subjects. The journal in question had omitted to
+mention that the new authors got very little out of the process _beyond_
+the encouragement, so poor Poppy went home gay of heart from posting her
+precious manuscript and essayed to start work on a batch of short
+stories. She had six of them in a skeleton condition; some of them
+consisting of no more than half a dozen startling phrases which were
+almost stories in themselves. These she intended to finish and get into
+the magazines.
+
+Afterwards, she would complete her book and fire it off at the world.
+She knew she could write. All she needed was time--and peace of mind.
+Alas! Time began to press terribly; and peace of mind was anywhere but
+in a little fourth-floor room in Hunter Street. Inspiration appeared to
+have fled from so commonplace an atmosphere; and again the lurking
+shadows came out of their corners, and cast themselves across the pages
+she could not fill.
+
+Her physical condition began to oppress her sorely, too, and she no
+longer _wanted_ to work, for sitting at her desk caused headaches and
+dizziness. She longed for fresh air and bracing walks across grass and
+in the wind: for peaceful and beautiful scenes. But London was stifling
+in the grip of summer, and Bloomsbury was the hottest, most stifling
+place in it. The little room was suffocating, and out-of-doors the
+conditions were not much better. The streets gave up a white, afflicting
+dust; the pavements burned the feet. The best Poppy could do was to take
+a 'bus to some park where she could seek the quiet little unfrequented
+walks. Most of all, she loved the river when it swelled serene and
+full-bosomed from Chelsea onwards to Putney and the upper reaches. Along
+the Embankment how often she lingered before the beaten-copper lilies on
+Whistler's door, wishing dreamfully that she might see that master of
+paint and satire come forth, eye-glass perched in eye and cane in hand:
+but he never did--for her. From thence she would go to the statue of
+grey old Carlyle, who sits always in his little green garden watching
+Mother Thames flow by. On, past the Rossetti Fountain, and the house
+where the poet lived; and George Eliot's dull and drearsome residence.
+The Clock House charmed her, and she thought that if she _could_ live in
+London she would choose to live there. Always she trembled a little when
+she passed Tite Street, thinking of the tragic genius who had made it
+famous and who was eating out his heart in Reading Gaol. She would
+never pass through the street, or look at No. 16, for fear her action
+might seem to savour of the cruel curiosity that lifts the cere-cloth
+from a dead face to seek upon it the marks that life has made and death
+been unable to erase.
+
+At last she would be home again, braced and fresh from her long walk and
+her thoughts--until she sat to her table. Then slowly, but unfailingly,
+physical weariness would steal upon her, and mental depression that
+could not be shaken off.
+
+The facts were to be faced at last that the six stories had sped no
+further ahead than the first few startling phrases; and that living with
+the utmost frugality she was down to the bare cold sum of ten pounds.
+She had long ago decided that she could make no further demand on
+Bramham, although he had urged her to do so if she found herself in need
+"before her ship came home" laden with the rewards of labour. She had
+received several kind and cheery letters from him, and answered them in
+the same spirit. Afterwards, she had let the correspondence lapse, for
+he wrote of a trip "home" before long, and she was afraid that he might
+seek her out.
+
+She possessed no valuables to realise on, except the piece of Spanish
+lace which had been valued by a pawnbroker at thirty shillings. She had
+nothing, in fact, but her literary genius, which had gone back upon her
+in her hour of need. Terrible doubts of her powers assailed her now.
+Could she really write? Or was she merely a scribbling woman who _might_
+be successful as the editress of a woman's dress paper?
+
+No! no! She denied it vehemently. She _knew_ that she had the "restless
+heart and plotting brain" of the born writer; the cunning hand for the
+swift, smiting word; the fine eye for the terse or sonorous sentence;
+the tuned ear for the phrase that, like a chord of music, caused her
+exquisite pleasure. And she had knowledge of a magic land full of
+strange people and cruel ghosts and dear delights: and an imagination:
+and a vocabulary.
+
+Of these things she was certain, when she was sane and calm; but she was
+not often sane and calm. No woman in her state ever is, even under the
+kindliest circumstances. Terrors, pleasures, fears, hopes--all are seen
+through the blurred, exaggerating glass of emotion.
+
+The fear began to haunt her that she would not have enough money in hand
+to pay the expenses of her approaching illness. Sometimes she threw fear
+down and trampled on it; but other times it overcame her, swept her off
+her feet, engulfed her. Lest she should succumb entirely and ignobly she
+would wrench herself free, and, hastening out of doors, spend the
+remainder of the day wandering, resting sometimes in the Abbey,
+sometimes in the Brompton Oratory, seeking always a scene of peace and
+beauty.
+
+One day her breezy landlady approached her, using all the tact and
+kindness she had command of, yet taking the girl cruelly unawares.
+
+"My dear," she said pleasantly, "I hope you have found a place to go to
+when your time comes?"
+
+Poppy sat paling and reddening before her, speechless with confusion.
+
+"Ah, my dear, you needn't mind me," said Miss Drake kindly. "I've lived
+among 'theatricals' all my days, and I know what life is for a lovely
+girl like you--and I can see you're a good girl, too!"
+
+Poppy got up and walked away to the window, so unnerved she knew not
+what to do or say. The kind woman's words threw her into a state of
+misery. She had no idea that her secret was shared by others yet.
+
+"What I wanted to say, dear," continued Miss Drake, "was, that if you
+haven't made your arrangements, you ought to do so at once: because it
+would be very inconvenient if anything happened here. You can see
+yourself, dear, the kind of house this is, full of quiet business
+people, who wouldn't like things to be upset--a doctor coming and going
+on the stairs and a nurse and all that fuss, you know. So, much as I
+shall regret losing you----"
+
+"Oh, don't say anything more, Miss Drake," Poppy interposed hastily. "Of
+course, I shall go--I am going quite soon; I haven't made up my mind
+_where_, but I will do so at once--I'll find out as soon as I can----"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course--don't worry; don't upset yourself,
+dear--_Butterton's Weekly_ is a good paper to find a nursing home in, if
+you haven't the address of any woman. But there! I expect you will get
+along all right."
+
+The moment she had gone Poppy flew out to the nearest paper-shop, bought
+a _Butterton's Weekly_, and brought it home for deep study. It is an
+odious paper. When she had read a few of its advertisements, nausea
+seized her. Was she one of the army of these asking for _secret_ and
+_confidential_ homes? And were these homes offered by _discreet nurses_
+who could _get the baby adopted if desired_, meant for people like her?
+Again shame flushed her, flooded her. She crushed the paper into a ball,
+hid it, and went out for the whole day. But when she came in she
+uncrushed it, and read in it again with dull eyes.
+
+One little shabby advertisement drew her at last. The address it gave
+was a little mean street in Westminster. But the advertiser with great
+subtlety, and doubtless at the cost of extra pence, had added the magic
+words, "_Near Westminster Abbey._"
+
+Those little words redeemed the whole of the wretched sordid rag for
+Poppy. Her soul lifted up its head once more. Westminster Abbey! The
+sight of that beautiful place was for all the poor creatures who wanted
+these homes--it was for her! _His_ son should be born near Westminster
+Abbey!
+
+The next day she sought the address--No. 10, Old Street--and found it
+after long wandering. It was, indeed, near Westminster Abbey, but the
+street was terribly poor. The minute she got into it, she cried out
+within herself:
+
+"No: it cannot be here: I will not have it here--." But at last she
+found the number staring at her from a dingy door. At that she turned
+and looked for Westminster Abbey--but there was no sign of it: only
+tall, narrow, sad houses, with frowsily-curtained windows; bleak
+children playing in the gutter and a knife-grinder wailing out his
+chant:
+
+                          "Knives to grind.
+                          Scissors to grind.
+                          Pots and tea-
+                          Kittles to mend."
+
+"I shall die if I come here," she said desperately, and turned to fly,
+but the door opened suddenly and a woman came out and ran an eye over
+her.
+
+"Good-evening, lady. I see it is me you want," was her laconic greeting.
+"Step inside."
+
+And Poppy found herself doing as she was bidden, following the woman
+into a tawdry sitting-room, which a seething gas-jet lighted with a blue
+and pallid glare. She and the woman faced each other over a
+plum-coloured table-cloth that had a border of yellow-floss flowers in
+hideous free-hand design.
+
+"Are you Nurse Selton?" Poppy asked; and Mrs. Selton smilingly
+acknowledged her name. She was a little dark villain of a woman, with a
+hard mouth full of assorted teeth, and shrewd, black eyes. Her
+expression, however, was good-tempered, and the nursing costume she wore
+gave her an air of respectability, even refinement. She proceeded to
+inform Poppy that she was well known and _esteemed_ in the
+neighbourhood; that the house was quiet and private "in the extreme";
+and that, as a nurse, she possessed all the necessary diplomas and
+certificates. (Whether this last was true or not her listener never
+discovered.)
+
+"You will be _most_ comfortable," she finished. Poppy shuddered.
+
+"What are your terms?" she asked, in a dull voice, having entirely made
+up her mind not to stay with this hateful woman in this hateful house.
+But she wished to parley and give herself time to rest, for she felt
+strangely ill. The woman named a sum ridiculously high.
+
+"I could not afford to pay that," she answered; and Nurse Selton
+regarded her coldly.
+
+"That is not much for a lady of your sort--_first_, I presume? You won't
+get lower terms anywhere else. Won't _the gentleman_ help you?"
+
+When Poppy realised the meaning of this question, the best she could do
+was to bite her lips and avert her eyes from the odious woman, who
+discontentedly continued:
+
+"Well--I'll make it thirty shillings a week _until_, and two pounds a
+week _after_. Two guineas _for the little affair_--and if you want a
+doctor, a guinea extra."
+
+"I don't think I care to stay," said the girl in a low voice. "You said
+in your advertisement that your house was near Westminster Abbey, but I
+see that it is nothing of the kind."
+
+"Well, you make a great mistake," said the nurse perkily. "I'll show you
+a room where you can see the Abbey as plain as the nose on my face.
+Follow me."
+
+And Poppy followed again, through the hall that smelled of frying
+herrings and soapsuds, up a narrow, oil-clothed staircase; across two
+landings; higher and higher, darker and darker, stumbling and kicking
+the narrow steps, to the top landing of all. There were three doors upon
+it, and one of them Mrs. Selton opened and drove forward to light a
+gas-jet. It smelled close and dank, but yet was inoffensively plain and
+simple--the ordinary bedroom furniture with no adornments of any kind.
+Straight facing the door was a little casement-window, with a wide ledge
+to lean upon; this the nurse approached and threw open.
+
+"There you are," said she stormily; and Poppy looked forth, and looked
+again, and stayed looking, for it was well worth having "clomb the
+deadly stair" to see. There was the grey old spired pile, lying lovely
+against the pale evening light.
+
+"I will stay," she said simply.
+
+The woman thought her a fool.
+
+"Everything paid in advance," said she in a business-like tone. Being
+satisfied on that point they descended. Presently, after answering a few
+more odiously piercing questions, Poppy escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+In the room overlooking the Abbey were spent many dark and ominous
+hours. By direction of Nurse Selton, Poppy presented herself at No. 10
+one dreary October day, and while she stood knocking at the door of the
+mean house, the grey, sad shadows of Westminster fell across her, and
+were not lifted by day or night.
+
+Each part of London has its own peculiar atmosphere. Chelsea is
+cheerful; Kensington reserved; Bayswater extremely refined; Bloomsbury
+vulgar and pathetic--and a number of other things. Westminster is
+essentially sad--sad with a noble, stately sadness.
+
+"It cannot grieve as them that have no hope," but its high towers and
+spires, its statues, cloisters, yards, hospitals, and ancient walls--all
+have an aloof air of haunting melancholy. Beautiful but unsmiling,
+Westminster dreams always and sadly of the great, noble past.
+
+So, when Poppy came into it that October day, its brooding spirit
+enfolded her, and all her life after she was never quite able to lift
+from her heart the sad, lovely hand of Westminster.
+
+At night, when she could open her little casement-window and gaze out at
+the profile of the Abbey, and hear sometimes the bells of "sweet St.
+Margaret's," life went kindly with her. Before leaving Hunter Street, at
+the last moment, a fair thing had happened. The editor of _The
+Cornfield_ had sent her a cheque for eight pounds seventeen shillings,
+in payment for a story which she had written in Sophie Cornell's
+bungalow and discovered of late at the bottom of a trunk. It was a story
+full of sunshine and gay, gibing wit, and the editor asked her for more
+work in the same vein. She had none, indeed, to send, but the request
+put her in good heart for the future. She essayed to write a little from
+day to day in the upper chamber; but the atmosphere was wrong for the
+romantic sun-bitten tales of her own land that seethed within her, and
+yet evaded her pen when she sought to fasten them to paper. Also, though
+she had but to close her eyes to see Africa lying bathed in spring
+sunshine, and to remember every detail of scents and sounds, it broke
+her heart to write of these things in a room dim with fog and full of a
+piercing smell that found its way from the kitchen up four flights of
+stairs and through closed doors--the smell of bloaters.
+
+She brightened her room as much as possible with flowers, and taking
+down Mrs. Selton's tawdry pictures, had the walls bare, except for a
+blue print of Watts's _Hope_--a statuesque-limbed woman, with
+blindfolded eyes, who sits at the top of the world sounding the last
+string of a broken viol. On a day when hope was bright in her, Poppy had
+bought the picture at a little shop in Victoria Street, and now she
+counted it one of her dearest possessions. Always it comforted and
+cheered her on.
+
+Days came when she needed all the comfort she could get. There were
+other women in the house who were apparently in the same case as
+herself, but they were haggard, furtive creatures, holding converse with
+none, shutting doors swiftly at the approach of anyone but Nurse Selton,
+creeping out for air under the cloak of night.
+
+Sometimes the woman in the adjoining room moaned all night, railing at
+Fate and God that she should have been brought to this pass.
+
+Once through an open door Poppy heard haggling going on about the
+premium to be paid with a baby that was to be "adopted."
+
+The sordidness of life, and the meanness of human nature, pressed around
+her. It was hard to keep ideals in such an atmosphere; hard to flaunt
+the green flag of love and hope, when there were so many hands eager to
+pull it down and trample it in the mire. A joyful spirit seemed out of
+place here. To the people she had got among, the thing that she thought
+wonderful and lovely was a curse and a bane! The mean house in the back
+street and the common-minded people seemed in a conspiracy to make her
+feel low, and shameful, when she wished only to be proud and happy.
+
+"This must be part of the terror that comes of breaking the moral law,"
+she whispered to herself. "One's act can bring one into contact with
+sordid people, and squalor and vice--one may become degraded and soiled
+in spite of oneself." She looked around her with hunted eyes. "There is
+nothing fine or noble anywhere here, except Watts's picture!" she
+thought; but when she opened her window and saw the grand old Abbey, she
+could think it no longer. There it lay in the gloom, grand and silent,
+standing for great, proud things: the long pile with the hunch at one
+end of it and at the other the stately twin pinnacles facing Palace
+Yard, where Raleigh's head fell, and where London goes rolling by to
+East and to West.
+
+Yes: it stood for all high and noble things and thoughts! All grand
+ideals! Nothing squalid there, or shameful! Surely it belonged to
+her--belonged to everyone who loved it, and loved what it meant. But did
+it? Was she cut off from it because--? She drew in her breath, and
+thought for a long time with closed eyes and clasped hands.
+
+"... I suppose morality is one of the high things--and I am not moral. I
+am one of the Magdalenes of the earth now!... whoever knows, will call
+me an immoral woman! I think I am only a mistaken one. I can see _that_
+now, thinking not of myself, but of my son to be. I should, if I had no
+moral instincts, at least have thought of consequences to my child!
+Well-brought-up girls are trained to think of these things, I suppose.
+But I was not well brought up--I was never brought up at all. I was a
+child of Nature. A poppy, blowing and flaming in the field--and plucked.
+If I had been anything else I should not have been in the garden that
+night at a time when well-brought-up girls were in bed! And I should
+have flown at the first sound of danger--but I didn't. Not because I did
+not recognise danger; but because I _did_ recognise something I had been
+looking for all my life--Love. And I put out both arms and embraced it.
+_Now_ it seems revealed to me that I should not have done this ... I
+should have fenced and fended ... guarded myself ... given nothing ...
+until he had asked for me and taken me, before all the world ... and
+made a nest for me somewhere away from the squalor of the world where no
+begriming thoughts could touch me and smirch the mother of _his_ son.
+_Then_ I suppose the Abbey would have been for me too!----"
+
+She twisted her lips and flung out her fingers.
+
+"And I wouldn't change a thing that is done. Not for all the world could
+give would I forget or have undone that radiant hour!... And yet ... and
+yet ... how I should love the nest for my child ... the peace and fine
+honour of a wife's bed to lay _his_ son upon! Oh! why does life tear the
+hearts of women in half like this?" She rested her head on her hands and
+shed passionate tears for herself and for all women like her. At last
+she said:
+
+"Good-night, old Abbey! You are _mine_ all the same--mine because,
+moral or immoral, I love the things you stand for. You cannot rob even
+bad people of the love of beauty. And no one can rob me of the peace you
+have put into my heart night after night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last illness descended upon her. She had often known torment of mind,
+now she knew torment of body, and her mind did not suffer at all; but
+was possessed of a kind of exultation that supported and refreshed her
+through terrible gaps of time.
+
+Nurse Selton came in often, but the girl preferred to be alone. Most of
+the day was spent between _Hope_ over the mantelpiece and the
+casement-window. Often she thought of the native women in her own land,
+who, when the time comes to bring forth, go quietly away and make a soft
+green bed in some sheltered place, and there suffer in silence and
+alone; then, after a few hours, return as quietly to every-day work and
+go serenely on with life, the new-born child slung behind the shoulders.
+The thought appealed to Poppy. She said:
+
+"That is the way I should have borne my son if I had stayed in
+Africa ... out in the air--with the sun shining. But oh! these terrible
+walls that shut one in!... and without--cold, fog, mud!"
+
+When evening fell, sickly and grey-green, she opened her casement-window
+and leaned upon its sill. The roar of London heard through the fog was
+like the dull boom of the breakers on the Durban back beach. Far away,
+the sky above Trafalgar Square was spasmodically lit by electric
+advertisements.
+
+In the street below, a woman's raucous voice pathetically shrieked:
+
+                     "It's 'ard to give the 'and
+                       Where the 'eart can _Nev_-ver be."
+
+But Poppy did not hear. With hidden eyes and hands clasped tight upon
+the pains that racked her, she was unravelling the mystery of Life and
+Love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evelyn Carson's son was born in the dawn of a late October day: heralded
+in by Big Ben striking the hour of five. Poppy gave one long, ravished
+glance at the little dimpled morsel, with its sleek, black head and
+features like crumpled rose-leaves, then lay back content and at peace
+with all the world.
+
+"How sweet it is to be a woman!" she thought, forgetting all past pain
+and despair, all anguish to come. "My heart can never be a stone again,
+nor my soul a shrivelled leaf."
+
+She drowsed happily through the days that followed, letting her mind
+rest with her body; she thought of nothing but the sweetness of being a
+mother; she was intoxicated by the cling of the little lips to her
+breast.
+
+"I am a _real_ woman," she said. "This is what I was born for and made
+beautiful for. Poor, _poor_ old Sara!"
+
+When Nurse Selton came one day and asked if she would like to get her
+child "adopted," she would have struck the woman's face if it had been
+within reach. As it was not, she said in a voice that was a drawn sword:
+
+"Go away! I hate you!" And Nurse Selton actually understood and went
+away. She considered Poppy--taking one thing with another--the craziest
+patient she had ever had.
+
+Poppy talked to her baby afterwards. "I said I would be at peace with
+the world for evermore dear one; but here I am, my old self already. And
+I see that it will always be so. I must be at war for _your_ sake now. I
+must fight _your_ enemies--until you are old enough to fight them for
+yourself. To _dare_ suggest such a thing!" A little while after she
+whispered passionately to the sleek, black head:
+
+"She did not know she was speaking of a king's son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When the time came for departure from No. 10, Old Street, Poppy did not
+go from Westminster. The grip of the place was on her and she did not
+care to leave it. But she sought and found a part of more cheerful
+aspect--a quiet square with a triangle of green in its centre, and the
+spire of an old church showing above the branches of trees in one of its
+corners. The house where she engaged two rooms had an old-fashioned air,
+though upon the opening of the front door was disclosed the depressing
+interior common to most houses of its kind--the worn linoleum in the
+hall and stairway; the inevitable pretentious hall-chair and
+umbrella-stand; the eternal smell of fish and boiling linen. But the two
+rooms were an artistic find. They had been inhabited and furnished by an
+actress, who was married to an artist, and were original without being
+uncomfortable.
+
+The walls were papered with ordinary brown paper to a ledge of painted
+wood, above which rose a smoke-grey paper with pale zigzags upon it,
+making a charming background for a number of water-colour sketches and
+black-and-white etchings of all the chief theatrical celebrities, from
+Sir Henry Irving downwards.
+
+There was also a piano--old and wicked, but still a piano, and various
+odd and quaint bits of furniture. The owners of these things had gone to
+America for a two-years' tour, and being anxious to come back to their
+rooms when they returned, had given the landlady instructions to "let
+furnished," and make what she could out of them. Poppy seized them with
+joy, glad to have so pleasant a setting for the struggle and fight she
+knew must ensue.
+
+From the first it was bound to be a handicapped fight, for the king's
+son behaved like one, and a tyrannical despot at that. It was plain that
+work would only be achieved by desperate and persistent effort at all
+sorts of odds and ends of time in the day and night.
+
+Probably things would have been more difficult still, but for the
+offices of a kindly soul who lived in the lower regions of the house by
+day, and ascended to somewhere near the stars at night, accompanied by
+her husband and two children.
+
+She had opened the door to Poppy on the first visit, and having been the
+medium through which the rooms and tenant were brought together, she
+thereafter looked upon the tenant as her special _protégée_. She was a
+real Cockney, born and bred in Horseferry Road--quite young still, but
+with the hopelessly middle-aged, slack-waisted, slip-shod look of the
+English working man's wife who, having achieved a husband and two
+children, is content to consider her fate fulfilled and herself no more
+a player, but merely a _passée_ looker-on at the great game of life.
+However, Mrs. Print did her looking on very good-humouredly. Her teeth
+were decayed, her hair in strings, but she carried an air of perpetual
+cheer and a wide smile. Her husband, a spruce, fresh-cheeked young
+cabman, looked, on the contrary, as though all the cares of the universe
+lay across his shoulders.
+
+"'E always puts on that look," smiled Mrs. Print to Poppy; "in case I
+might ask 'im for an hextra sixpence for the 'ousekeeping."
+
+She "charred" for Poppy; did various things, such as lighting the
+sitting-room fire and keeping the hearth and fire-irons clean. During
+this last business, which she always managed to prolong to the best
+part of an hour, she would give Poppy a brief summary of the morning
+news; an account of what the rest of the people in the house had been
+doing; what her George had said to her before he went to work; little
+bits of information about her two children; and advice about the
+treatment of Poppy's baby--generally sound.
+
+She nearly drove poor Poppy frantic, yet it was impossible to be really
+angry with her: she was so essentially well-meaning and so unconsciously
+humorous. Besides, she took the king's son into the garden of the Square
+for a couple of hours every fine afternoon, carrying him most carefully
+up and down whilst she conversed in loud, agreeable tones with a dozen
+and one people who passed by, exchanging chaff and banter, roaring with
+laughter, scolding her own children--Jimmy and Jack--who were left to
+amuse themselves by staring at the immaculate plots of arsenically-green
+grass and the bare branches of the trees. If they did anything else,
+their mother's tongue would wag and her finger threaten.
+
+"Come off there, Jimmy! Jack, if you do that again, I'll pay you--I'll
+pay you _somethink merciful_!" Jack, a stolid, emotionless boy, looked
+as though he had been badly carved out of a log of wood; but Jimmy was
+of a more vivid appearance, being afflicted with what his mother called
+_St. Viper's Dance_.
+
+In her window Poppy would sit at her table, her eyes occasionally
+glancing at the figures in the Square, her pen flying over the paper
+before her. She was writing for money. Thoughts of Fame had slipped away
+from her. She put her child before Fame now: and wrote no better for
+that.
+
+Day by day she grew paler, and the high cheek-bones had shadows beneath
+them that might easily turn into hollows. She had not regained flesh
+much, and a little of her buoyancy was gone. What she needed was to sit
+in the air and sunshine all day playing with her baby's dimples. Dank
+Westminster, built on a swamp, low-lying and foggy, when all the rest of
+London was clear, was no place for her or for her baby; but she did not
+know it, and had no time to find out, so wrapt was she in the business
+of making money that would assure home and life for her child and
+herself.
+
+The days were all too short, and soon the midnight-oil began to burn.
+Thereafter, shadows really _did_ change gradually into hollows--very
+soft hollows, however. Still, her eyes were always blue and brave. Mrs.
+Print used to observe her disapprovingly and tell her that she should
+take a leaf out of the book of the _lydy_ upstairs, who lay on the sofa
+all day reading novels.
+
+"Miss Never-Sweat--that's what I calls her!" she said, contemptuously
+dismissing thus an anæmic blonde damsel on the first floor, who
+mysteriously did nothing except take a fat poodle for half an hour's
+walk every day. Mrs. Print's attitude towards this graceful _dilettante_
+was one of resentful suspicion--resentful because she did nothing:
+suspicious for the same reason!
+
+"With everybody helse in this 'ouse, including you, Mrs. Chard, it is
+
+                    "'Come day, go day,
+                    Please, God, send Sunday.'
+
+"But all days looks the same to _'er_," she remarked, as she diligently
+polished the fire-irons in Poppy's sitting-room. The latter, intensely
+bored, knew that it was no use trying to divert Mrs. Print from the
+subject until it was exhausted; _then_, mayhap, she would depart.
+
+"When I went up to do 'er fire this morning, she says to me, she says"
+(here Mrs. Print pitched her voice high and fell into a drawl), "'Oh,
+Mrs. Print, _dear_, I _do_ feel so hill this morning. I've got pains in
+my 'ead and chest, and I can't henjoy my food at all. And my nerves is
+quite _rore_.' I gives one look at her yeller skin, and I says: 'Why,
+you've got the _boil_, that's what _you've_ got, for want of getting
+about on your two pins. Wot you want to do is to go to the chimist's
+round the corner, and arst him for a pennorth of ikery-pikery. When
+you've took _that_, come back 'ome and turn out these two rooms of yours
+and cook your dinner--' She give me a look like a mad hyhena, and
+slabbed the door."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Print," said her listener wearily, "do make haste and finish
+that fender. I want to work while baby is asleep."
+
+"Yes ma'am, I shan't be another minit. I must just give the 'earth a
+brush up, 'a dirty 'earth makes dinner late,' and that's what mine'll be
+to-day, same as breakfast was, and Old George gone off in a dandy
+because he was late."
+
+She always spoke of her husband as Old George, her children as _our_
+Jack and _my_ Jimmy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the days went by, writing became more and more impossible to Poppy.
+It had begun to be a weary grinding out of words, common-place, and
+uninspired. She came to hate the sight of her writing-table, because of
+the torment of disgust that seized her as she sat at it and read over
+such things as she had been able to write. And her longing to be out in
+the air became almost intolerable. She felt like a starved
+woman--starved for want of the wind and trees and flowers, anything that
+smelt of open free spaces such as she had known all her life until now.
+
+And nothing happened to encourage her. She had no news of her _Book of
+Poems_, and when she called to see the publisher, he was never visible,
+and when she wrote she got no answer except that the reader for the firm
+had not been able to look through the book. Her story had not yet
+appeared in _The Cornfield_, and the one she had followed it up with
+came back, accompanied by a little printed paper, which read to the
+effect that the editor was at present "overstocked." Of course, this was
+a polite way of saying that the story wasn't up to the standard of the
+magazine. She burned with chagrin when she first read it. Afterwards,
+she became hardened to the daily sight of intimations of the kind, and
+to the sickening thud of returned manuscripts in the letter-box.
+
+The day when she had no money in the world but the thirty shillings
+realised by the sale of her piece of Spanish lace, she left the baby
+with Mrs. Print and walked all the way to Hunter Street, on the forlorn
+hope that some editor might have addressed a letter to her there,
+enclosing a cheque. Miss Drake, the good-natured landlady, was alarmed
+to see her looking so ill.
+
+"You are sitting to your desk too much, dear, and losing your
+beauty--and you know no girl can afford to do _that_ until she has forty
+thousand in the bank," she said with a broad smile. "Why don't you chuck
+writing over and try the stage? A girl of your appearance could get into
+the Gaiety or Daly's any day, especially if you have any kind of a
+voice. The change of life and scene would do you a lot of good--and take
+it from _me_, dear, there's nothing so comforting in this world as a
+regular salary."
+
+On top of the 'bus she was obliged from sheer weariness to take back to
+Westminster, Poppy turned the idea over in her mind. The stage had never
+had any attraction for her. Unlike most girls, she did not hold the
+belief that she had only to be seen and heard upon the boards to become
+famous. But she could not turn away from the thought of the change from
+sitting at her desk; and the regular salary had its potent charm,
+too--Miss Drake spoke like an oracle there!
+
+However, she put the thought by for another day or two. She would give
+literature another chance, she said, with an ironical lip, and she
+essayed to finish her novel. For three days and the better part of three
+nights she hung over it in every moment she could spare from her child;
+at the end of that time she thrust the manuscript into the drawer of her
+table and locked it up.
+
+"Lie there and wait for the inspired hour," she said. "I must look for
+other ways and means to boil the pot."
+
+The wrench was to leave the "king's son" at home crooning in hired arms
+beneath the eye of Mrs. Print.
+
+It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of theatrical agents
+and managers. She presented herself at the office of one of the
+best-known agents in London.
+
+The staircase that led to his waiting-room was crowded with lounging,
+clean-shaven men, and the waiting-room hummed with the voices of girls
+and women and more men, all gabbling at once. Phrases made themselves
+heard above the din.
+
+"No: I won't go into panto--not if Frankie goes down on his knees to
+me."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to do _that_, dear!"
+
+"She says that her figure is her stock-in-trade--musical comedy, of
+course."
+
+"H'm! more stock than trade, I should say."
+
+A score or so of made-up eyes raked Poppy from under heavy
+_complexion_-veiling; she became aware of such strong scents as
+_frangipani_ and _chypre_; many ropes of large pearls; heavy fur coats
+flung open to reveal sparkling _art_-chains slung round bare,
+well-powdered necks. A wry-lipped quotation of Abinger's flitted through
+her memory:
+
+                        "Diamonds me.
+                        Sealskins me,
+                        I'm going on the stage."
+
+When, after weary waiting, her turn came to be admitted to the agent's
+inner sanctum, she found a clean-looking, brown young man, with grey
+hair and a shrewd eye. He shot an enveloping glance over her while she
+was closing the door.
+
+"Well, dear, what do _you_ want?" he asked briskly, but pleasantly--all
+theatrical people "dear" each other automatically, but Poppy, not
+knowing this, flushed at the term. She explained that she was seeking
+work on the stage.
+
+"Any experience?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Can you sing?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dance?"
+
+"Yes." (Abinger had allowed her to take lessons in Florence.)
+
+"Good legs?"
+
+He regarded her puzzled eyes with impatience.
+
+"Any photographs in tights? I like to know what I'm engaging, you know.
+A lot of you girls come here with your spindle-shanks hidden under
+flounced petticoats and flowing skirts; and your bones wrapped up in
+heavy coats and feather boas, and you cut a great dash, and when we get
+you on the stage in tights it's another story altogether--not that I'm
+saying it about _you_, dear, for I can see----"
+
+"I don't think I am what you require in any case," she said as she
+reached the door. "Good-morning."
+
+She fled through the waiting-room and down the stairs. Some of the
+loungers shared a smile.
+
+"A greenhorn, evidently!" they said. "What has Frankie been saying?"
+
+The next day she beat her way through wind and rain to another office.
+And the next day to yet another. Within a week she did the whole dreary
+round. All the waiting-rooms were crowded, for the spring provincial
+tours were coming on, and engagements were being booked briskly; also,
+there were many vacancies occurring in the pantomimes.
+
+Several managers, taken with Poppy's appearance, offered her small parts
+(with a good understudy) in touring companies. But she knew that it
+would be impossible to think of travelling with her baby, and she did
+not for a moment contemplate leaving him.
+
+By talking to all the people who talked to her, and "theatricals,"
+generally, are a kindly, sociable people, she learned that it was of no
+great use to try the agencies for London engagements.
+
+"Go to the theatres themselves," they said; adding cheerfully: "not that
+_that's_ much good either. Every stage manager has a gang of pets
+waiting for an opening to occur, and they never let an outsider get in."
+
+One agent, rather more kindly than the rest, suggested that she should
+try the Lyceum Theatre.
+
+"Ravenhill is taking it for a Shakespearian season," he said. "And I
+should say that class of work would just suit you."
+
+Poppy thought so too, and wasted no time about finding the Lyceum.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Ravenhill is seeing small-part ladies and walkers-on to-day,"
+the door-keeper informed her confidentially, and after a long waiting
+she was eventually shown into the Green-room, where she found the
+well-known Shakespearian actor sitting on a trunk, reading his letters,
+in the midst of piles of scenery and robes.
+
+He was a thin, Hamlet-faced man, with a skin of golden pallor and
+romance-lit eyes, and he looked at Poppy with kindness and comradeship.
+
+"Have you had any experience?" he asked.
+
+"None at all," said Poppy sadly. She was getting tired of the question,
+and felt inclined to vary the answer, but the truthful, kind eyes
+abashed the thought.
+
+"Is there anything you could recite to me?"
+
+Poppy thought swiftly. She knew volumes of prose and poetry, but at the
+word everything fled from her brain except two things--Raleigh's "O
+Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death!" which she in somewhat morbid mood had
+been reading the night before, and a poem of Henley's that had been dear
+to her since she had loved Carson. In desperation, at last she opened
+her lips and gave forth the sweet, tender words, brokenly, and with
+tears lying on her pale cheeks, but with the voice of a bird in the
+garden:
+
+            "When you are old and I am passed away--
+            Passed: and your face, your golden face is grey,
+              I think--what e'er the end, this dream of mine
+              Comforting you a friendly star shall shine
+            Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.
+
+            "Dear Heart, it shall be so: under the sway
+            Of death, the Past's enormous disarray
+            Lies hushed and dark. Still tho' there come no sign,
+            Live on well pleased; immortal and divine
+            Love shall still tend you as God's angels may,
+            When you are old."
+
+When she had finished she stood, swaying and pale, tears falling down.
+Ravenhill looked at her sadly. He thought: "This girl has more than her
+share of the world's hard luck."
+
+"I will take you as a walker-on," he said, "with an understudy and with
+the chance of a small part. You have a fine voice, and a
+temperament--but I need not tell you that. Of course, if you want to get
+on, you need to study and work hard. I can't offer you more than thirty
+shillings a week--with a difference if you play."
+
+He did not mention that all other walkers-on with understudies were only
+getting a guinea; some of them nothing at all. He only looked at her
+with kindness and comradeship.
+
+As for her: she could have fallen at his feet in thankfulness. The
+contract was signed and she went home happy.
+
+Thirty shillings a week _certain_!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was in bitter February weather that Poppy's engagement began, and
+there had been a week of heavy rehearsing before the opening night. She
+soon felt the strain of the unaccustomed work. Ravenhill's was a
+Repertoire-Company, and the bill was changed every week, so that while
+they played one play at night they were busy most of the day rehearsing
+another for the coming week. This meant that from ten o'clock in the
+morning until three or four in the afternoon, and again from seven until
+eleven at night, Poppy was parted from her baby. She was obliged to
+permanently employ a little nursemaid, and also, to her bitter sorrow,
+to wean her baby.
+
+She comforted herself disconsolately with the thought that the change
+was better for him, because she was not so vigorous now as at first. But
+many a time the silky black head was scalded with its mother's tears,
+for that she might no more feel the cling of little lips.
+
+The theatre began to interest her from a literary point of view. The
+writing of plays suggested itself as a fascinating medium for the
+expression of herself; she saw that knowledge of stage-craft would be of
+enormous use to her in this direction, and she became absorbed in
+observing and making notes on everything concerning stage technique and
+production.
+
+Her appearance, when "made up," was quite charming, and Ravenhill was
+always glad to put her into a scene, and would give her a one-line part
+whenever it was possible. Often she would find herself "on" alone with
+the "star" in a scene--a court lady, perhaps, lingering by a window
+while the Queen gave forth an impassioned soliloquy; or a picturesque
+figure in the background of a garden-scene; but terrible shyness and
+emotion affected her when she had to open her lips on the stage, if only
+to say "Good-morrow" or "Come hither"; and her voice was altogether too
+delicate and canorous for stage use. She preferred to be on with the
+crowd--a peasant woman in a tattered skirt and kerchief, leading a
+hooting riot in _Richard II_, or a stately lady dancing in the house of
+the _Capulets_, or an Egyptian girl in the streets of Alexandria
+carrying a torch to light _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ to bed. Ravenhill was
+disappointed in her that she did not work at her voice, nor seem anxious
+for parts. He did not know that she was trying to serve two gods; and
+that all her incense was burnt at the altar of literature, for still she
+returned and returned again to the mistress she loved, but whose face
+was turned from her.
+
+She could not afford to ride to and fro from the theatre, for there were
+four journeys to be made on ordinary days, and on _matinée_ days six,
+and tenpence a day made too large a hole in a salary needed for many
+things. So at night she took a 'bus to Westminster Bridge at the cost of
+a halfpenny and from thence, in all weathers, she faithfully
+padded-the-hoof for home. The shelter of the long stretch of St.
+Stephen's and the Houses of Parliament was always grateful; sometimes,
+just as she turned the corner of the Victoria Tower, the wind from the
+river would sweep and curl around her, nearly rushing her off her feet.
+Then came the long, cutting tramp along the Embankment. Often in those
+midnight walks she thought of Charles Bramham. He, too, had known
+walking in the biting cold on tired feet and with a painfully empty
+stomach! The fatigue that got hold of her sometimes was terrible. But
+always for the sake of the silky black head of a king's son, she laughed
+and worked on.
+
+The people at the theatre were kind and pleasant, and she made many
+friends. But they were friends of the theatre only, she kept them all
+rigidly out of her private life; and that not without effort, for her
+personality was magnetic and people always wanted to know her. She was
+interesting and mysterious, they thought, and presently she became the
+enigma of the theatre because she never lied about her salary, nor
+bragged of her genius, nor repeated fascinating things that "someone in
+front" had said about her voice and her face, nor bored anyone with
+tales of the great future predicted for her.
+
+Indeed, she was at this time striving with a valorous heart to live
+according to Stevenson's creed:
+
+            "To be honest: to be kind:
+            To earn a little--and to spend a little less."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day when she had got home early from rehearsal, and was spending
+some rapturous moments over the adored silken head asleep on its pillow,
+Mrs. Print came to her very much _en déshabille_, her head wrapped in a
+towel, full of excitement.
+
+"There's a gentleman at the front door, knocking," she said; "and, oh,
+ma'am, Mrs. Chard would you be so kind as to open it? As sure as I wash
+my 'ead, it always 'appens so!"
+
+Poppy, good-naturedly, complied, giving a switch of her eye at a mirror
+first, for vanity was far from being dead in her yet. She opened the
+door to--Charles Bramham!
+
+Pale with amazement, she stood glimmering at him through her hair.
+
+"You!" she cried; then held out her hands in welcome, for welcome he
+truly was, with the smell and burn of Africa on him.
+
+"Yes; me! I bet you didn't think I'd have the cheek to come and find you
+out. I had a great time digging your address out of Miss Drake. But why
+should you hide? Mayn't I come in?"
+
+"Of course," she said, and led the way; but her manner was a little
+constrained. It had not been on her programme at all to let Charles
+Bramham, or any other man, into the secret of her life.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked half crossly, when they were in the
+sitting-room.
+
+"To see you. And you looked mightily glad to see me, at first. Don't
+tell me now, that you are not! But what have you been doing to yourself?
+London is killing you. You'd better come back to Africa, or you'll pass
+out. You're so thin I can see through you, and your eyes are too big for
+your face."
+
+He sat down and they talked eagerly. She told him something of her
+disappointments, more of her hopes, and at last, of being obliged to
+take to the theatre as a stop-gap "until such time as she began to
+succeed in literature."
+
+"But why work like this?" he said discontentedly. "You'll kill yourself
+burning two candles at once."
+
+"Not I?" said she gaily. She had no intention of letting him know that
+but for her stage salary she would be penniless.
+
+"I don't see any sense in it," he muttered. "It can't be because you
+like work. No woman ever yet liked work--they weren't meant to. Anyhow,
+you can knock off for to-day. Put your hat on and come out for a drive
+and to dinner. I'll drive you to your theatre afterwards."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't," Poppy faltered. "I never go out ... I can't leave
+my work ... I am tired." She stopped lamely. He knew that she was not
+speaking the truth. The fact was, that she had given the little
+nursemaid an hour or two off.
+
+"Ah! there's something you don't care to tell me," he said with a
+half-smile; but a shadow crossed his face. At that moment they were both
+transfixed by a sound. The king's son began to lament in the next room.
+Bramham would never have guessed, but he happened to see the look that
+leapt into her eyes at the sound; then he stood staring at her with a
+question in his, while the scarlet slowly mounted to her cheeks.
+
+In truth, she was filled with confusion, and did not know what to say.
+She remembered the time she had accepted his offer of money and help;
+how she had talked to him then of her work and aspirations, but had
+breathed no word of _this_. How could he know that the truth had been
+hidden even from her? What could he think but that she had deceived him,
+made use of him?
+
+The king's son cried again, indignantly, beseechingly. Again Bramham saw
+the mother-look leap to her eyes. With no word she flew from the room.
+When she returned she was carrying a little fragrant bundle, and she
+came to Bramham, who was apparently rooted to the spot where she had
+left him. He had heard her crooning to the child in the next room, but,
+like an unbelieving Thomas, he wanted still more proof. Her face gave it
+to him. Confusion was gone. Only tender, brooding peace and love was
+there. She held the baby under his eyes.
+
+"My son, Charlie!"
+
+He stared down blankly at the little lovely thing, and it stared back at
+him.
+
+"Good God!" said he; "am I dreaming? I could swear that was Eve Carson's
+child!"
+
+"Yes," said Poppy softly, and her voice was _ci risuoniamo in
+cristallo_. "It is. But how did you know?" she wonderingly asked.
+
+Charles Bramham was dumb. He could only stare. Later, he sat down
+heavily in a chair and used his handkerchief.
+
+"Life has held a good many surprises for me, but never one like this.
+_Carson!_ ... and _you_!... He my dearest friend! You, well, you know
+what I feel about you. Yet you two have deceived me! Sprung this amazing
+thing on me. Why! I _can't_ understand it.... Good God! I love that
+fellow! ... _he_ could--?"
+
+"Oh! Charlie, dear friend, you go too fast. Don't judge or misjudge.
+Nothing is as you think. He did not deceive you ... nor did I. That
+night you offered to help me and I accepted, I ... _I didn't know that
+this wonderful thing was going to happen to me_ ... and _he_ knows
+nothing. It is _my_ secret."
+
+Bramham digested these things as best he might. Later, he said:
+
+"Well he's _got_ to know--and I shall tell him. Why, he's not that sort
+of fellow at all, Rosalind ... he would throw everything to Hades for
+the sake of a woman he loved ... and, of course, he loves you, and would
+be here with you if he knew.... The whole thing is the craziest mystery
+I ever heard of ... _of course_, he can't know ... but I shall tell him,
+if I have to go up to Borapota after him."
+
+"Never, _never_!" said she. "No one shall ever tell him. It is _my_
+secret. You dare not interfere. I would never forgive you."
+
+He turned away from her, angry, sore, bitterly puzzled.
+
+"Oh, Charlie," she said wistfully. "Don't be angry. This is _my_
+life--my secret.... Leave me to do as seems best to me.... Tell me," she
+said softly, "how did you know that my child ... is ... _his_ son?"
+
+"Know? Why, anyone would know. He is the dead image--and there are Eve
+Carson's eyes staring at me. No two men in the world have eyes like
+that."
+
+"Are they not beautiful? And yet so strange!--one blue and one brown! I
+never--" she stopped suddenly. She had almost told Bramham that she did
+not know that Carson's eyes looked thus, since she had never seen them,
+except in the darkness. But much as she liked Bramham, she could not
+share with him _that_ strange, sweet secret.
+
+Only one more question Bramham asked her.
+
+"Was it Karri you told me of that night, Rosalind?--the man you loved?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "The only man I have ever loved, or will love."
+
+She dined with Bramham, after all, and before they parted she had bound
+him by every oath he honoured never to reveal her secret to Carson.
+
+"If you do," she passionately told him, "you may precipitate both him
+and me into terrible misery, and neither of us would forgive you. We
+should probably hate you for ever. Leave alone things that you do not
+understand.... How _should_ you understand! You have accidentally
+touched on the fringe of a strange story ... something you would never
+have known except by accident. For I don't intend the world to know this
+when it knows _me_ some day, Charlie."
+
+"Why?" said he, looking keenly at her. "Are you ashamed of your child?"
+
+"Ashamed!" she laughed happily. "Ashamed of the greatest joy that ever
+came to a woman; the son of the man she loves!"
+
+A happy look came into his face, too, for the first time since he had
+known the truth.
+
+"That's the spirit! If a woman has the courage to take the big jump, she
+should have the grit to face the fences all round the course ... but I
+don't believe many do; and you can't blame them for that either.
+Rosalind, I want to tell you something. I'm a rich man, and I ... I have
+no children." He swallowed an odd sound in his throat and averted his
+eyes for a moment, but went on calmly: "I long ago made up my mind to
+leave every rap, when I die, to women who have done what you have
+done--and had to suffer for it."
+
+She looked at him thoughtfully for a while.
+
+"I think you would be wrong, Charlie. People would call it putting a
+premium on sin, and--you couldn't really help the woman who suffered.
+Nothing could help her. The right kind of woman would value her
+suffering more than your money, believe me." Then, as she saw his
+saddened face, she said, "Help the little love-babies, if you like, and
+bring them up to be as kind and sweet a friend as _you_ are to women--"
+Impulsively he put his hand on hers lying on the dinner-table.
+
+"Let me--" he began.
+
+"But never offer to help _my_ love-baby," she said warningly, "as long
+as he has a mother to work for him, and a king for his father somewhere
+in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+At the end of April the season at the Lyceum drew to a close, and
+Ravenhill re-formed his company to tour the provinces.
+
+Many of those who had worked with him throughout the season were moneyed
+girls, with such a passion for the stage, that they were only
+too glad to give their services--"walking-on," dancing, and
+understudying--without salary, for the sake of the experience in a
+London theatre; and it would have been an easy matter for the manager to
+have composed his touring company largely of such people. But he
+happened to be a man with a big heart for the stragglers of the
+profession; those who were in it for the love of their art, too, but
+incidentally obliged to make a living. And so, though he did not disdain
+to employ occasional rich amateurs, he never allowed them to usurp the
+work of legitimate actors and actresses.
+
+In making a selection of people who would be useful to him by reason of
+their looks, or talent, or both, he included Poppy on his list, and
+forthwith she received a little notice during the last London week to
+the effect that if she cared to go on tour (with the hope of advancement
+if she studied) the offer was open to her. But the salary offered was
+smaller than she had been receiving, and she knew that it was useless to
+think of travelling with her small Pat and supporting herself and him on
+it. (Ravenhill was unaware, of course, that there was any question of
+supporting a child.) She was obliged to refuse the offer.
+
+With the closing of the theatre the face of the future took on a blank
+and appalling expression. Exercising the greatest economy, she had yet
+not been able to save more than three pounds out of her long engagement;
+and she knew not where the next money was to come from. The stories she
+wrote still faithfully returned. The _Book of Poems_, the one brave
+string in her viol of hope, had been lost. The publisher said that it
+was only mislaid and might be found at any moment; but Poppy felt a sick
+certainty that she would never hear of or see her darling book again.
+Most foolishly, she had kept no copy of it, and though she believed that
+by turning up the pages of her memory she might re-write it, she could
+not spare the time it would cost to do this. Even if she had the
+necessary leisure, she despaired of ever writing her poems again in all
+their first perfection--a thought would surely be lost here, a line
+missing there!
+
+Heart-broken, rage seized her when she first received the news. She saw
+a red haze before her eyes as in the days when she hated Aunt Lena, and
+she longed for a hammer and the publisher's head on a block. Afterwards
+she achieved calmness that was not resignation, and went to interview
+the publisher and find out what he meant to do. Apparently he had not
+meant to do anything except take up the bland and Micawberesque attitude
+of waiting for the book to "turn up." But Poppy's heart was full of the
+rage and fear of a mother-wolf who sees famine ahead, and though she
+successfully hid these primitive emotions under a composed manner, there
+was a feverish urgency about her which, strangely convincing, subtly
+communicated itself to the publisher, so that presently, quite
+unintentionally, he found himself promising (in the event of the book
+not being found within three months) to pay her a sum to be agreed upon,
+but not less than twenty pounds. In the meantime he engaged, if the
+book should "turn up," to read it and make her a _conscientious offer_
+for it. He did not forget to add that poems were unmarketable ware at
+the best of times, and that he could not hold out hope of any specially
+high price for hers.
+
+With these conditions Poppy was fain to be content, though there was
+poor comfort in them for her. Three months is not long if fame and name
+wait at the end. But it is a long time to wait for twenty pounds. And it
+is too long to starve. In a panic she started out once more on the
+dreary round of agents' offices and theatres. At the end of a week's
+wasted walking, and talking, chill despair began to eat its way into her
+brave heart; in the second week the chill was freezing bitter cold that
+enwrapped, and seemed to paralyse her senses, so that she could feel
+nothing but dull fear, not for herself, but for little crowing, merry
+Pat. At that time her thoughts turned to Bramham, her friend. But he was
+gone, and she knew not where to find him. He had bidden her good-bye and
+sailed for South America on a prolonged visit. It would be many months
+before he returned to Durban.
+
+In the third week, while she was eking out her last ten shillings, still
+desperately seeking work at the theatres, she met in the Strand a girl
+who had been with her at the Lyceum--one of Ravenhill's moneyed girls,
+pretty and charming, with a host of friends and acquaintances, of whom
+she bitterly complained that they would not allow her to fulfill her
+destiny and become a _Sarah Bernhardt_. She and Poppy had shared the
+same mirror in a Lyceum dressing-room, and become friendly over their
+"make-up" boxes.
+
+By many little marks and signs that women judge on, Marion Ashley had
+concluded that Miss Chard needed every penny of the small salary she
+earned. Her idea was that Poppy probably had an invalid mother or sister
+to support; and she had often wished for an opportunity to lend a
+helping-hand to a girl whom she sincerely liked and admired. When, in
+the Strand, she met Poppy, pale and harassed, in worn shoes and an
+unseasonable gown, a thought shot through her quick mind and she
+advanced gaily, holding out her hands.
+
+"You are the _very_ girl I wanted to see," she cried. "Come into
+'Slater's' for tea, and _do_ see if you can help me in a _great_
+difficulty."
+
+While Poppy took off her gloves Marion Ashley poured out the tea and her
+tale. It transpired that she had a cousin who was young and pretty and
+rich, but with a broken back. She had injured herself in the
+hunting-field and would never be able to walk again.
+
+"Ever since, she has become the most awful peevish creature in the
+world, poor thing, and one can't be surprised at that! But no one can
+put up with her temper, and no one will stay with her, though she has
+had companion after companion. She insists on their being young and
+pretty, and afterwards she is jealous of them and fires them out. Then
+her mother and her husband come and fetch _me_ round, no matter where I
+am, and really, you know, dear, it's a _little_ hard on _me_ to have my
+_career_ interfered with ... it isn't as though I can be of any real
+use, for Frances is jealous of me too, if I am in the house much. Well,
+I'm looking out for someone for her now, and--I thought perhaps you
+could help me. _Do_ say you can?"
+
+She looked appealingly at the pale face opposite her, but Poppy gave no
+sign. She had considered the matter rapidly, but--companionships were
+badly paid, as a rule, and she would have to be separated from her
+little Pat. Marion Ashley's face fell.
+
+"To tell the truth, dear," she said, "I thought you might undertake it
+yourself. Of course, I know you're far too good for that sort of thing;
+but I thought you might make a stop-gap of it--and the salary would be
+good--a hundred a year Frances pays, and you'd have no expenses."
+
+Poppy's face changed. A hundred a year! If she _must_ part with Pat that
+would at least ensure him a home in the country, and she could save the
+rest.
+
+"It is very good of you, Miss Ashley.... Will you let me think it over?"
+
+"Oh, yes--_anything_, if you will only take it on. I should be _so_
+glad. Her husband is always round bothering the life out of me to find
+someone. Oh! I must tell you, dear there's _one_ thing besides Frances's
+temper ... _he_ is difficult."
+
+"Bad-tempered, too?" smiled Poppy.
+
+"_Far_ from it--altogether too good-tempered and fascinating--especially
+where a pretty girl is concerned. In fact, my dear, he's rapid--and
+Frances is jealous; so there you have the trouble in a nutshell.
+Tiresome, isn't it? It's just as well to know these things beforehand.
+But I daresay you'll be able to keep him in his place."
+
+This information depressed Poppy more than a little. She was beginning
+to realise that whether she liked them or not, she attracted men, and
+she would rather have heard of some place where there was no man on the
+scene. As it happened, she was still smarting from an experience of the
+night before. She had, in mistake, opened the door of a first-class
+carriage in the underground station at Victoria. She speedily closed it,
+but the one occupant, a man, had had time to observe her, and instantly
+he whipped the door open again and was out on the platform. A minute
+afterwards she found an almost empty "third" and stepped into it just as
+the train started, someone hard on her heels. When she looked up there
+was the first-class passenger opposite, smiling at her. For the rest of
+the journey he made ardent love to her with his eyes, and she sat,
+flaming and paling there with anger. The man was serenely handsome, a
+gentleman in appearance at least, but his eyes had a look that angered
+and terrified her; a look that now she seemed to know the meaning of.
+
+"It is terrible to have no innocence left! to know the meaning of a man
+like that!" she thought shudderingly, and she would not meet his eyes.
+Only she resolved that _always_ she would turn her feet away from the
+paths frequented by men.
+
+"Where does your cousin live?" she asked at last. "Perhaps, I'd better
+go and see her, if I make up my mind I can take the engagement."
+
+"Yes, _do_, dear--Lower Sloane Street--I'll write the number down for
+you. I must fly now for rehearsal. I'm going to be in the new romantic
+play at The York. Send me a line there after you've seen Frances. _Do_
+take it on, there's a darling--good-bye."
+
+Poppy spent the afternoon crooning and weeping over Pat's head. It
+seemed to her that she died a little death every time she thought of
+parting with him. But--was it not true that the little face had lost
+some of its pink tints of late?--that the odd eyes were growing larger?
+After she had dried her desperate tears and could trust herself to speak
+equably and reasonably, she called Mrs. Print into consultation.
+
+Mrs. Print had a sister-in-law who lived in a rose-clad cottage in
+Surrey, and adored babies. Poppy had often seen and talked to her, and
+let her take Pat out; for she came up to London constantly to try to
+beguile Mrs. Print to part with one of her little boys--even the
+vivacious Jimmy would have been made welcome.
+
+Mrs. Print assured Poppy that no _Dook's_ baby would be better looked
+after than a child in Sarah Print's care, and that she (Poppy) could go
+and stay down in the little rose-clad cottage whenever she was free,
+for Sarah had lots of room, a lovely garden, and corn-fields all round
+her.
+
+"You can't see nothing but 'ills and corn-fields wheresumever you look!
+It would drive me off my nut to live there a week, but Sarah likes it.
+You tike baby down and go and 'ave a look to-morrow, ma'am."
+
+"Nothing but hills and corn-fields!"
+
+The words brought a mist over Poppy's eyes. _That_ was what she wanted
+for her son. She kissed him and asked Mrs. Print to mind him for an hour
+while she went to Sloane Street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a bright room, among flowers, the invalid woman lay on a couch, with
+an embroidered coverlet of crimson satin drawn up to her chin. Her face
+was pale and petulant, with great brown eyes that roamed restlessly and
+were full of peevish misery. She was of the fickle, impetuous nature
+that indulges in groundless hates and likings, and the moment she saw
+Poppy standing there, she put out her hands feverishly, as if for
+something she had long wanted. Poppy, indeed, was sweet and
+dewy-looking, as always when she came from her little love-baby, and now
+the added beauty of courageous renouncement lighted her lilac eyes.
+
+"Ah! I _know_ you are the girl Marion was talking about," cried the
+invalid. "You _will_ come, won't you? How lovely you are--I shall just
+_love_ having you with me! Come and sit here where I can see you--but
+don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."
+
+Poppy sat down by the couch and submitted to being stared at, even
+touched by the pale, restless hands. Mrs. Chesney did most of the
+talking. She only required a monosyllable here and there, and her manner
+varied oddly, from a cold hauteur which she vainly tried to make
+indifferent, to entreaty that was almost servile.
+
+"Do you like reading aloud?" she demanded, and before Poppy could speak,
+continued swiftly: "Oh, never mind, I don't care if you don't--_of
+course_, everybody _hates_ it. Can you play?"
+
+This time she waited for an answer, and Poppy saying yes, was waved
+towards a beautiful Erard that stood in a far corner. Taking off her
+gloves, she went over to it, and immediately her fingers fell into a
+soft and haunting melody of Ireland. The woman on the couch closed her
+eyes and lay like one in a trance.
+
+While she played, Poppy resolved to take the opening offered her here.
+It was a living and a well-paid one. Little Pat could be sent away
+to a good home in the country, and though the parting must be
+bitter--bitter-- Ah! she could not think of it! What she _must_ think of
+was food to keep life in his little loved body, health for him in fresh
+sweet air; money to keep herself alive to work for him.
+
+As she rose from the piano there was a prayer of thankfulness on her
+lips for this fresh chance to live. A door opened and a man came
+nonchalantly in.
+
+"Oh, Harry!" cried the invalid. "This is Miss Chard--she is going to be
+my new companion. Miss Chard--my husband."
+
+Poppy bowed to the man, meeting the amused cynicism of his glance
+gravely. Not by word or look did she betray the fact that she had ever
+seen him before. But thankfulness died away in her, and once more the
+face of the future lowered.
+
+Harry Chesney was the hero of the adventure in the underground railway
+carriage.
+
+While she was putting on her gloves, preparing to go, she told Mrs.
+Chesney that she would call in the morning, when the engagement could be
+finally arranged.
+
+It would have been awkward and painful to have told the sick woman _now_
+that she was not able to accept the engagement. Being of so jealous a
+temperament, the invalid would probably suspect that the decision had
+something to do with her husband and would be caused misery in this
+thought.
+
+"It will be simple to write to-night that circumstances have occurred
+which prevent me from coming," was Poppy's thought as she said good-bye.
+
+"Touch the bell twice," said Mrs. Chesney.
+
+"Oh! I'll see Miss Chard down," said Chesney, but Poppy had made no
+delay in touching the bell and a maid magically appeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day she waited at the York Theatre and saw Marion Ashley after
+rehearsal.
+
+"I wanted to thank you," she said, "and to tell you that after all I
+couldn't undertake that companionship. Something has happened that makes
+it impossible for me to leave home. I wrote to Mrs. Chesney last night."
+
+The brightness of Marion's smile was dashed for an instant, but she
+speedily recovered.
+
+"Never mind; a lucky thing has happened here. One of the walking-on
+girls dropped out to-day and they want another. Mr. Lingard is a friend
+of mine, and he's sure to have you when he sees you--you've just the
+face for romantic drama. Come along and see him; he went into his office
+a minute ago--don't forget to say you've been with Ravenhill."
+
+And so through Marion Ashley's kindly offices Poppy found herself once
+more signing a contract to "walk-on-and-understudy" at a guinea a week!
+
+But the romantic drama was an unromantic failure.
+
+Long before the end of the first week, the principals were looking at
+each other with blank faces, and holding conclaves in each other's
+dressing-rooms for the purpose of exchanging opinions and reports on the
+probable duration of the run. In the "walkers-on" room they gave it
+three weeks, and _that_ playing to "paper houses" every night.
+
+Marion Ashley met Poppy in the wings during a quarter of an hour's wait
+that occurred in the second act.
+
+"Isn't this an awful disappointment?" she said. "Have you anything in
+view, dear, if we come to a full-stop here?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Poppy, with a brave, careless smile. "Divil a thing!"
+
+"Well ... wouldn't you ... what about Mrs. Chesney? She's hankering
+after you still. In fact, she appears to have developed a craze for your
+society. She wrote to me this morning, asking me to search you out."
+
+Poppy flushed slightly. "I'm afraid I should be a failure as a
+companion," was all she could say. Marion looked at her with curiosity,
+vexation.
+
+The next day a terrible thing happened. For the first time in his short
+life little Pat was ill. Not very ill, just white and listless and
+disinclined to eat. Poppy, like a pale and silent ghost, held him in
+tender arms every moment of the day, except while he slept, when for his
+own sake she put him into his bed, but hovered near, watching, praying.
+Mrs. Print pooh-poohed the sickness as nothing but teething-fever, but
+the wild-eyed mother begged her to go out and find a doctor. A grave,
+kind man was found, and his words were not comforting.
+
+"He is not very ill, but he wants care. London is hardly the right place
+for babies at this time of the year. If it is possible, I should advise
+you to take him away into the country."
+
+When the hour came for her to go to the theatre, Poppy called in the
+faithful Mrs. Print once more to watch over the sleeping child. It
+broke her heart to leave him, but there was nothing else to be done. She
+might forfeit her engagement if she did not appear at the theatre; or,
+at any rate, she would forfeit part of her salary, and she needed that
+more than ever.
+
+She took a halfpenny tram to Victoria Street, meaning to walk from there
+to the theatre. Someone had left an evening paper on the seat, and she
+took it up to glance at the advertisements, and see if any hope for the
+future might be gleaned from them. As she turned over the pages her
+distracted eyes caught the impression of a name she knew, printed large
+among several other names. She looked again, and flame came into her
+face, light to her eyes.
+
+It was, indeed, a name she knew: and yet did not. _Sir_ Evelyn Carson!
+His name was on the Birthday List of Honours. He had been made a baronet
+_for services rendered to the Empire_. Swiftly she scanned the column,
+until she found the short biographical paragraph which told in brief
+outline of his daring expedition into Borapota; of the extraordinary
+personal influence he had speedily acquired over the warlike people of
+that country and of the remarkable concessions he had gained for the
+Empire. He had, in fact, without bloodshed or political complications,
+succeeded in establishing a British Protectorate in a rich and
+profitable country.
+
+At the end of the column there was a further piece of information
+concerning Carson. It was embodied in a cablegram from Durban, which
+stated, with the convincing brevity peculiar to cables, that Sir Evelyn
+Carson, having arrived from Borapota, was to be married immediately to
+Miss May Mappin, only daughter and heiress of the late Mr. Isaac Mappin,
+former Mayor of Durban.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On her dressing-table at the theatre Poppy found a little envelope,
+pale-tan in colour, containing a week's salary and a note from the
+manager, saying that after the next night (Saturday) the play would be
+taken off the boards; no further salaries would be paid. Every member of
+the company had received a similar notice.
+
+During the wait in the second act she sought out Marion Ashley.
+
+"Does Mrs. Chesney still want me?" she briefly inquired, and Marion
+turned to her eagerly.
+
+"Of course she does. Will you go? Oh, you dear girl! I'm _so_ glad. When
+will you be able to take up your residence with her?"
+
+"On Monday next, I think. I can't go before as I have to ... take some
+one ... who is ill ... into the country. I shall stay a day there
+only ... unless, unless ... the ... person is ... _worse_."
+
+"And if the person is better?" asked Marion quickly. "Oh, my dear, you
+won't fail poor Frances, will you, if you can help it?"
+
+"No." Poppy spoke in a perfectly calm and composed voice now, though her
+eyes were strange to see. "If I am alive, and have any reason to wish to
+continue living, you may rely upon me not to fail Mrs. Chesney."
+
+Marion did not quite understand this, but she came to the conclusion
+that some man Miss Chard was in love with was desperately ill, and that
+that accounted for her distraught look and strange words.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+
+          "This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,
+          Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,
+          Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+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 the _Field_ for 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 than _ennui_: 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 an advantage 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 just _that_," 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 with
+_gaieté de coeur_.
+
+"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 pretty
+_then_; 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 a _penchant_ for 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 a _mot_ which 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 in the 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
+is _diablerie_ in 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 literally
+_couldn't_ be her ... I wonder if I should go round and----"
+
+"If I _could_ be interested in a girl," thought Carson, "I might.... _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 you remember? When you
+potted the big fellow in the _umpas_ tree!... 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--chief _Gaarons_, one of their best
+leaders ... a sure shot ... he got ten of our men ... but Bram got _him_
+all 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 we _are_ getting 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 over during 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--_you_ know 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, and I 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 a _ménage-à-deux_ in 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 a _ménage-à-deux_ was, 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, and when 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 want _a_ wife,
+but _the_ wife, and I haven't met her yet--the woman who could stand the
+test of five years of _wattle-and-daub_, and boot-and-saddle, and
+sleeping under the stars for a change when one gets tired of the
+_wattle-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. _We_ know 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 has secretly
+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 with gold 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 said _the_ wife ... 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 of _that_.... 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 in _that_ tale!... 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 XXI
+
+
+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."
+
+That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed into Bramham's
+head, as Abinger grinned upon him.
+
+"What do _you_ want?" 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 and see 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 said _he_ would 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.
+
+_Ennui_ engulfed 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 Royal
+_boys_. 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, with silken 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 of grief 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, _Hope_ sitting 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, through tessellated
+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 have _got_ on. 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 of _Eve Destiny_? Here are 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 in _that_, 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
+from wailing 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 is _persona
+grata_ there."
+
+"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
+their engagement 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, otherwise _Eve
+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 XXII
+
+
+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
+to _tête-à-tête_ feel 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, _must_ have 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 the _cheep-cheeping_ of 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
+could say "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 Colonial _seminary_,
+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, _dear_ Mrs. Portal, desirable qualifications are not always
+sufficient ones. _Where_ did she come from, and who are her people, I
+wonder? It seems _strange_ in 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. Abinger began 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, _much_ more eligible for the post? (Her own
+brother, 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 never _dream_ of 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, _how_ Mrs. 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."
+
+"When _I_ am 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, _dear_ lady," said Abinger, with great _tendresse_, "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.
+
+"So _this_ is Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but not too softly
+for Carson to hear him.
+
+"_Who_ is 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 very _un-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 that _you_
+are--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--my _first_ visit."
+
+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 tasting
+the 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 was wondering 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 his poor 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 he _is_ one, 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 by _Paquin_," said Cora de Grey
+drily. _She_ never 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. "What _can_ you 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 know_ we have met."
+
+Her tone expressed extraordinary conviction, and everyone gazed at Poppy
+with curiosity and even a faint hint of suspicion--except Clem, whose
+eyes were full of warmth and friendliness, and Carson, who pretended to
+be bored.
+
+But Poppy only laughed a little--and by that had her will of Carson at
+last. He forgot to be bored, and gave her a long, deep look.
+Unfortunately, she was obliged to turn to Mrs. Capron at this moment to
+make an answer.
+
+"Perhaps," she said pensively, "we were rivals for a king's affection in
+some past age----"
+
+Mrs. Capron's proud, valuable look came over her, and she stiffened as
+if she had received a dig with a hat-pin: the men enjoyed themselves
+secretly. But no one was prepared for the rest of the context.
+
+"--Of course, _I_ was the successful rival or it would have been I who
+remembered, and not you."
+
+This solution left Mrs. Capron cold-eyed and everyone else laughing in
+some fashion; but there was a nervousness in the air, and Clem vaguely
+wished that the gong would sound; for long ere this the dusk had fallen
+deeply, and little Cinthie was asleep in the hammock. It appeared that
+Carson still held to his plan to depart, and chose this moment to make
+his farewells in a small storm of abuse and remonstrance. One person
+minded his decision less than she might have done ten minutes before.
+The eyes veiled behind mists of hair knew that their service had not
+been in vain. The invisible hands, that had dragged and strained at Eve
+Carson's will, slackened their hold and rested awhile. Only: as he went
+down the flight of shallow stone steps that led to the gate--a tall,
+powerful figure in grey--a woman's spirit went with him, entreating,
+demanding to go with him, not to Bramham's home, but to the ends of life
+and death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Nearly a week passed before Bramham again saw Poppy, for private affairs
+unexpectedly engrossed him. He made time, however, to write her a letter
+full of excellent business advice. Later, he called at the Royal with
+her papers, and found her writing letters in the library. She had just
+come in, and a big, plumed, grey hat, which matched her pale grey voile
+gown, lay on the table beside her. Moreover, the flush of animation was
+on her cheek and a shine in her eye.
+
+"Oh! come now; you look as if you had taken fresh hold," said Bramham
+approvingly. "I've brought back your papers, and thanks awfully for
+letting me look through them. It is pretty clear that if you would only
+work, you could be coining money as fast as you like. You've caught on
+at home and everywhere else. Your books have been the wonder of this
+country for months, and descriptions of your plays have been cabled out
+to every big centre--but, of course, you know all this."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And, of course, you know how your little book of poems rang up the
+country from end to end! By Jove! if the Durban people only knew who
+they had in the midst of them----"
+
+She looked at him quickly, apprehensively.
+
+"It is more important than ever to have no one know. Since I saw you and
+talked to you I have reconstructed my plans entirely. Life seems to mean
+something to me again for the first time since--" She closed her eyes.
+He did not speak, only looked at her with compassionate eyes and waited.
+
+"I have made up my mind not to let everything go to wreck," she began
+again presently. "I'm going to work again--I _am_ working." She threw
+back her head and smiled.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Bramham. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear it.
+As a business man, I hated to see such a chance of making money chucked
+to the winds--and as a--well, as a plain man, I can't help applauding
+when I see what it does to your looks."
+
+"You are certainly plain spoken," said she, smiling. "But I want to tell
+you--I've taken a little house. I've just been there with the painter,
+and it's all going to be ready by the end of the week."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Facing the bay--a funny little bungalow-cottage, with an old-fashioned
+garden and a straggly path through sea-pinks right down to nearly the
+edge of the waves."
+
+"It sounds altogether too romantic for Durban. I expect these features
+exist only in your imagination. But can you possibly mean Briony
+Cottage?"
+
+"But, of course."
+
+"Good--it _is_ a dear little place--and with the bay right before you,
+you'll hardly know you're down in the town."
+
+"I'm having a companion." She made a mouth, and Bramham himself could
+not disguise a faint twist of his smile.
+
+"Mrs. Portal said it was necessary, if I didn't want to be black-balled
+by the Durban ladies, so she found me a Miss Allendner, a nice little
+old thing, who is lonely and unattached, but eminently respectable and
+_genteel_."
+
+"Ah! I know her--a weary sort of plucked turkey," said the graceless
+Bramham, "with a nose that was once too much exposed to the winter
+winds and has never recovered. Never mind, you'll need someone to keep
+off the crowd as soon as they find out who you are----"
+
+"But they are not going to find out! Charlie, I see that I must speak to
+you seriously about this. I believe you think my not wanting to be known
+is affectation; it is nothing of the kind. It is _most imperative_ that
+my identity should be kept secret. I must tell you the reason at last--I
+am working now for money to fight out a case in the Law Courts before
+anyone in Africa knows who I am. Under my own name no one will recognise
+me or be particularly interested; but, of course, pleading as _Eve
+Destiny_ would be another matter. I couldn't keep that quiet."
+
+"A law case! Great-- Well, Rosalind," he said ironically, "you certainly
+do spring some surprises on me. Is it about your plays? Why can't you
+let me manage it for you? But what kind of case can it be?"
+
+"A divorce case--or, rather, I think a nullity case is what it would be
+called."
+
+"A _what_?" Bramham could say no more.
+
+"Don't look at me like that, best of friends ... I know, I know, you are
+beginning to think I am not worth your friendship ... that I don't seem
+to understand even the first principles of friendship--honesty and
+candour!... Try and have patience with me, Charlie.... Perhaps I _ought_
+to have told you before ... but I've never told a single soul ... in
+fact, I have always refused to consider that I am married. It is a long
+story, and includes part of my childhood. The man who adopted me and
+brought me up in an old farmhouse in the Transvaal allowed me to go
+through a marriage ceremony with him without my knowing what I was
+doing ... an old French priest married us ... he couldn't speak a word
+of English ... only Kaffir ... and he married us in French, which I
+could not understand at that time. Afterwards, my life went on as usual,
+and for years I continued to look upon the man simply as my guardian.
+At last, here in Durban, when I was just eighteen, he suddenly sprang
+the story upon me, and claimed me for his wife. I was horrified,
+revolted ... my liking for him, which arose entirely from gratitude,
+turned to detestation on hearing it.... I believed myself to have been
+merely trapped. In any case, whatever I might have felt for him didn't
+matter then. It was too late. I belonged to ... the man you know I
+belong to ... I didn't know what to do at first. There were terrible
+circumstances in connection with ... the man I love ... which made me
+think sometimes that I could never meet him again ... I would just keep
+the soul he had waked in me, and live for work and Fame. But the man I
+was married to wanted to keep me to my bond ... and then suddenly he
+found out ... something ... I don't quite know how it came to pass, but
+he _knew_ ... I was obliged to fly from his house half clad.... It was
+_then_ I found refuge with Sophie Cornell."
+
+"And these things all happened here? Do you mean to tell me that
+blackguard was some Durban fellow?"
+
+"He did live here at that time."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"He appears to be here still ... I saw him the other day. He behaved to
+me as though I were really Miss Chard ... but I know him. He will fight
+tooth and nail ... I don't suppose he cares about me in the least, but
+he will lie his soul away, I believe, and spend his last penny for
+revenge."
+
+"Well, upon my soul! I can't think who the fellow can be!" said Bramham
+artlessly, and Poppy could not refrain from smiling.
+
+"I don't think there would be any good in telling you, Charlie. You may
+know him ... in fact, you are sure to, in a small place like this ...
+and it would only make things difficult for you."
+
+Bramham was plainly vexed that she did not confide in him, but she was
+perfectly well aware that he knew Abinger intimately, and fearing that
+something might leak out and spoil her plans, she decided not to tell
+him.
+
+"You should have tackled the thing at home," said Bramham thoughtfully.
+"They'd have fixed you up in no time there, I believe."
+
+"No, I had advice about it, and was told that as the ceremony had taken
+place in the Transvaal, and the man is out here, I must go to the Rand
+Courts ... and, by the way, I must tell you--I wrote to the mission
+monastery which the old priest belonged to and made inquiries. They
+wrote back that old Father Eugène was dead, but that they had already
+gone into the matter on behalf of _my husband_, who had made
+representations to them. That they could only inform me that the
+ceremony performed by the Father was absolutely valid, and they were
+prepared to uphold it in every way. They added that they were well aware
+that it was my intention to try and disprove the marriage and for my own
+purposes escape from my sacred bond, but that I must not expect any
+assistance from them in my immoral purpose.... So, you see, I have them
+to fight as well. Another thing is, that the only other witness to the
+ceremony was a woman who would swear her soul away at the bidding of the
+man who calls himself my husband."
+
+"By Jove! It looks as if you're up against a tough proposition, as they
+say in America!" was Bramham's verdict at last. "But you'll pull
+through, I'm certain, and you've pluck enough. As for money--well, you
+know that I am not poor----"
+
+He stopped, staring at her pale face.
+
+"Don't ever offer to lend me money," she said fiercely rudely.
+
+"Why, you let me lend you some before! And were unusual enough to pay it
+back." Smiling broadly, he added: "I never had such a thing happen to me
+before!" But she would not smile. The subject seemed an unfortunate one,
+for she did not regain her joyous serenity during the rest of the
+interview.
+
+He went home wrapped in cogitation, turning over in his mind the name of
+every man in the place on the chance of its being the name of the
+culprit. Abinger's name, amongst others, certainly came up for
+consideration, but was instantly dismissed as an impossibility, for he
+had plainly given everyone to understand that--after the time of his
+disappearance from the Rand, until his readvent in Durban on the day
+Bramham had met him coming off the Mail-boat--he had been travelling
+abroad, and there was no reason to disbelieve this statement. Moreover,
+Bramham was aware of other facts in Abinger's private life which made it
+seem absolutely impossible that he could be the villain of Rosalind
+Chard's tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day Poppy moved to her new home, Clem Portal was the first person to
+visit her and wish her luck and happiness there.
+
+They took tea in the largest room in the house, which was to be Poppy's
+working-room and study. It was long and low, with two bay-windows, and
+the walls had been distempered in pale soft grey. The floor was dark and
+polished, and the only strong note of colour in the room a rose-red
+Persian rug before the quaint fireplace. The chintzes Poppy had come
+upon with great joy in one of the local shops: ivory-white with green
+ivy leaves scattered over them--a great relief from the everlasting
+pink roses of the usual chintz. The grey walls were guileless of
+pictures, except for the faithful blue _Hope_ which overhung the
+fireplace above vases full of tall fronds of maidenhair-fern, and some
+full-length posters of the Beardsley school in black-and-white wash.
+Poppy's writing-table was in one window, and on the wall where she could
+always see it while at work was a water-colour of a little boy standing
+in a field of corn and poppies. The tea-table was in the other window.
+She and Clem sat looking at the blue bay flapping and rippling under the
+afternoon sunlight, with the long bluff ridge sleeping sullenly beyond.
+
+"You've found the sweetest place in Durban," said Clem. "Whenever I feel
+like a mealie--a _green_ mealie--which, alas! is very often, I shall
+sneak down here to 'simplify, simplify.' While you work I'll sit in the
+sun in the Yogi attitude and triumphantly contemplate eternity and
+jelly-fish."
+
+Later, she said:
+
+"Mary Capron wanted to come too, but I told her I must have you all to
+myself to-day. I'm afraid she was rather hurt, but ... I was not sure
+whether you liked her, Poppy. I do hope you are going to, dear, for I
+love her, and we shall be a triangle with sore corners, if you _don't_."
+
+Poppy was dreaming with her tea-cup in her lap, and the glitter of the
+bay in her eyes.
+
+"Do you think three women ever get on well together?" she asked
+evasively. "There is always one out."
+
+Clem was quick to see the meaning of this. A look of disappointment came
+over her gay, gentle face.
+
+"Mary and I have been friends for years," she said. "She is the only
+woman I have never had any inspiration about; but though I am blinded by
+her beauty, I know her to be good and true. It would be a terribly
+disloyal thing if I deserted her for you ... what am I to do if you two
+don't like each other?"
+
+"If _you_ love Mrs. Capron, Clem, she won't need to bother about the
+liking of a woman like me."
+
+"She likes _you_, however. And I'm sure when you get to know her better,
+you'll like her.... I daresay when two beautiful women first meet, a
+feeling of antagonism is natural. But _you_ should be above that, Poppy.
+And poor Mary is a subject for pity rather than dislike--any woman is
+who has drawn blank in the big lottery. I daresay you know _that_ about
+her--most people do."
+
+"I have gathered that she is not very happily married," said Poppy.
+
+"Have you ever seen him?"
+
+"I believe the first time I ever saw you, Clem, he was with you."
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember now--and we talked of you, the girl with the
+Burne-Jones eyes." Most women would have made this an easy
+stepping-stone into the flowing brook of confidences, and found out
+where Poppy was going to on that sunny day, and where she had been all
+the long years since; but Clem Portal had an instinct about questions
+that hurt. Her husband often said of her:
+
+"She is that lovely thing--a close woman!" Now, the peculiarity of a
+close woman is that she neither probes into the dark deeps of others,
+nor allows herself to be probed.
+
+"Nick Capron was not _quite_ impossible in those days," she continued;
+"but now a good place for him would be under the débris heaps outside de
+Beers'. When she first met him he was a romantic character on the
+down-grade. Had been all over the world and gone through every kind of
+adventure; lost a fortune at Monte-Carlo on a system of his own for
+breaking the bank; written a book (or more probably got it written for
+him) about his adventures as a cowboy in Texas; and made quite a name
+for himself as a scout in the war between Chili and Peru. Amongst other
+things he has an intimate knowledge of torpedoes and is supposed to have
+been the author of the plan that sent the Chilian transport, the _Loa_,
+to the bottom by a torpedo launched from an apparently harmless
+fruit-boat. At any rate, he was seen on the fruit-boat, and when he came
+to Africa shortly afterwards, they said it was to escape the vengeance
+of the Chilians. Mary, who was on a visit to this country, met him at
+the Cape when everyone was talking about him. Unfortunately, when women
+hear sparkling things about a man, they do not always think to inquire
+about the sparkling things he drinks--and how much _that_ has to do with
+the matter. She fell in love with him, or his reputation, and they were
+married in a great whirl of romantic emotion. Well, you know what
+happens to people who engage in whirling?"
+
+Poppy looked up, anxious to learn, and Clem continued with the air of an
+oracle of Thebes:
+
+"After a time they find themselves sitting still on the ground, very
+sick. That is Mary's position. She sits flat on the ground and surveys a
+world that makes her feel sick. Nick Capron, however, continues to
+whirl."
+
+"She must have great courage to face the situation," said Poppy
+sincerely.
+
+"She has more than courage," said Clem, alight with loyal enthusiasm.
+"She is one in a thousand. You know enough of Africa, I daresay, Poppy,
+to know that life out here is just one huge temptation to a beautiful
+unhappily-married woman. The place teems with men--good, bad, and
+indifferent, but all interesting (unless drink is sweeping them down
+hill too fast), and they all want to be kind to her. Many of them are
+splendid fellows. But the best of men are half-devil, half-child, and
+nothing more, where a beautiful woman is concerned. You know that, don't
+you?"
+
+What Poppy _did_ know was that Clem had far greater knowledge of the
+world of men and women than she had, and she was only too interested to
+sit and imbibe wisdom. She frankly said so.
+
+"I thoroughly understand these things," Clem replied without pride.
+"Sinners can never take me by surprise, whatever they do. Perhaps it is
+because I might easily have been a devil of the deepest dye myself, but
+for luck--Billy is my luck."
+
+This from the most orthodox woman in Africa! Poppy could not refrain
+from a trill of laughter.
+
+"I think you are one of those who paint themselves black to be _en
+suite_ with the people you like, Clemmie," she said; "but you're not
+extraordinarily clever as an artist."
+
+"Not so clever as _you'll_ have to be when Mrs. Gruyère comes round to
+have her miniature done," said Clem maliciously. "I must think about
+going, darling. Mary is coming to fetch me in her carriage and she will
+be here in a minute or two now. Before I go, I want you to promise me to
+steal away whenever you can. If you sit too much over work you will fall
+asleep, and have to be put in the poppy-garden instead of flaunting and
+flaming in the sunshine and being a joy to behold. What a fascinating
+flower it is! Both your names are fascinating ... _Eve Destiny!_ ...
+what could have prompted it, I wonder?"
+
+"Simply an idea. I am a child of destiny, I always think--at least, the
+old blind hag seems to have been at some pains to fling me about from
+pillar to post. Eve--" She turned away, knowing that she could not
+mention that name without giving some sign of the tumult it roused
+within her. "Eve--was the most primitive person I could think of" (the
+lie did not come very glibly), "and _I_ am primitive. If I were my real
+self I should be running loose in the woods somewhere with a wild-cat's
+skin round me."
+
+"Well, you wouldn't run alone for long, that's very certain," laughed
+Clem.
+
+"No, I should want my mate wherever and whatever I was"--Clem laughed
+again at her frankness, but she went on dreamfully--"a Bedouin, or a
+shaggy Thibetan on the roof of the world, or a 'cassowary on the plains
+of Timbuctoo.' Oh, Clem! the sound of the wind in forest trees--the
+sea--the desert with an unknown horizon, are better to me than all the
+cities and civilisation in the world--yet here I sit!" She threw out her
+hands and laughed joylessly.
+
+"You ought to marry an explorer--or a hunter of big game," said Clem
+thoughtfully, and got up and looked out of the window. "Here comes one
+in the carriage with Mary. But he is an Irishman, so I wouldn't advise
+you to look _his_ way.... An Irishman should never be given more than a
+Charles Wyndhamesque part on the stage of any woman's life ... a person
+to love, but not to be in love with...."
+
+"Oh, Clem! You are Irish yourself----"
+
+Clem did not turn round. She went on talking out of the window and
+watching the approaching carriage.
+
+"Yes, and I love everyone and everything from that sad green land ...
+the very name of Ireland sends a ray of joy right through me ... and its
+dear blue-eyed, grey-eyed people! Trust an Irish-woman, Poppy, when she
+is true-bred ... but never fall in love with an Irishman ... there is no
+fixity of tenure ... he will give you his hand with his heart in it ...
+but when you come to look there for comfort, you will find a bare knife
+for your breast ... unstable as water ... too loving of love ... too
+understanding of another's heart's desire ... too quick to grant, too
+quick to take away ... the tale of their lips changing with the moon's
+changes--even with the weather.... Hullo, Mary! Here I am.... How do you
+do, Karri?"
+
+Mrs. Capron's carriage had pulled up before Poppy's little side-gate,
+which gave on to the embankment. She was gowned in black, a daring
+rose-red hat upon her lovely hair, and by her side was Evelyn Carson.
+She waved at the two women in the window, but did not leave the
+carriage. Carson came instead, making a few strides of the little
+straggly, sea-shelled path.
+
+"We've come to drag Mrs. Portal away," he said to Poppy, after shaking
+hands through the window, "having just met her husband taking home two
+of the hungriest-looking ruffians you ever saw."
+
+Clem gave a cry of woe and began to pin on her hat.
+
+"The wretch! I thought he was going to dine at the Club."
+
+"He gave us strict orders to send you home at once," laughed Carson, "so
+Mrs. Capron won't come in."
+
+"Who are the men?" demanded Clem.
+
+"Two brutes just arrived by to-day's boat, with a sea-edge to their
+appetites. I should say that nothing short of a ten-course banquet would
+appease them."
+
+Clem's groans were terrible.
+
+"Cook will have prepared half a chicken's wing for me. She always
+starves me when I'm alone. You come back with me," she commanded Carson.
+"If you talk beautifully to them they won't notice the lightness of the
+_menu_."
+
+"Oh, but I'd rather come when you are prepared," said the graceless
+Carson. "I'm hungry, too. When you've gone I'm going to ask Miss Chard
+for a cup of tea." Smiling, he plucked a sea-pink and stuck it in his
+coat. They were in the garden now on the way to the carriage.
+
+"Deserter! Well, Mary, _you'll_ have to come and let them feed upon your
+damask cheek--something has got to be done."
+
+Poppy exchanged greetings with Mrs. Capron, and presently the two women
+drove away, leaving her and Carson standing there with the gleam of the
+sunlit bay in their eyes. Turning, she found him staring in an odd way
+at her hair, which she was wearing piled into a crown, with the usual
+fronds falling softly down. Her lids drooped for a moment under his
+strange eyes, but her voice was perfectly even and conventional as she
+asked if he would really care for tea.
+
+"I should, indeed--and to come into the restful grey room I got a
+glimpse of through the window. It reminded me of a cool, cloudy day in
+the middle of summer."
+
+Pleasure at his approval brought a faint wave of colour into the face
+she was determined to mask of all expression. She led the way indoors,
+he following, his eyes travelling swiftly from the crowned head she
+carried with so brave an air on her long throat, down the little
+straight back that was short like the classical women's, giving fine
+sweeping length from waist to heel.
+
+She rang for fresh tea and went to the tea-table. Carson stood about the
+room, seeming to fill it.
+
+"If you are fond of grey, we have a taste in common," he said, and she
+gave him a quick, upward glance. The face which Africa's sun had branded
+her own looked extraordinarily dark above the light-grey of his clothes
+and the little pink flower stuck in his coat. It seemed to her that no
+woman had ever loved so debonair a man as this Irishman with his
+careless eyes and rustling voice.
+
+"I love _green_ best of all colours," she answered steadily; "but one
+gets tired of green walls now that they are fashionable and everyone
+has them--" her voice broke off suddenly. In his looming about the room
+he had stopped dead before _Hope_ over the mantelpiece. The cup Poppy
+held rattled in its saucer. He presently asked who the picture was by,
+and where he, too, could get a copy of it.
+
+"I like it," he said. "It seems to me in a vague way that I know that
+picture well, yet I don't believe I have ever seen it before ...
+strange...!" He stared at it again, and she made no response. For the
+moment she was back in a little upper chamber in Westminster.
+
+He came presently over to the tea-table, and was about to sit down when
+another picture caught his eye--the water-colour of the little child
+among the poppies and corn. He stepped before it and stayed looking for
+a long time. At last he said, laughing constrainedly:
+
+"You will think I am mad ... but I imagine I know _that_ picture too ...
+that little chap is extraordinarily like someone I know ... I can't
+think who ... but I'm certain ... is it some of your work, Miss Chard?"
+
+He looked at her with keen inquiry, but his glance changed to one of
+astonishment. Her eyes were closed and she was pale as a primrose; her
+hands had fallen to her sides.
+
+A moment afterwards she recovered herself and was handing him a cup of
+tea with some inconsequent remark. She had made absolutely no response
+to his questions about either picture, and he thought the fact rather
+remarkable.
+
+Afterwards they talked and he forgot surprise (for the time being) in
+listening to the shy graces of thought to which she gave utterance and
+watching her inexpressibly charming delicacies of manner. When he left
+her the magic of her was on him; she had bound him with the spell of
+his own country; but he did not know it. If he _had_ known it he would
+have repudiated it with all his strength, for already he was a bound
+man.
+
+"His honour rooted in dishonour stood."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The women of Durban received Poppy into their midst with suspicion and
+disfavour, which they carefully veiled because they could find out
+absolutely nothing, damning or otherwise, about her, and also because
+Mrs. Portal's introductions were as good as a certificate of birth,
+marriage, and death, and to be questioned as little; and Mrs. Portal's
+position was such that no woman dared assail her for exercising her
+privileges. What they could do, however, was narrow their eyes, sharpen
+their claws, and lie in wait, and this they did with a patience and zest
+worthy of their species.
+
+Meanwhile, those who sought Poppy might sometimes find her at the house
+of Mrs. Portal; but not as often as she wished, for work chained her
+almost perpetually, and she was working against time. She was straining
+every nerve to have her work finished and paid for, and her law case
+quietly settled in Johannesburg, before the time came for Carson to set
+out for his five years' exile in Borapota. She was working for freedom
+and bondage and life--for, indeed, all that life had to offer her now
+was the word of a man bidding her to follow him into bondage. It was
+hard on her that while she worked she must lose time and opportunities
+of meeting him and winding more spells to bind him. But--she had grown
+used to fighting her battles against odds. So she gave up six solid
+hours of daylight and two of the night to hard labour; and she made a
+rule never to count the hours, which were many, that were spent at her
+desk _dreaming_. For no writer does work of any consequence without
+dreaming, even if the dream is not always of work.
+
+Miss Allendner might have found life a dull affair in Briony Cottage had
+she not been of that domesticated type which finds satisfaction and
+pleasure in managing a household and ordering good meals. Under her rule
+the little cottage became a well-ordered, comfortable home, where things
+ran on oiled wheels, and peace and contentment reigned. No one and
+nothing bothered Poppy, and the long, bright hours of day were hers to
+work in uninterruptedly. Such visitors as called, and some did call, if
+only out of curiosity, were received by Miss Allendner, and regaled with
+dainty teas and mysteriously impressive statements as to Miss Chard's
+_work_ which unfortunately kept her so busy that she could see no
+one--_at present_. The companion had of necessity been let into the
+secret of her employer's work and identity, for Poppy was a careless
+creature with letters and papers, and it irked her to have to exercise
+caution with an intimate member of her household. Poor Miss Allendner
+almost exploded with the greatness and importance of the information.
+But she was a faithful and trustworthy soul, and happy for the first
+time in all her needy, half-rationed life.
+
+If Poppy had been a bread-and-butter woman she might have been happy,
+too, in some fashion, within the trim, well-ordered confines of
+comfortable mediocrity. But it was not there that her desire lay. She
+had tasted of the wine and fruit of life--Love, and wanderings in far
+lands, and vagabondage. Bread-and-butter could never satisfy her again.
+
+Work was wine, too. She felt the fire of it circling in her veins, even
+when wearied out she flung her books and pencils from her and ran out to
+the sea. And play was wine--when on some lovely evening she arrayed
+herself amazingly, took rickshaw and Miss Allendner and ascended the
+wide, sloping road that led to Clem Portal's home on the Berea.
+
+The Portals' social circle varied, because it was constantly being
+enlarged or decreased by the comings and goings of travellers and
+visitors; for, besides knowing everyone worth knowing in South Africa,
+they could beckon friends and acquaintances from the four poles. Add to
+this that they were both charming, witty, cultivated people, with the
+true Irish love for bestowing hospitality and the true Irish grace in
+bestowing it, and it will be easily understood that all delightful and
+interesting people who came to South Africa sought them as the bee seeks
+clover.
+
+As a background to new faces could always be found those of fixed and
+steadfast friends--Mrs. Capron's--the de Greys'--the Laces'. Always
+Carson, when he came to Natal; and Abinger, because he was both
+interesting and something of a crony of Bill Portal's.
+
+A sprinkling of Durban people came and went.
+
+Evening is a pleasant time in Natal, and the Portals' moonlit gardens
+and lawns and long verandahs lent themselves agreeably to strolling
+people, tired of the clang and glare of the day. With someone always at
+the piano to sprinkle the still air with melody, it was pleasant to
+saunter, the dew in your hair and all the sounds of the night-things
+about you, while you talked with someone whose interest interested you,
+or gossiped of life as it could, or would, or might be, or of "Home,"
+meaning England, which through the glamour of an African night seems the
+moon of all men's Desire. There are more intense sudden joys in Life
+than these, but few more poignantly sweet.
+
+To be Mrs. Portal's friend was to share her friends, to know them, to
+gossip with them, to criticise and be in turn criticised by them.
+Sport, books, music, pictures, people--all that goes to the making of
+life worth the living, came under discussion; and in Africa, where
+everyone is using every sense of mind and body, living and feeling every
+moment of life, there are always new things to be said on these
+subjects--or perhaps only things that are so many centuries old that
+they sound new. Truth, after all, is older than the everlasting hills.
+
+Naturally, there was never much grouping. General conversation has more
+than a liability to platitude, or, at best, to flippancy, and the finest
+talking is never done in groups, but _tête-à-tête_. Indeed, it is on
+record by a thinker of some importance that the best things men say are
+said to women who probably don't understand them:
+
+                "To the women who didn't know why
+                (And now we know they could never know why)
+                  And did not understand."
+
+That is as may be. Remains the fact that the best talkers (apart, of
+course, from orators, politicians, and professional diners-out) do not
+talk for a crowd, and the most potent phrases and epigrams--when
+epigrams are not _vieux jeu_--are made for one, or at the most, two
+listeners.
+
+Poppy's ears took in many pretty and many witty things.
+
+Bill Portal was a blithe soul, overflowing with gay parables and maxims
+for the unwise, whom he claimed to be the salt of the earth.
+
+Abinger was epigrammatic, sardonic, and satanic, and he never asked for
+more than one listener--a woman for preference, as she would certainly
+repeat what he said--and there were other reasons. But the women of the
+Portals' circle recognised a serpent when they met him, however leafy
+the garden, and always preferred to listen to his wisdom in twos and
+threes. With Poppy he never encompassed any talk at all, unless she
+felt Clem strong at her back. He smiled at this: the smile of the
+waiting man to whom everything cometh at last.
+
+Nick Capron never graced the assemblies with his handsome dissipated
+presence. His lust was for poker and his fellow-men--which meant the
+Club and small hours. He was never even known to fetch his wife. But
+many a man was pleased and honoured to do his duty for him. Sometimes
+she stayed all night with her friend Clem. Sometimes Carson took her
+home in a rickshaw.
+
+The women with attentive husbands pitied her amongst themselves; but she
+gave no sign of discontent, and they never ventured to offer sympathy.
+Invariably she looked wonderfully beautiful--and, therefore, it was not
+necessary for her to exert herself to much conversation. Since Poppy's
+soft thrush-note had first been heard in Clem Portal's verandah, Mrs.
+Capron's laugh had been silent: though it was a pretty laugh, too. But
+her smile was as alluring as the sound of a silvery brooklet, and
+sometimes the sympathetic wives trembled when they saw their husbands
+lingering near her--not to talk, but to look. She sat so fearlessly
+under bright light, and looked so flawlessly good. It was, indeed, a
+comfort to remember that she was as good as she looked, or she would not
+be Mrs. Portal's closest friend. It was remembered, too, that she had
+never tried to beguile any woman's man away from her.
+
+When one wife after another had ceased to tremble for her man, realising
+that this Circe did not use her toils, they rewarded her by saying
+amongst themselves that it must be sad to be so _cold_. This warmed the
+coldest of them--with a glow of self-satisfaction.
+
+Mary Capron did not bother about any of them. The riddle she
+sought to read was Rosalind Chard. Always she watched Poppy,
+and pondered where she had seen her before. Poppy suspected
+this, but it did not agitate her. She had prepared another
+soft-answer-warranted-not-to-turn-away-wrath if Mary Capron should
+attack her in the open again. But Mary Capron, if she was not witty,
+was wise. She was no fencer, and had no intention of encountering Miss
+Chard's foil with the button off. She preferred to choose her own
+weapon, time, and place, and to pursue the little duel in her own
+fashion. She was merely "getting her hand in" when she said to Abinger,
+looking dreamily at Poppy the while:
+
+"Did you ever hear of a Sphinx without a secret?"
+
+"It's what Wilde taxed the modern society woman with being, I believe,"
+he answered idly; he was easily one of the best-read men in Africa. "But
+it would not apply out here."
+
+"No," she said dreamily. "Everyone has a secret in this country, haven't
+they? even girls."
+
+At another time she and Carson were near when Poppy, with her arm in
+Clem's, presented Luce Abinger with a suave answer, so heavily encrusted
+with salt, that even his seasoned tongue went dry. However, his
+impertinence had warranted punishment, so he bore it as best he might.
+And Clem's tact oiled the troubled waters.
+
+But Mary Capron said something to Carson that kept him awake that night.
+
+"She's _quite_ clever, isn't she? Only it's a pity she has to begin at
+the beginning for herself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carson had scarcely been struck by Miss Chard's
+_cleverness_--considering that on both his first and second meeting with
+her she had had odd lapses of something very like _gaucherie_. But he
+thought her interesting, arresting, and beautiful. He knew of no reason
+why he should think of her at all; but he sometimes found her face and
+her voice amongst his thoughts and considered the fact a curious and
+rather annoying thing.
+
+And the sight and sound of her had an extraordinary power at times to
+rouse to active, vivid life, a dream of the past that was old grief and
+pain.
+
+Circumstance sometimes threw them together in the verandahs or out under
+the Southern-Cross flaming above the garden, and Poppy's low laugh might
+be heard mingling with his voice; but she did not always laugh because
+she was amused.
+
+Carson's silver tongue could take on an amazingly sharp edge. Being an
+Irishman, he was a law unto himself, with a fine taste for
+unconventionality in other people. But if he knew South Africa from one
+end to the other, he also knew men and cities, and the rules that govern
+women all the world over. Gradually he had become to be aware that Miss
+Chard outraged the most important of these by being both unclassifiable
+and mysterious. Even in what calls itself society in South Africa, women
+and their belongings and connections must be above-board and open to
+inspection. An unattached woman has got to prove her right to social
+status there, as elsewhere. If she cannot, she must prepare to take the
+consequences--and the least unpleasant of these is to have the worst
+believed of her.
+
+Of course, Rosalind Chard was backed by Mrs. Portal, but that did not
+prevent tongues from wagging.
+
+Carson took it upon himself to let Miss Chard know something of these
+things whenever Fate ordained that he and she should walk under the
+stars together.
+
+It was wittily done, by the delicate instrumentality of chosen
+implication, and it never missed the mark: the arrow quivered in Poppy
+every time. Hot and cold, with sudden rages and terrors, she would turn
+on him only to find the strange eyes so pleasantly indifferent; his
+expression so guileless that it was hard to suspect him of malicious
+intent. Her refuge was a little laugh. Carson told himself sardonically
+that the game amused him. It may have done so. Doubtless Indians were
+amused when they threw barbs at their staked victims. But as a fact,
+something more than an Indian sense of humour would have been appeased
+in him, if, instead of the brave smile that flickered across his
+victim's face, or the little dry retort that her lips gave out even
+while they quivered, she had answered him haughtily with the pride of
+race or family or position--the pride of _anything with a root to it_.
+That was the important point: what were the roots of Rosalind Chard?
+That she had pride was plain enough--the fine pride of courage; the
+pride of a slim, strong young tree that stands firm in winds that tear
+and beat, flaunting a brave green pennon.
+
+But what was the name of the tree? In what strange garden had it first
+grown? Was it of a garden at all? Or a highway? Whence came the
+suggestion that it had bloomed in the desert?
+
+Carson scarcely realised that he fiercely desired information on these
+matters. He supposed it to be curiosity about a pretty and interesting
+girl--pure curiosity. He had heard things said, a word dropped here and
+there--mostly by women, and he knew that harsh winds had begun to blow
+round the young slim tree with the brave green pennon.
+
+So out of _pure curiosity_ he tormented her when opportunity arose; and
+she--gave him witty, gentle little restrained answers, with her hand
+against her heart when the shadows allowed. Or if she could touch a tree
+she had greater strength to bear her torment and to laugh more easily.
+
+Of all the rest she was careless. Let them think what they would--Clem
+was her friend.
+
+If her personality and appearance had been less fascinating, probably
+the gossip about her mysterious appearance in Durban without friends or
+connections, or a known home, would have died a natural death. But with
+her first coming to Clem's house, her loveliness seemed to have grown.
+In the heat of a room there was a dewiness about her that began in her
+eyes, and was wonderfully refreshing to the jaded spirit. In the chill
+of the late evening she seemed to glow with a warmth that was cheering
+to the coldest heart. Unfortunately, she sometimes forgot to be
+conventional and ordinary in little social matters. Clem never took
+notice of such trivialities, but Mrs. Capron and the other women would
+raise delicate eyebrows and even the men exchange inscrutable glances.
+
+One day Mrs. Capron said:
+
+"Clem, didn't you tell me that Miss Chard was a Cheltenham College
+girl?" in an incredulous voice. (It is not always convenient to be faced
+with your statements made at a pinch.)
+
+"Mary," was the answer, after a little pause, "that girl has got a wound
+that bleeds inwardly, and has spent her life trying to hide it from the
+world. She has had no time to notice the little conventionalities and
+banalities that count with us."
+
+"One wonders sometimes if she ever had the opportunity--that is all. She
+walked into the dining-room ahead of Lady Mostyn and everybody else last
+night----"
+
+Clem winced; then, remembering Lady Mostyn's outraged face, laughed.
+
+"Well, one hardly picks up those things at school, _chérie_--and she may
+have been on a desert island ever since."
+
+"That would be an interesting reason for her bad manners, darling,
+but----"
+
+"I won't admit that they are bad--only unusual; and, besides, she has
+the excuse of genius. If I might only tell you what I know of her
+work----"
+
+"_Miniatures?_" asked Mrs. Capron wickedly.
+
+"No: lovey-dovey darling--don't tease and don't be uncharitable--you are
+much too beautiful to be a cat. Some day that girl will burst forth upon
+us all in the glory of fame."
+
+"Clem, you are infatuated."
+
+"You'll see," said Clem. "Only be patient and kind--I must really go and
+see what cook has for lunch. If she gives us curried mutton once more
+and stewed guavas and custard, Billy will calmly proceed to bust."
+
+She escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Mrs. Portal knew that Poppy was working as for her life, but she did not
+know why. Only, sometimes, out of the deep love and sympathy she felt
+for the girl, she longed to know the truth. The truth was far even from
+her far-seeing eyes.
+
+She believed that there must be a man somewhere in the world whom Poppy
+loved, for well she knew that such a wound as Poppy hid could only have
+been dealt by a man's unerring hand--and none but a loved hand could
+strike so deep! With all the mystical-religious, loving side of her
+nature, Clem prayed that life might yet do well by her friend and give
+her her heart's desire; but hope did not rise very high. She was fond of
+quoting that saying:
+
+"The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. Everything that
+belongs to thee for aid or comfort shall surely come home through open
+or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the
+great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace."
+
+--and she would have liked to believe it, but Life had taught her
+differently. In the meantime, in so far as she was able, she watched
+faithfully and anxiously over Poppy's destiny, dragging her from her
+desk when the lilac eyes grew heavy and the tinted face too pale for
+health; making up gay little parties to drive or walk or go to the
+theatre, arranging merry dinners and excursions--anything that would
+distract, and presently bring back vivacity and strength, and renew
+courage.
+
+If it had not been for these things it is very certain that Poppy, with
+all her resolution and purpose, must have broken down from overwork and
+the strain of seeing the man she loved turn his eyes from her
+perpetually. For there were desperate hours when she obliged herself to
+face the fact that Evelyn Carson gave no sign of any feeling for her but
+a certain polite curiosity. In the black, despairing days that never
+fail to come to highly-strung, temperamental people, she bitterly
+derided herself, her work, her cause, asking what it was all for?
+
+To win freedom from Luce Abinger and cast herself into the arms of Eve
+Carson? But were his arms open to her? Plainly not. Plainly here was
+another of the "little songs they sing in hell"--of the woman who loves,
+but is beloved not by the beloved.
+
+Oh! she had her black and desperate days--
+
+         "And the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night."
+
+But afterwards _Hope_ played for her on the one brave string--and she
+took up her pen and worked on.
+
+On a stormy, sullen day towards the end of April she wrote the
+concluding words of the two things she had been working on at the same
+time--a play and a novel. They contained the best work she had ever
+done, for though they were begun for the love of a man, they were gone
+forward with, for the love of her craft, and, as all good craftsmen
+know, it is only in such spirit that the best work is achieved. All that
+remained to do was to go over and through the manuscripts once more,
+when they had been typed, to polish here and re-phrase there; and just
+to linger over all for a day in sheer delight and surprise. She was not
+peculiar among writers, in that, apart from the plan and construction of
+a thing, she never remembered from day to day what she had written, and
+always felt the greatest surprise and freshness in re-reading passages
+which had sped from her mind to paper in inspired moments, and which, if
+not written at those moments, would have been lost for ever.
+
+Schopenhauer was not the only person in the world to discover that a
+beautiful thought is like a beautiful woman. If you want to keep the one
+always you must tie her to you by marriage, if the other, you must tie
+it to you with pen and paper or it will leave you and never return.
+
+On that morning when she made her finished work into two tall piles of
+exercise-books before her on her table, the measure of content was hers
+that is felt by even the heaviest-hearted when they look upon good work
+done.
+
+She laid her head on the books and tears fell softly down, and her heart
+sang a little song that was pure thankfulness and praise for the
+goodness of God.
+
+And while she sat, there came a little tap at the door.
+
+Miss Allendner entered with a letter, and Poppy, taking it from her, saw
+that it was addressed in the small, strong writing she had not seen for
+years, but which she instantly recognised as Luce Abinger's. She laid it
+down mechanically on the table.
+
+"Mr. Abinger brought it himself," said Miss Allendner, "and would not
+leave it until he heard that you were here and would receive it at once.
+He said it was _very_ important."
+
+"Thank you," said Poppy quietly, and sat staring at the letter long
+after her companion had left the room.
+
+Afterwards, she laid her head on the books again, but wearily now, and
+the tears of her eyes were dried up and so was the little chant of
+praise in her heart. She was afraid--afraid of the letter; of the look
+she had seen in Luce Abinger's eyes of late--the old, hateful look--and
+of the fight before her. Now that she had done the work and would have
+the money to fight with, she was afraid. But only for a time. Those who
+have fought with any of the grim forces of life--sorrow, pain, poverty,
+despair--and defeated even the least of these in battle, have strength
+to fight again, and secret springs of courage to drink from in the hour
+of need. Poppy rose from her table at last with such new courage in her,
+that she could laugh disdainfully at the sealed letter and all it
+contained of threats, or commands. She left it sealed and lying there
+for some other hour's perusal. It should not spoil _this_ her glad day
+of finished tasks.
+
+She locked the door upon it and her work, and went to her room to change
+her gown and get ready to spend the rest of the day with Clem Portal.
+She would probably stay the night, but she took nothing with her, for
+she had now quite a collection of clothes at Clem's for emergencies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the afternoon of the same day she sat dreaming in a Madeira-chair in
+Clem's drawing-room, while the latter meditated on the piano, trying to
+compose an air sufficiently mournful to set to the words of a little
+song of Poppy's called "In Exile." Softly, she sang it over and over to
+long slurring chords--curiously sweet and strange.
+
+                                I.
+
+                   Across the purple heather
+                     The winds of God blow sweet.
+                   But it's O for the smell of London
+                     And the roar of a London street!
+
+                                II.
+
+                   Upon the wine-dark waters
+                     The sun strikes clean and hot.
+                   But it's O for a London garden
+                     And the woman who loves me not!
+
+"You say you are no musician, Clem, but I never knew anyone who could
+make lovelier sounds come out of a piano," Poppy said.
+
+Clem laughed.
+
+"Dear, I can't play at all: it is this little song that sets chords
+singing in my head. What were you thinking of when you wrote it?"
+
+"Of Dr. Ferrand, I think, that first Sunday I came here. You remember
+how he talked of London?--and you said that he had 'his own box of
+matches and could make his own hell any day in the week,' like poor
+_Dick Heldar_. The circumstances seemed to indicate that there was some
+woman in England who didn't love him--but I daresay that applies to a
+good many men out here."
+
+"The most usual circumstance," said Clem laughing, "is that the woman
+loves too well. Some men find that hardest of all to bear."
+
+Poppy reflected on this for a while.
+
+"I suppose you mean wives! It is curious how many people seem to marry
+to live apart, isn't it, Clem?"
+
+"Yes; I call it the cat-and-reptile game," said Clem, swinging round on
+the music-stool and beginning to run her hands through her crinkly,
+curly, fuzzy dark hair with seven red lights in it. "The cat catches the
+reptile, scratches him, bites him, wounds him, puts her mark on him for
+good, and as soon as he has no more kick left in him, off she goes and
+leaves him alone."
+
+Poppy was laughing.
+
+"Well, some of the reptiles make marvellous recoveries," said she,
+remembering one, at least, whom she had known.
+
+"You can't blame them for _that_--it isn't very interesting to be dead,
+I suppose."
+
+"As for the cats who don't leave their reptiles," continued Poppy,
+thinking of some of the dull people she had recently met, "nothing could
+be deader than the pair of them. And then they label themselves
+'happily married.'"
+
+"Now, Poppy, I won't have you walking over my cabbages and onions."
+
+"I'm not, Clem--but they don't make marriage look alluring to anyone
+with an imagination, do they? Of course, it is wonderful to see your
+happiness----"
+
+"Yes; Bill and I _are_ rather wonderful"--Clem jumped up in a hurry--"I
+must _absolutely_ go and get some socks and stockings to mend. There is
+a pile as big as a house waiting--" She flashed out of the room.
+
+"She won't discuss her happiness with me," thought Poppy. "It is too
+sacred!"
+
+By the time Clem came back a settled gloom was over everything; the rain
+was heavily pelting against the windows; occasionally a bright beam of
+light shot through the room, leaving it as grey as a witch; afterwards
+the thunder groaned like some god in agony.
+
+"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said Poppy.
+
+"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered sadly. "And Cinthie
+inherits the gentle trait. It is _too_ bad, for I hate darning."
+
+She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat peering her
+glimmering head over her work, while they talked in desultory fashion:
+but the storm got worse, the thunder groaned more terribly.
+
+"God sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to throw it under the
+feet of dancing women and men," said Poppy, in a voice that rang with
+some unusual emotion.
+
+Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."
+
+To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.
+
+"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem ... these storms ... a
+storm like this reminds me of when I was a child ... I was once out in
+a storm like this."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."
+
+"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning tore through the
+room, showing her for an instant a tortured face. She reached out and
+took the girl's hands in hers, gripping them tight. Dimly, through the
+rumble of the thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.
+
+"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think have only been in Africa
+for a few months at a time ... I, the gently-nurtured English girl! ...
+educated at Cheltenham College! ... I did not actually tell you these
+things, Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ... I was
+born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and hungry ... been a
+little beaten vagabond in the streets."
+
+"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness; "what do
+these things matter--except that they have made you suffer? ... they
+have made you the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I
+have always known that there was a wound ... don't make it bleed
+afresh ... I love you too well to want to hear anything that it hurts to
+tell ... always believe this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any
+woman I have ever known."
+
+"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am not worthy even to speak
+to you, to touch you.... It is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless
+you ... I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for you....
+I did not know one woman could be so sweet to another as you have been
+to me ... you are like the priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the
+harlot broke over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ! What am
+I?"
+
+Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was heard but the sound
+of deep weeping. Outside the storm raged on. But when next a gleam of
+light flashed through the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was
+revealed clasped in another woman's arms.
+
+"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips' false tales ...
+since I have been near you and seen your true unafraid eyes ... the
+frank clear turn of your mouth that has never lied to anyone ... I have
+died many deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ... pure
+women don't know what suffering there is in the world, it is no use
+pretending they do ... they are wonderful, they shine.... O! what
+wouldn't _we_ give to shine with that lovely cold, pure glow ... but
+they can't take from us what our misery has bought."
+
+"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman said steadily. "I don't
+want to know ... whatever Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I
+don't care! I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you is
+sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It is all a matter of
+luck ... God was good to me ... I had a good mother and a fleet foot ...
+when I smelt danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you had not,
+perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only difference----"
+
+Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.
+
+"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are generous, Clem, but
+truth is truth, and I should like to speak it to you now and always ...
+confession has no attractions for me, and I once told a man I should
+never confess to a woman----"
+
+"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a woman learns to be
+silent about herself, she gains power that nothing else can give her.
+And words can forge themselves into such terrible weapons to be used
+against one--sometimes by hands we love."
+
+"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you, dear, once and
+for all. Let me tell you--even the name I use is not my own!"
+
+"I don't care. What does a name matter?"
+
+"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny,
+nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all
+of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an
+Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"
+
+"What do these things matter?"
+
+"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters
+to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps----"
+
+"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever
+weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."
+
+"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have
+been--lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years
+cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ...
+you hate me!"
+
+"No, Poppy--only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"
+
+"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is
+where you will not understand."
+
+"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of,
+it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."
+
+"_Miserable!_ I am misery's own!" she cried passionately. "She marked me
+with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have
+you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem?
+More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not
+innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand
+the untold tale of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had
+only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home
+and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the
+sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover
+left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a
+pæan of praise to the gods that _my_ lover would never go lacking the
+gift of my breasts. I made a song--all Africa knows it now:
+
+           "'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts----'"
+
+"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly. "When Cinthie is twelve,
+will you want her to be thinking of lover's caresses?"
+
+"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a mother's caresses. Your
+nature was starving for love, poor child!"
+
+"You have a tender heart for sinners."
+
+"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."
+
+"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to tell you _something_
+of what the last three years have been ... three years of lying to get a
+living ... lying to get money: the stage, governessing, serving in
+shops, nursing invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great
+variety about my _rôles_ in life, Clem, except for one faithful
+detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook, a man
+cropped up and stood in the path. There was something special about me,
+it seemed, that brought them unerringly my way--nothing less than my
+_wonderful innocence_. That drew them as the magnet draws steel ...
+lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they all wanted to open the
+portals of knowledge for me ... to show me the golden way into the
+wondrous city of Love. And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint!
+Sin was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow! I looked into
+their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I told them I was good and
+adjured them by their mothers to leave me so. At first they were always
+deeply impressed, but later they became slightly bored.... The affair
+nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part never to
+forget that I had a _real_ friend if I should ever want one, and I
+understood very well what _that_ meant, but invariably I pretended that
+I did not, and went my way innocent-eyed.... But there were variations
+on this ... sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship in
+the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In such cases I always
+helped myself liberally ... I had an unerring instinct that I should
+shortly be seeking a new home--a new friend ... and that instinct never
+played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once more, looking for
+a way to earn a living and stay _pure_ and _innocent_. Once I was almost
+content with an old woman. I washed her and dressed her, and,
+incidentally, was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high.... Alas!
+like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a decent boy, too ... but
+when he had looked into my eyes and found me good, there was the old
+tale to tell.... _He_ used to give me lovely presents ... I was never
+too good to take presents, Clem--under protest.... He wanted to marry
+me, but marriage was not in my plan ... then the old mother found out,
+and I had to go. Another man in Birmingham, whose children I taught,
+gave me _hundreds_--just for being good! would have given me thousands
+only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once and flew to the worst
+conclusions ... she believed I had stolen her husband and was as bad as
+I could be ... no one could be surprised at what she called me ... but
+it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go back to London,
+and there was nothing at first to go back to but the stage.... I did not
+stay _there_ long ... innocence is not very valuable on the
+stage--except in the play!... and though I have a special talent for
+acting _off_ the stage, I am too nervous _on_ it to open my lips ... so
+there was no hope for advancement that way ... I had to begin again on
+the old round."
+
+"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand--why? _why?_... what
+was it all for?"
+
+"For money, Clem. I wanted money."
+
+"I can't believe it!--Oh! _not_ for money!"
+
+"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money; there is nothing they
+will not do to get gold in their hands. I was _good_ for money ... a
+saint, an angel, a virgin--most especially a virgin."
+
+"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you say can make no
+difference to me. I _will_ love you. I _will_ be your friend. But--is
+there anything in the world that money can get that was worth it all? I
+ask out of sheer curiosity--_is_ there?"
+
+Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a few words dropped into
+the silence of the room.
+
+"I wanted the money for my child."
+
+The storm had died away at last, leaving a terrible peace behind it. The
+colour of the evening sky was sard-green, than which nothing can be more
+despairing.
+
+Mrs. Portal sat with her head drooped forward a little as if very tired,
+and Poppy arose from her seat, pushed open a window, and stood looking
+out. The smell of wet steaming earth came into the room. Presently,
+speaking very softly, she continued her narrative:
+
+"I wanted all the money I could get for my son. He had no name, no
+heritage ... his father ... had, I believed, married another woman. I
+was resolved that he should at least have all money could give him.... I
+thought that when he grew up he would turn from me in any case as a
+woman who had shamed him and robbed him of his birthright, so that it
+did not matter _what_ I did while he was yet young, and yet loved me,
+to insure him health, a fine education, and a future. First it was to
+give him the bare necessaries of life, later to provide a home in the
+country where he could grow up strong and well under good, kind care ...
+then, my thoughts were for his future ... Oh! I hoped to redeem my soul
+by his future, Clem!... So I worked and lied ... and lied and took ...
+and lied and saved ... not often with my lips did I lie, Clem ... but
+_always_ with my eyes. I had at last amassed nearly eight hundred
+pounds ... you will think that remarkable, if you will remember that
+always I amassed it virtuously ... that there is no man of all I met
+in those years who can call me anything but a good woman--abominably,
+disgustingly, vilely _good_.
+
+"And then ... I was introduced to a financier, who, because of the charm
+of my innocent eyes, told me that, in a few weeks, he would transform my
+eight hundred pounds into eight thousand pounds. Incidentally, he
+remarked that we must see more of each other ... and I looked into _his_
+eyes and saw that they were _not_ innocent,--and that there would be a
+difficult day of reckoning for me later on ... but for eight thousand
+pounds, and secure in mailed armour of _purity_, I risked that ...
+especially as he was just leaving England for a few weeks ... I handed
+over my eight hundred pounds without a qualm, for he had a great name in
+the financial world. In less than three weeks his dead body was being
+hauled over the side of a yacht in the Adriatic, and my eight hundred
+pounds was deader than Dead-Sea fruit, for I never heard of it again ...
+nor wanted to ... the need of it was gone ... my boy was dead!"
+
+"Poppy! Poppy!" Clem got up and drew the girl down to the floor by her
+side. "Rest your head on me dear ... you are tired ... life has been too
+hard for you.
+
+                   "'Dost thou know, O happy God!----'
+
+"Life has been brutal to you. I think of my own sheltered childhood, and
+compare it with yours--flung out into the fiery sands of the desert to
+die or survive, as best you might!... The strange thing is that your
+face bears no sign of all the terrible things that have overtaken you! I
+see no base, vile marks anywhere on you, Poppy.... It cannot all be
+acting ... no one is clever enough to mask a soiled soul for ever, and
+from everyone, if it really _is_ soiled.... You _look_ good--not
+smirking, soft goodness that means nothing, but brave, strong
+goodness ... and I _know_ that that look is true ... and so I can love
+you, after all these things you have told me ... I can love you better
+than ever. But _why_ is it, Poppy?"
+
+"I don't know. If it _is_ so, the reason must be that all was done for
+Love, Clem ... because always I had a sweet thing at my heart ... the
+love I bore to my child, and to the father of my child. Because, like
+the mother of Asa, 'I built an altar in a grove' and laid my soul upon
+it for Love. I want to tell you something further. Being _good_, as the
+world calls it, has no charm for me. Many of the men I have spoken of
+had a sinister attraction. _I understood what they felt._ I looked into
+eyes and saw things there that had answers deep down in me. I am a child
+of passionate Africa, Clem ... the blood in my veins runs as hot and red
+as the colour of a poppy.... It is an awful thing to look into the eyes
+of a man you do not love and see passion staring there--and feel it
+urging in your own veins, too. It is an awful thing to know what it is
+that he is silently demanding, and what that basely answers in your own
+nature.... Yet there are worse things than this knowledge. A worse
+thing, surely, would have been to have gone hurtling over the precipice
+with some Gadarene swine!... Clem, if I had been _really_ innocent those
+years, nothing could have saved me. I should have gone to the devil, as
+they call it, with some vile man I had no love for, just because I
+didn't know how to keep out of the traps laid for me by my own
+nature--and then I should have 'been at the devil' indeed! But I had
+bought knowledge with the price of my girlhood ... and I had mated with
+my own right man.... I had looked at life, if only for an hour, with
+love-anointed eyes ... and so, it came to pass that I had a memory to
+live for, and a child to fight for ... and courage to fight my greatest
+enemy--myself. I think no one who knew the workings of my heart would
+deny me courage, Clem."
+
+"No, and it is a noble quality, child--the noblest, I think, when it is
+used to fight one's own baser nature. That only would keep a woman
+beautiful ... it is to _that_ you owe your beauty, dear."
+
+"Then it is to you I owe it to a great extent--for it was you who first
+put the creed into me of courage--and silence--and endurance. Do you
+remember the night you wished me good-bye over your gate, Clem?"
+
+"I remember everything--but, dear, there is one thing that grieves and
+bewilders me--why, _why_ could you not have earned a clean, fine living
+with your pen ... where was your gift of writing?"
+
+"It left me, Clem, when I tried to earn money with it. I could not
+write. I tried and tried. I sat to it until my eyes sank into my head
+and hollows came to my cheeks--until we were hungry, my little Pat and
+I--and cold. For bread and firing I had to leave it, and turn to other
+things. After the boy died ... it came back and mocked me. I wrote then
+to ease my pain ... and everything I have written since has been
+successful ... found a ready market and in some sort Fame ... but it was
+all too late!"
+
+"Poor child! everything has mocked you!" Clem put her arms round the
+girl and kissed her tenderly; then drew away and assumed an ordinary
+pose, for a maid had come into the room bringing lights, and with the
+intimation that she was about to sound the dressing-bell, as it wanted
+only half an hour to dinner-time.
+
+"Heavens!" cried Clem; "and I hear Billy's voice in the garden; Eve
+Carson's, too, I believe. _Fly_ to your room, Poppy. I expect Sarah has
+laid out one of your gowns."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was, indeed, Carson whom Portal had brought home with him. They had
+encountered in West Street, and Bill had insisted on bringing him back
+just as he was in the inevitable grey lounge suit, assuring him that
+there would be no one to find fault with his appearance but Mrs. Portal,
+who was notoriously forgiving.
+
+So Carson came, and had no faintest inkling that Poppy was there too.
+Being an old _intimé_ of the family, he knew his way about the house and
+after leaving Portal's dressing-room, he sought the nursery, was
+admitted by Cinthie's nurse, and stayed talking and romping with the
+child long after the second bell had sounded and dinner been announced,
+with the result that Portal insisted on taking Poppy into dinner, while
+Clem sought the recalcitrant in the nursery. Later, they came laughing
+to the dining-room, and for the first time Carson knew of Poppy's
+presence. She was sitting facing the door, and a big silver candlestick,
+with wide branching antlers, framed her in a silver frame. With her
+mysterious, tendrilly hair, her subtle scarlet mouth and Celtic
+cheek-bones, she had the alluring appearance of a Beardsley-drawing
+without any of its bloodlessness, for her gown was as scarlet as the
+poppies of the field, and she glowed with inward fires at seeing Carson.
+The deep, sweet glance she gave him as they greeted made him glow too,
+with gladness of living, and some other radiant reason that for the
+moment was not clear to him. He only knew that weariness was gone from
+his veins and that the splendour of life had come back at last with the
+rush and swell of full-tide.
+
+After dinner they all went into the verandah and the men smoked there.
+Clem never smoked, but she liked the smell of cigars. Poppy had long
+broken herself of the cigarette habit. Later, Portal said he must go and
+write two important letters to catch the mail--after that they would
+have a game of Bridge if anyone liked. Clem said she would go and play
+to the others her setting to "In Exile," of which she was very proud.
+She sang it softly over and over to them for a while. Afterwards she
+wandered through Chopin's "Prelude" into Schubert's gentle "Andante."
+Then unaccountably she began to fling out into the night the great
+solemn chords of a Funeral March. It was a wonderful thing, full of the
+dignity of sorrow, underlaid by thin wailings that spoke of little
+memories of all the past sweetnesses of the dead. There was a place in
+it that made Poppy think her dead child's arms were round her neck, and
+another where Carson thought of Alan Wilson and his thirty-one brave
+companions lying under the stars up in lonely Zimbabwe. At another time,
+he remembered a man dear to him, killed at Gwelo in the second native
+rising; he seemed to see the fellow with his hands in his pockets
+whistling to his dogs in a peculiar way he had.
+
+Through all the playing Poppy and he sat in the verandah, side by side,
+in two low canvas chairs. A fold of her gown lay across his feet. They
+were absolutely silent and they did not look at each other. Carson was
+staring straight before him, but without a turn of his head or flicker
+of his eyelids he was conscious of every tiniest detail of the woman by
+his side. He saw the gracious line of her cheek and throat and thigh and
+foot; but, more than that, he believed he saw the spirit of her too,
+gentle and sad, but brave and desirable to him beyond the soul of any
+woman--_and his_. She was his. He was certain of that now. He had taken
+the knowledge from her eyes when they met that night; and yet it seemed
+old knowledge to him, something he had known since the beginning of
+time.
+
+Her hand lay within reach of his, but he did not touch it. Only too
+conscious of the mysterious magnetism of the flesh, he strove with all
+the fine instincts and high aspirations his spirit had ever given birth
+to and his body honoured, to free himself from the shackles of the flesh
+and give to this woman whom he loved and blessed a greater salute than
+the mere touching of hands.
+
+As for her--her eyes were closed. She, too, was reaching out with
+spirit-hands to him. Inasmuch as human souls which are aloof and lonely
+things can communicate--theirs met and hailed each other as mate until
+the end of time.
+
+Suddenly Clem freed them of sorrow. She began to play something that was
+like an old piece of brocade all flowered over quaintly with tiny
+leaves, true lovers' knots, and little pink-and-blue rose-buds.
+Presently the brocade became a stately dress, worn with powder and
+patches and high scarlet-heeled shoes.... Portal, having finished his
+mail, came back to the verandah, and Clem closed the piano then and came
+out too. They sat and talked, and no one again suggested cards.
+
+The night was fresh and sweet after the rain, and the sky above alive
+with newly-washed stars. Far away, Durban flashed and sparkled, and just
+above the bay there was a great splash of vermilion against the darkness
+of the bluff--sometimes it showed streaks of carmine in it. They
+discussed the phenomenon, and eventually concluded that a boat out on
+the water was afire. Whatever the cause, it certainly gave the finishing
+touch to the picturesque beauty of the night.
+
+A little after eleven Carson left. He shook hands with everyone at
+parting, and for a brief instant he and Poppy drank another deep
+draught of joy from each other's eyes.
+
+No sooner had he gone than Clem said:
+
+"Poppy, you are to go to bed instantly, and stay there until I give you
+leave to get up. You look like a spectre."
+
+Poppy took her hand and kissed it. She was trembling with happiness, but
+she dared not speak of it. Clem put an arm round her.
+
+"I must come and see if your room is all right."
+
+"Yes, but who are these midnight vigilantes in the garden?" exclaimed
+Portal. "I believe I hear Bramham!"
+
+Bramham, indeed, it was who came into the light with a crumpled and
+weeping woman clinging to his arm.
+
+"What the----?" softly demanded Portal of Heaven, and Clem stared. Poppy
+swiftly recognised Miss Allendner.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, stepping forward.
+
+Miss Allendner only wept more violently.
+
+"This poor lady has been greatly upset," said Bramham, and placed her in
+a chair. Then he spoke with the brevity of a good man with a bad tale:
+
+"Miss Chard's house has been burnt to the ground; fortunately no one is
+hurt, but everything is destroyed."
+
+"Burnt! _burnt?_... _everything?_ My work ... my freedom--" cried Poppy
+wildly with clasped hands.
+
+"Everything! Nothing left but a few bricks and some melted iron. I
+wonder you didn't see the flare-up--it lighted the whole bay. The thing
+was discovered too late to do anything but get Miss Allendner out." His
+firm brevity left him. "Oh, Lord, I _am_ sorry!" He stared dismally.
+
+"Oh, Poppy!" cried Clem, with pitiful voice, and they all drew round the
+pale girl. She did not speak for a time--just stood there in the light
+streaming from the drawing-room windows, white and still; and presently
+some tears fell down her face. Then she said:
+
+"Poor Miss Allendner. Shall we put her to bed, in my bedroom, Clem? She
+is worn out!"
+
+The women went away. At the gate Bramham said to Portal:
+
+"And there is worse to come.... That crazy Allendner turkey was
+shrieking round the fire like a lunatic ... imploring the crowd to save
+the writings of _Eve Destiny_, the South African writer--everybody knows
+who she is now ... the place is humming like a beehive with the news ...
+and it will be in all the news-rags in the morning.... She'll be more
+broken up over that than anything ... for reasons of her own she didn't
+want it known.... Oh, it's a hell of a country, Portal."
+
+This thing was news also to Portal. Mrs Portal being that lovely thing,
+a close woman, he knew nothing of Poppy's identity with _Eve Destiny_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+When Carson left the Portals he did not go home. He turned his face
+towards the higher heights of the Berea, and those surmounted, tramped
+on--on past darkened blind-drawn, lonely houses, and long stretches of
+gardens and vacant lands, until he came at last to the cliff-side that
+overlooks Umgeni. Afterwards he tramped and tramped, without knowing or
+caring where he went, but always with the light silent feet of the
+athlete. Irishmen are natural athletes. Also, if they are _real_
+Irishmen, that is, born and brought up through boyhood in their own
+land, they have learned to play "Handball"; and so their feet are as
+light as their hands are swift to feel and their eyes to observe. For a
+man whose lot must be cast in the sinuous paths of Africa--jungle or
+money-market--there could be no better training than constant play in
+his youthful days in an Irish ball-court, for it teaches quickness of
+wit and limb more than any game ever played, as well as developing both
+sides of the body, thus making for perfect symmetry. Carson had a
+passion for the game, and he went hot with anger when he thought how
+neglected and ignored it was amongst the fine sports of the world.
+"Pilota," the Spanish national game, has some resemblance to "Handball,"
+and is played by men of all classes in Spain. But in Ireland with the
+exception here and there of a gentleman enthusiast, who has learnt his
+love of the pastime at his college, only the poor fellows play it now,
+and those usually the roughest of their class, who are obliged to depend
+for their "courts" on the proprietors of public-houses.
+
+All young Irish boys love "Handball," however, and Carson had often
+thought it a wistful thing to see little ragged chaps watching a game
+with eyes alight, holding the coats of players, on the chance of getting
+a chance to play themselves when the "court" was vacated.
+
+In the Protectorate he had established, he meant to build "ball-courts"
+and teach the fine stalwart Borapotans to play the finest game in the
+world.
+
+But to-night, as he tramped, he did not think of these things. The
+sports and pastimes of his boyhood were as far from his mind as was the
+innocence of his boyhood from his heart. He was trying to tramp out the
+remembrance of a sin. Trying to obliterate from his memory the face of a
+woman he did not love, never had loved, never would love--but to whom
+honour held him fast. A woman who had nursed him in sickness with
+devotion and care--and who, when he was still physically weak, had flung
+herself into his arms--at his feet, offering her life, her love, her
+honour. And he had weakly fought, weakly resisted, and at the last most
+weakly taken--taken just for the love of pity, and the love of love and
+all the other loves that Irishmen, above all men, know all about, and
+that have nothing to do with Love at all.
+
+The bitter cud to chew now between his gritting teeth was that he had
+never reaped anything but soul-misery and sacrifice of fine resolves
+from the thing. Yet here it was holding itself up before him like some
+pure star that he must never cease from following after: a creed never
+to be forsaken; an idol before which to sacrifice the rest of his
+life--to sacrifice the most wonderful love that ever thrilled a man's
+veins and shook from his life all mean and paltry things.
+
+Oh, Lust past and Love present had a great fight in the heart of Evelyn
+Carson, Bart., D.S.O., C.M.G., in the early hours of that April morning.
+It must have been close on six hours that he tramped and fought, for
+when at last he came by devious ways to Sea House, the shroudy dawn was
+breaking over the face of the Indian Ocean.
+
+And Bramham was in his dining-room insanely drinking whiskies-and-sodas.
+
+"What the----?" Carson stood in the doorway staring.
+
+"Waiting up for you, of course! Where have you been?" said the drunk and
+dauntless Bramham.
+
+"I can't remember engaging you to wet-nurse me." Carson was too savage
+with life to be polite even to the best friend he had ever possessed. He
+strode into the room, threw his soft hat rolled into a ball into a
+corner, and would have passed through, but Bramham detained him with a
+word.
+
+"Miss Chard's house was burnt to the ground last night!"
+
+Carson came back and stood by the table. It seemed to him that a good
+thing to do would be to mix a strong whiskey-and-soda, and he did so,
+and drank it thirstily.
+
+"What was that you said, Bram?" he asked, later.
+
+"Miss Chard's house is burnt to the ground. The whole town knows now
+that she is _Eve Destiny_, the South African novelist----"
+
+"The how much?"
+
+"The South African novelist. The woman who wrote the book of poems that
+set all the African mothers flying to lock the nursery doors--and the
+plays _In a Tin Hotel at Witpoortje_ and _A Veldt Ghost_. Why, Carson,
+you don't seem to know anything! You ought to employ someone to dig you
+up every five years."
+
+Because of his desire for further information on this interesting
+subject, Carson kept his temper between his teeth and bore as best he
+might with Bramham's unusual wit. It was to be remembered, too, that
+Bramham was a "good man," and as such permitted a lapse. However, if
+the latter had anything more to tell he kept it to himself, and only
+gave a repetition of his former statements with a graphic description,
+which Carson was not at all interested in, of the fire.
+
+One thing alone, stood out, a salient point in the narrative:
+
+"And I happen to know that everything she has is burnt. With the
+exception of a few royalties, she is penniless. All her finished work is
+burnt--everything she had in the world. She had a face like a banshee
+when I told her," was his complimentary conclusion.
+
+Carson departed and took a bath and shave on this information.
+Afterwards he went down and looked at the sea. When he came in to
+breakfast, a sane and calm Charles Bramham was seated there before
+him--bathed, groomed, dressed, eating an orange with a tea-spoon.
+
+They took breakfast with the appetites and serenity of good men, who
+having passed an excellent night, were about to attack the problems of
+the day with clear consciences. There was nothing noticeable about
+Bramham, except a thirst for tea.
+
+Just before they had finished, Carson casually said:
+
+"I'm going up to the Rand to sell everything I hold."
+
+Bramham regarded him piercingly, and at the moment a _boy_ entered with
+the morning papers. Each man reached out for one, and turned with
+striking unanimity of interest to the Market reports.
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Bramham instantly. "_East Rands_ at 5.5.0, and still
+sinking."
+
+Carson gave a groan, which meant, "Oh, Hades! why didn't I sell at £10?"
+
+Bramham continued his dolorous tale, quoting all the prices in which he
+and Carson were interested.
+
+"Main Reefs, Randfonteins, Crown Reefs, Knights--all steadily sagging in
+sympathy; if you sell now, Karri, you'll be in the cart."
+
+And Carson knew that Bramham spoke the thing that was. In the state of
+the market it would mean ruin to sell. The loss would be so great that
+he doubted if he would be able to pay up the inevitable deficiency at
+his bank. He reflected that possibly a few of his syndicate shares might
+pull him through, but what good was that! He wanted _money_--money to
+marry Rosalind Chard and take her with him to Borapota; to free _her_
+from the cares of life and money for evermore.
+
+As he stared gloomily at Bramham, the colour of his prospects were of
+the same hue as the black scowl on his brow. But like all speculators,
+he was not long without a ray of hope. His face suddenly cleared.
+
+"What about my claims on the South Rand?" he demanded blithely.
+
+"Have you still got those?" cried Bramham in surprise. "Good! How many?"
+
+"Half interest in a hundred?"
+
+"By George! Well, you'd better go up and see what Charlie Rosser can do.
+If there's anything to be made he'll do it for you."
+
+They rose from the table.
+
+"When shall you go? To-day?"
+
+"No; to-day I have every moment occupied until six o'clock."
+
+"There's a good train to-night at nine."
+
+"I can't go to-night--I have something else to do."
+
+A transforming look flashed across Carson's face. Whatever grace of
+heart was his showed in his eyes for a moment as he thought of the girl
+who would be waiting for him to-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+"Clem, scuttle up--we'll be late," shouted Portal. "What _is_ she doing,
+Miss Chard?"
+
+"Hearing the bratiken's prayers, I think."
+
+"I wish you'd hurry her up."
+
+Poppy went out into the hall and stood at the nursery door, which was
+ajar. Clem's voice could be heard inside arguing with a small, sullen
+one.
+
+"Say them now, Cinthie--'Gentle Jesus----'"
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"I want you to sing 'Bye-low Lady.'"
+
+"Not to-night, my dearest" (sound of a kiss); "there isn't time. Daddy's
+waiting for me to go to the theatre; we'll have longer sings to-morrow
+night. Say prayers now, Cinthie."
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+"Go on now, darling. Mother'll be cross with you in a minute. 'Gentle
+Jesus----'"
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+A silence.
+
+"'Gentle Jesus'--Go on now, Cinthie--'Gentle Jesus--'"
+
+"'Gentle Jesus'--sat on a wall," said the small voice, and burst into a
+peal of laughing. There was a rustling and Clem appeared at the nursery
+door gowned and gloved, her face bearing traces of smothered laughter.
+But from the door she called back, in a voice intended to be most
+hauntingly sad:
+
+"Mother's sorry her little girl is so naughty to-night. Good-night,
+Cinthie."
+
+"G'night," was the cheerful response.
+
+Clem came out into the hall and shut the door, and putting her arm in
+Poppy's hurried to the drawing-room, where Portal was offering up loud
+prayers for patience, and bemoaning the miserable, wasted lives of all
+married men.
+
+"Time is simply nothing to them, I tell you!" he chanted. "It is no
+concern of theirs! They cannot wear it, nor give it to their offspring
+to play with! As for punctuality, it is a rule invented for men and dogs
+only--and rickshaw pullers. Ours has been waiting at the gate for twenty
+minutes--but _that's_ all right--what do _we_ care for the first act of
+a play?"
+
+Clem took not the slightest notice. She turned to Poppy.
+
+"And, darling, when you've finished your coffee I wish you'd go in and
+hear her prayers. She feels very much injured to-night--you will, won't
+you? I am so vexed that we have to go out and leave you--and _I do_ wish
+you would have come too. It might have made you forget all about that
+wicked fire."
+
+"I shall be quite happy here, Clem. I have much to think of and plan;
+and, of course, I'll mind Cinthie. Be off now."
+
+Poppy hustled her into her cloak and laces and saw them both off into
+the rickshaw. Afterwards she returned to the drawing-room, poured out
+her coffee, and took it into the nursery. Cinthie's little straight,
+white bed stood in the centre of the room, and she was lying with the
+sheet drawn up to her chin, two long pigtails stretching down on either
+side of her, and two big, dark eyes glooming out of the little, soft,
+dark face. Beside her on the pillow two still, inanimate forms glared
+glazily at the ceiling.
+
+"Cinthie!"
+
+"Eum!"
+
+"Hallo, Cinthie!"
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"You asleep?"
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Sure you're not?"
+
+"No, I'm not, Poppy." She sat up in bed and gave a lively prance to show
+she was awake.
+
+"Well, I've come to have a little talk."
+
+Cinthie made a joyful noise that sounded like _corn-cookoo_, and gave
+another prance.
+
+Poppy sat on the edge of the bed and sipped her coffee, tendering to
+Cinthie an occasional spoonful, which was supped up rapturously.
+
+"Who've you got there with you?"
+
+"Two my chil'ren."
+
+"Which ones?"
+
+"_Daisy-Buttercup_ 'n _Oscar_"
+
+"Oh! have they said their prayers yet?"
+
+A pause, then:
+
+"I didn't tell them to say prairses to-night."
+
+"Not?" cried Poppy, in shocked surprise.
+
+"No." (A pause.) "They's too tired."
+
+"Oh, but Cinthie! Fancy, if they died in their sleep! How sorry they'd
+be they hadn't said their prayers."
+
+An uncomfortable pause. Poppy drank some more coffee.
+
+"I know _you_ would never go to sleep without saying _your_ prayers."
+
+A silence.
+
+"I hope you prayed for me to-night, sweetness?"
+
+A silence.
+
+"--And for that darling mummie of yours?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"--And your lovely daddie?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"--Because I know they couldn't enjoy themselves at the theatre, or go
+to sleep to-night, or anything, if you didn't. But of course, you did.
+Good-night, sweetness--give a kiss."
+
+"G'night!" The little figure bounced up and put its arms round her and
+kissed her all over her face. Poppy tucked her in carefully.
+
+"I'm so glad you prayed for mummie and daddie and me," she said
+fervently. "Good-night, darling-pet."
+
+"G'night."
+
+"You don't have the candle left, do you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Shall I put the mosquito-curtain round?"
+
+"Yes, please."
+
+Poppy flicked it well with her handkerchief and arranged it round the
+bed like a big, white bird-cage; then taking the candle in her hand,
+walked slowly to the door.
+
+"Well, good-night."
+
+"G'night."
+
+She opened the door and went out slowly.
+
+At the last conceivable instant, as the door was on the point of
+closing, a little voice cried:
+
+"Poppy!"
+
+"Yes, sweetness."
+
+"I want a drink of water."
+
+Poppy went back, poured a glass of water, and carried it to the
+delinquent, who took a mouthful; then said, slowly and sorrowfully:
+
+"I think I'll say prairses, Poppy."
+
+"All right darling!" She sat down on the bed again and put her arms
+round the slim figure, who, kneeling with her nose snuggled into the
+soft, white shoulder, said her "prairses" at express-speed down into
+Poppy's evening-gown:
+
+                      "Gen-tuljeesus, meek n' mil',
+                      Lookup pon a little chil';
+                        Pitimysimplisitee,
+                        Suffer me t' come to Thee.
+
+"Our Fath 'CHART in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy King and come, Thy
+will be done 'Nearth as 'tis 'Neaven. Give us 's day our _DAILY BREAD_
+N' forgive us our trespasses 'gainst us. But 'liver us from evil. For
+Thine's kingdom, Power and GLORY, frever and ever, Amen.
+
+"Our Father, please bless my darling Mummie, and take care of her at the
+theatre, and my lovely Daddie, _and_ Grannie, _and_ Grandad, _and_
+Poppy, _and_ all the servants in _this_ house, _and_ all the little
+children in the world, _and_ fill our hearts with love 'n kindness,
+Amen--now I must say my _Latins_."
+
+Clem was Catholic and Bill Protestant, and the result was a strange
+medley of prayers for Cinthie. She kneeled up, crossed herself solemnly
+in Latin, and began to chant the lovely words of the Angelical
+Salutation:
+
+"_Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus, et
+benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus._"
+
+"_Sancta Maria! Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora
+mortis nostræ. Amen._"
+
+Afterwards she fell into a peal of laughing.
+
+"Why do you laugh, darling?" Poppy gravely asked, and the answer was:
+
+"Oh, Poppy! Wouldn't _Nunc_ be a funny name for a dog!"
+
+Then once more the sheets were tucked in, the mosquito-net arranged, and
+a kiss blown through it.
+
+"Good-night, Pansy-face!"
+
+"G'night, Red-rose!" responded Cinthie ardently.
+
+"Good-night, Gold-heart!"
+
+Cinthie thought laboriously for a few seconds, struggling for a fitting
+response. At last, just as Poppy reached the door, she shouted
+breathlessly:
+
+"G'night; White-soul!"
+
+At that Poppy gave a cry and ran back once more and hugged her.
+
+When at length she tore herself away from the warm, loving little arms
+and went alone to the drawing-room, heavy tears were splashing down her
+cheeks and her lips were like a wistful, sorrowing child's. She stood in
+the open window and stared out at the beauty of the night. Above in the
+solemn purple sky was the Cross, picked out in scarlet stars. Far below
+twinkled the town lights, and at quick intervals the Bluff Lighthouse
+sent long, sweeping, golden lines across the bay, revealing for an
+instant the shadowy fabrics of ships and sailing craft lying safe in
+dock.
+
+Out at sea a great liner steamed slowly to anchorage, hundreds of lights
+flashing from her three tiers, and presently the rattle of her cable
+through the hawse-pipes floated distinctly up to the heights, the
+throbbing in her breast died away, and she lay rocking softly like some
+great tired bird nested at last.
+
+In the dim valley a Zulu boy, heart-hungry for his home-kraal, was
+making music of an infinite sweetness and melancholy on that oldest
+instrument in the world, a reed-flute. The sound brought further tears
+to Poppy, and a burning in her throat. It seemed the voice of her heart
+wailing, because she had never been a child, because "earth was so
+beautiful and Heaven so far"; because she loved a man and was beloved of
+him and darkness lay between them! At that, she longed passionately with
+every sense and nerve in her for Evelyn Carson. She ached in the very
+bones and blood of her for a sight or sound of him. If he would only
+come----!
+
+"Oh, God! be good to me for once!" she cried with soundless lips. "Let
+him come--I will do the rest. There is no barrier I cannot break down
+between him and me. He is mine--dear God, you _know_ that he is mine! I
+bound him with my hair, my lips, my soul. I gave him of my best, I gave
+him my girlhood--_I bore his son_." The green leaves of the
+passion-plant trailing over the window lapped gently against her cheek,
+and she put up her hands to them. "Oh, trees, leaves, all green things,
+help me--let him come----"
+
+And he came, through the open gate, up the broad pathway, straight to
+her.
+
+Her eyes were closed tight to stop her tears, but she heard him coming
+as she stood there with the shaded lamps behind her in the empty room,
+and the silver night on her face. He came so close to the verandah that
+he could look in upon her, and plainly see her pale emotion-wrung face
+and the tears urging through her tightly-closed lids and dripping from
+her lashes. Her lips opened and her breath came heavily, and the sight
+of her took strange hold of him. His own lips unclosed; the marks
+self-mockery had made about them had been wiped out; his handsome,
+haggard eyes had changed, boyhood had come back to them.
+
+"Won't you come into the garden?" His voice had all the sweetness of
+Ireland in it. She unclosed her eyes and came out to him, the tears
+still shining on her cheeks: a pale, ardent woman--strangely like a
+narcissus.
+
+He put an arm through hers and they walked together in the gracious
+dimness.
+
+Down the centre of the garden dividing two lawns ran a high hedge of
+Barbadoes-thorn. It is a shrub garlanded with white tiny flowers of a
+perfume probably the most pungent in the world--much like the gardenia,
+or tuberose, but heavier, sweeter. To-night this perfume hung upon the
+air, and stayed with these lovers all their lives after. They sat on the
+grass under a giant flamboyant tree and a tiny green tree-frog sang a
+love-song to its mate in the branches over their heads. But they did not
+hear. They were deaf to everything now save the drumming in their hearts
+and the urging of their pulses. Carson had his arm about her, half for
+her support, wholly because he could not help it. Her tears were still
+on her face, and he leaned so close that his cheek was wetted by them.
+One heavy drop fell on his lips and he tasted the salt of it, and it was
+as if he had tasted blood. Suddenly he turned her lips to his and began
+to kiss her with a mouth of flame.
+
+"Eve! Eve!" she cried, afraid of her gladness. He did not speak; nor
+could he, if he would. Only he dragged kisses from the mouth he had
+desired so long; the eyes he had looked away from; the curving, cloven
+chin; the throat that shone in the darkness like a moony pearl. And when
+he came to her lips again, they kissed him back with wild, sweet kisses.
+Her arms were round him too. One held his throat and her eyes were shut
+and sealed.
+
+After some short, blind moments, in which she was lost, and he torn in
+two between desire and iron-determination, he lifted her suddenly to her
+feet.
+
+"Darling, my heart, good-bye--for a little while," he said; "and
+then--_never_ good-bye again. The next time we kiss, you must be my
+wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Carson left the next day for Johannesburg as he had intended, speaking
+to no woman after he had parted from that pale, ardent one under the
+flamboyant tree. Other women, indeed, had ceased to exist for him. With
+_one_ he knew there must yet be a scene, most painful and bitter, which
+could not be shirked; the thought of it, _when_ he thought of it, turned
+his heart cold--but it must be confessed that he did not think of it
+often. He was too busy in his first weeks of absence to think of any
+woman much--even the best-beloved. Up to his eyes in affairs, and among
+a hundred old friends and haunts in the busy, virile life of the Rand,
+he had scarcely time to turn up the book of his mind for a page he knew
+was there, illumined with letters of fire and gold. But always he wore a
+red rose in his heart. Always a star glimmered at the back of his life,
+colouring the days golden.
+
+Sometimes in the night-hours, or with the dawn, a vision of her face
+would come to him, so sharp and clear, that it seemed her body must be
+in the room, as well as her spirit, and almost she would fill the arms
+he put out for her. In those hours it was made clear to him how Love can
+wrench the spirit from the body and send it speeding across the miles to
+the Beloved.
+
+He had not asked her to write, nor did he write himself. Their love was
+not one which needed to be kept afire by words; already it burned too
+fiercely for peace. Letters would have been a delight, it is true; but
+he was artist enough to realise the value of restraint from small joys
+that a great joy may be more complete, and he knew that their meeting
+would be the dearer and sweeter for this intervening silence "too full
+for sound or foam."
+
+Moreover, his affairs were critical. He required all his coolness and
+judgment for the share market, and the letters he must write if he wrote
+at all to her, though they would not have disabled him for the fight,
+must at least have left him less calm and unshaken than he desired to be
+at this juncture. Fortune is a woman, and a jealous one at that. She
+must be wooed and worshipped, and all others forgotten for her sake
+before she will bestow her smiles. Carson approached her in a spirit of
+ravishment. His desire was for her favours, and he was prepared to drag
+them from her, if she would not give. He was prepared to buy and sell as
+never before in all his gay, careless life--feverish for gain.
+
+The glance with which he searched the face of Fortune was neither
+imperialistic nor altruistic now, but purely personal; he was thinking,
+plotting, planning for the future; but the details of that same future
+were too wild and sweet to be thought upon. They sang a song in his
+veins that would not be silenced.
+
+His first business was to find Charlie Rosser, his broker, the
+shrewdest, straightest man on 'Change,' and a personal friend at that.
+But the slump was affecting people's health. All Johannesburg was laid
+up, nursing its lungs, its hump, or its pet stocks, and Rosser was
+amongst the invalids. So Carson's first week was spent at a loose end,
+for he was too wise a citizen of the world to venture upon the seas of
+finance, of which he had no great knowledge, without a good man at the
+helm. Most days, however, found him making his way through the crowded
+streets to "the Chains" for news of the market. Things were as bad as
+they could be, and every man had a tale of dolour to pitch, but no one
+looked dolorous. The high, fine air of Johannesburg is a wonderful thing
+for making people think they are all muscle and no nerves--and they
+don't find out their mistake until after they have made their pile, or
+lost it, when the "finding out" doesn't matter, anyway.
+
+The place was always home to Carson, and "full of friendly faces," and
+he trod its streets as familiarly as the decks of his own soul.
+
+One morning, just before High Change, he found an extra jostle going on
+amongst the crowds of brokers and dealers "between the Chains." Everyone
+was agog. The market had come better from London. In anticipation of a
+demand at High Change, shares were changing hands merrily. Carson was
+hailed blithely by friend and foe alike, offered everything he didn't
+want, and alternately elated and depressed by the news that came to him
+concerning the stocks in which he was interested. But on the whole, the
+outlook was bright.
+
+"Boom!" was the hilarious word that cleared the horizon of clouds.
+"There's going to be a boom!" men shouted, and their eyes were full of
+the bland joy of piracy. Rumours had come that the "Corner House" was
+supporting the market for _their_ special stocks, and other houses
+followed the lead. Johannesburg is the most sensitive market in the
+world--it responds to outside influence as the violin to Sarasate.
+
+In the midst of the dust and din Carson caught sight among the crowd of
+a puffy red face, with grim eyes and the sweeping moustache of an
+Algerian pirate. He was waving frantically at Carson and yelling:
+
+"My office! Come and pow-wow!"
+
+In five minutes Carson had trailed Rosser to his lair, and they were
+deep in a discussion of prospects. Rosser's tips were no better than any
+other, but his opinion on the trend of the market was always worth
+hearing, and usually as nearly right as possible.
+
+"Shall I sell or hold?" demanded Carson, when his affairs had been laid
+upon the board and swiftly scanned.
+
+"Hold?" screamed Rosser. "Everything is going to the devil. Do you think
+I take any stock in this good news? Why--_the country is rotten_. The
+British public is steadily selling. This improvement can't last--it's
+only a flash in the pan. Sell! This is your chance. Sell all you've got.
+Sell calls--sell your shirt--sell _anything_--up to ninety days.
+Destruction comes after."
+
+This was Carson's mood also. But he had an anchor now that deterred him
+from advancing too gaily towards the breakers. He first examined Rosser
+from top to toe with steely eyes, then advanced the objection that if he
+had to pay brokerage on the whole amount out of his call-money, he
+wouldn't make a heap of profit. Rosser began to prophesy, but without
+sanctity.
+
+"No calls will be taken up this year. Hell! I've a good mind to run the
+biggest bear account you've ever dreamt of, Carson. Take my advice and
+sell, man. Sell on 'fixed delivery' and 'buyer's option' and 'to
+arrive'--play bear till all is blue." He suddenly became calm and
+business-like. "Think it over for a few moments while I read my letters,
+and then decide."
+
+In old days Carson would have embraced the proposition with the
+devil-may-care philosophy of the usual Rand man, that if "bearing"
+smashed him up he'd be no worse off than a hundred better men who'd done
+the same thing before him. But now--he was feverish for gain--the
+thought of loss was unendurable. Rosser suddenly looked up at him with a
+waiting smile.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Damned if I don't do it, Charlie. You can sell calls on everything I've
+got, this morning--here's the list, and in the afternoon you can sell
+everything I haven't got on 'fixed delivery,' or 'to arrive.'"
+
+"Good, man!" cried Rosser.
+
+"And what about my block of South Rands?"
+
+This was Carson's hold-by. The biggest stone in his box. He had bought
+these fifty shares at a sheriff's sale for twenty pounds each, years
+before, and though he had often wanted the money, some indefinable
+superstition had kept him cheerfully paying up licences and hanging on.
+_Now_ rumour went, the Big House wanted them.
+
+"What will you take for them?" asked Rosser, grinning. "Cost?"
+
+"No!" said Carson violently, "nor double, nor quadruple. I'll do or die
+by those damned things."
+
+Rosser regarded him cynically, but with affection. It had not escaped
+the grim eyes that Carson here present was not the notoriously careless,
+indifferent Carson of the past.
+
+"You sound to me like a man who wants to buy a trousseau for himself,"
+he remarked, but his gibe brought no blush to the brazen cheek before
+him, and he did not dream that he had made a bull's-eye.
+
+"But you're quite right, Karri.... You're going to make a big bag out of
+that little preserve ... only keep cool ... and if Wallerstein asks you
+about them, say they're not for sale ... I haven't time to tell you any
+more now." He was looking at his watch. "By Cli! I must get away to
+'Change. Where shall we meet afterwards?"
+
+"At the Club," said Carson briefly. "One sharp. My table is third on the
+left as you go in ... don't be late."
+
+They parted. Rosser for 'Change, and Carson to walk swiftly
+away down Commissioner Street towards Jeppestown, past the
+City-and-Suburban-Township-blocks, with the fine buildings that look so
+substantial and impressed every new-comer with the stability and
+security of life and fortune in the great mining centre. The place was
+teeming with life and apparent prosperity. But a grim smile hovered on
+Carson's lips. He knew, as well as Rosser, that things, so far from
+being secure and stable, were, under the corrupt Boer Government, rotten
+to the core, and could never be on a sound basis until England
+intervened. But this was '98, and the time was not yet.
+
+Punctually at one Rosser arrived at the Rand Club. Carson was deep in an
+_indaba_ with two men he knew well, and the talk was all of shares and
+money--big business had been done on 'Change. Rosser was cold-eyed and
+inaccessible until the other men went, then he brightened and told
+Carson what he had done.
+
+"I've sold everything on time!" he said. "Committed you--roughly--to ten
+thousand pounds of sales ... sixty days ... buyer's options."
+
+If Carson's spirit groaned, his face gave no sign; but the little broker
+was as sensitive as the market. He looked at the other keenly.
+
+"Don't do the business if you're afraid; I'm perfectly satisfied to go
+into it alone. Why! I'm so certain of the coming fall that I advise you
+to run a bear account up to fifty thousand pounds. Hell! Carson, what's
+come to you? I've never known you like this before."
+
+"I've got a touch of fever," said Carson irritably, but he did not
+specify the peculiar brand he was suffering from. He was ashamed of his
+funk--but the best of men get attacks of it in certain circumstances.
+
+"Well, if you'll make up your mind to stick to it for three months
+you'll make ten thousand pounds at least."
+
+"Three months!" It was Carson's turn to cry "Hell!" But presently he
+said firmly: "Go ahead, Rosser, and sell another ten thousand--buyer's
+options, this afternoon."
+
+"Right!" cried Rosser gaily, and with a heart at peace proceeded to
+acknowledge his friends at various tables, while Carson turned up the
+wine-list. They had been eating and drinking steadily through lunch.
+
+"Coffee, 1830 Brandy, and '94 Coronas," was Carson's order, and when the
+waiter had come and gone, Rosser sadly said, looking at his glass:
+
+"I wonder how long it will last!"
+
+"What, the market?" Once more the teeth of Carson's soul chattered.
+
+"No--Karri, you're all to bits--the brandy. There can't be much of it
+left. Now let's get to this South-Rand proposition. Look here--you know
+I'm a few pounds to the good ... and I'm really smitten with my bear
+scheme. If you're anxious about it, I'll stand in with you ... share and
+share. But only on the condition that you give me a share in your South
+Rand claims."
+
+"Let's hear the proposition," said Carson, beginning to take a more
+cheerful view of life through his smoke rings.
+
+"You have fifty claims? Wallerstein will give you one hundred pounds
+each for them; but they are worth five times that if the business is
+properly engineered. They're a long way from the out-crops, but the reef
+_must_ be found dipping through them, and the Big House _must_ have them
+to make up their area. Now what I propose is this: You leave the
+business to me. Value the claims say at two hundred pounds each, and
+give me half of what I can get over that."
+
+It did not take Carson very long to come to a conclusion. He knew he was
+dealing with one of the straightest men and best fellows in
+Johannesburg, and there was no faintest chance of his confidence being
+abused. He closed.
+
+"I'll have an agreement drawn up, relating to the claims, at once," said
+Rosser. "What about the bear scheme? Shall I stand in with you, or will
+you stand alone?"
+
+"I'll stand alone, thanks, old man." All Carson's careless nerve had
+come back to him, with the memory of a face fair to see. He knew, in
+spite of his words, that whatsoever fortune befell--poverty or
+riches--he would never again stand alone in the world.
+
+"Good, man!" cried Rosser. "I must scoot. I've two appointments before
+'Change this afternoon--so long!"
+
+Carson was left to his own many and various devices.
+
+The market rose steadily for a week. The air was full of good and gentle
+rumours. An Industrial Commission was to be appointed! The iniquitous
+Dynamite Monopoly was to be smashed! Native labour was to be guaranteed
+at lower wages! Everything in the garden was to be lovely! And everyone
+wore a brow unsullied by care! And bears were tumbling over each other
+in every direction to cover.
+
+Carson had some bad times with himself, but his under-lip never
+slackened. Rosser's grip on the market was firm and unhesitating. He
+sold heavily "to arrive."
+
+"I have never known anyone who made money--worth talking about--by
+buying and holding," was the creed he offered to Carson. And in this
+case he was right. Suddenly the reaction began. Shares fell with a bump,
+and kept steadily on the down-grade for months.
+
+At the end of the first month Carson's bear account closed with a
+handsome profit to himself of twelve thousand pounds.
+
+In the meantime, negotiations had been proceeding over the South Rands.
+The lifelessness of the market did not affect the fact that the "Big
+House" wanted Carson's claims, and was steadily working to get them by
+hook or by crook. But Carson and Rosser were both up to every hook and
+crook of the game. They held the cards and they knew it, and when four
+hundred pounds each was offered for the shares, they only sat and smiled
+like little benign gods. Further, Rosser airily informed Wallerstein,
+the representative of the "Big House," that he would not consider
+anything under one thousand pounds. However, in secret conclave, the two
+conspirators agreed to take eight hundred pounds apiece--not bad for
+claims that had cost Carson twenty pounds each at the sheriff's sale.
+Rosser was for holding out for a thousand, but Carson's time was running
+out, and his patience.
+
+"No: get a definite offer for eight hundred pounds, and close on it,"
+were his orders, and on that decision he rested, as much as a man _can_
+rest in Johannesburg, taking the days quietly and dining sanely at
+nights with old friends. But he got little joy of their society, for the
+reason that though he knew their lives and interests, they knew nothing
+of the most vital and important part of his. They had never seen those
+lilac-coloured eyes with the big, black velvet centres; they could know
+nothing of the sweet, wild strain on his heart. He felt like a man who
+stood on the walls of a citadel filled with treasure, parleying with
+friends and enemies alike, but allowing no one to enter.
+
+Suddenly he grew horribly lonely; the days dragged and the nights
+brought memories that set him in bodily torment.
+
+Fortunately at this juncture Forsyth, an old crony, carried him off to
+the Potchefstroom district for some veldt shooting. The air, the long
+tramps, and the joy of sport, filled in the days, and found him too
+tired at nights to do anything but fall log-like into the blankets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Poppy and Cinthie were sitting in the garden together under an
+orange-tree, which was set in the midst of the thick fence of
+Barbadoes-thorn. Poppy's muslin gown was of a colour that made her look
+like a freshly-plucked spray of lilac, and she wore a wide white hat,
+trimmed with convolvulus.
+
+Every ornament she possessed had been burnt except a jewelled pendant
+she always wore round her neck, and her big malachite brooch; but now on
+the third finger of her left hand she wore a ring--a great, gleaming
+emerald, which had arrived in a little box that morning from
+Johannesburg.
+
+She had seen Clem looking at it with wondering eyes, but as yet she had
+not been able to explain, for Clem that day was rather more especially
+busy than usual. During breakfast she had been flitting in and out
+constantly to her husband's bedroom. Portal had been suffering from a
+bad attack of slump fever, and instead of doing the "camel-trick," and
+feeding on his hump, he required a special _menu_ which kept the cook
+and his wife busy. He had been more or less confined to his room for
+three days. It is true that he made wonderful recoveries in the
+evenings, and rising up donned glad raiment and went to the Club to
+dine. But when the morning papers arrived he was worse than ever.
+
+The moment breakfast was over Clem had flown to prepare the drawing-room
+for a committee-meeting of ladies interested in the fate of fifty
+able-bodied domestics arriving by the following week's mail-boat.
+
+So Cinthie and Poppy had taken to the bush for shelter. For since
+Poppy's identity had become known, everyone was anxious to examine her
+closely, to see what colour her eyes were, whether her hair was real,
+and how she behaved generally in the strong light of notoriety which
+enveloped her. The feeling about her had entirely changed. People said
+they understood _now_ why she should be so strange-looking, and alone.
+She was a genius--the newspapers said so! And as such they opened their
+arms to her, and their doors, and bade her enter. But instead, she
+invariably fled with Cinthie into the bush.
+
+Cinthie was six now, and growing tall. Her brown holland overall was a
+mere frill about her neck, and looked anæmic beside the deeper colouring
+of her legs. Her sailor-hat hung at the back of her by its elastic, and
+in the corner of her mouth she thoughtfully sucked the end of one of the
+long streaks of hair. In her fingers she held a large and discoloured
+lump of dough, which she was kneading and pinching with the busy
+concentration of a beetle rolling a _mis bolitje_. Her nine dolls were
+seated, some against a flat rock, some against the tree, but all gazing
+stonily at their mother, except the banshee, who lay prone on her back,
+her arms extended as if to embrace the universe, her beady eyes fixed
+revengefully on Heaven.
+
+Poppy, sharing the trunk of the tree with the dolls, leaned lazily
+peeling an orange, which had kindly dropped from the branches above.
+Other oranges were lying about on the short grey-green grass.
+
+"What are you going to do with that dough, Cinthie?" she asked.
+
+"Make pudding."
+
+"Who for?"
+
+"For my chil'ren." She dipped her fingers into a doll's tea-cup full of
+water, which stood at the elbow of the banshee, and continued to knead;
+the dough now clung to her fingers in long, elastic threads, and her
+face showed a deep and vivid interest in her occupation.
+
+"Are these all the children you've got?"
+
+"No; _Minnie-Haha_ and _Danny Deever's_ inside. They been naughty.
+They's in bed."
+
+"What on earth did they do?"
+
+"Wouldn't say they prairses last night."
+
+"Oh, how naughty!"
+
+"Yes; I don't love them when they don't say prairses for their daddy."
+
+"Their daddy?"
+
+"Yes; he lives in England. He has been living in England for twenty
+years. They have never seen him."
+
+"Goodness!"
+
+"Yes; it's very sad." She wagged her head dolefully.
+
+Presently she unplucked the dough from her fingers and began to spread
+it out on the large, flat stone, patting it smooth with the palm of her
+hand. Thereafter, she made a pattern round its edges with a doll's fork,
+as she had seen cook do.
+
+"I wish I could make puddings like you," said Poppy, lying on her elbow
+and eating her orange.
+
+"I can make nicer ones'n this," said Cinthie boastfully. "I can make
+Best-pudding-of-all."
+
+"Oh, do tell me, Cinthie, so when I have nine children I can make it for
+them too."
+
+Cinthie looked at her dreamfully.
+
+"Perhaps you won't have any children," she said. "Perhaps you'll be a
+widow."
+
+"Oh, Cinthie, don't be unkind--of course, I shall have some! Go on now,
+tell me about the pudding."
+
+Cinthie rubbed her nose and reflected for a long time. At last,
+solemnly, with a long think between each sentence, she delivered the
+recipe.
+
+"Get some dough ... dip it in water for a minute or two ... get some
+pastry ... dip it into water twice ... roll it hard ... put it into the
+dish on top of everything--" Long pause.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Straighten the edges ..." (she carefully cut all round the dough on the
+stone with the handle of the fork); "bang it with your hand and it will
+come straight" (she banged the dough with the palm of her hand); "then
+spread a little water over it ... and there!" She sighed and took a
+fresh mouthful of hair.
+
+"Well, I shall just make a pudding like that," said Poppy determinedly.
+
+The gentle slurring of a silk petticoat was heard on the dry grass, and
+Mrs. Capron joined them, smiling mischievously.
+
+"The committee meeting is over," she said, "and Clem has gone to see
+Lady Mostyn off on _The Scot_ and taken Miss Allendner with her. She
+hopes she will be back for lunch, but is not sure; if not, we are to go
+on without her. She gave me leave to come and look for you two in the
+garden, so you can't very well kick me out, even if you don't want me.
+Hyacinthie, your nurse is walking about with two baked bananas smothered
+in cream, asking everyone if they've seen you."
+
+"Ooh!" Cinthie slashed the hair out of her mouth in anticipation of her
+favourite eleven-o'clock lunch. "Mind my babies!" she commanded Poppy
+with a menacing eye, and sped up the lawn, disappearing into the trees
+surrounding the house. The two women looked after her with entirely
+different emotions in their eyes. Mrs. Capron sighed.
+
+"Fleet of foot, but, alas! that one should have to say it of Clem's
+child--flat of foot also." She seated herself daintily upon the rock
+which had served for Cinthie's kitchen-table; her eyes fastened
+themselves upon the emerald ring. She had never seen a ring on Poppy's
+hand before.
+
+"Her feet are scarcely formed yet," said the latter; "and Clem has
+perhaps let her wear sandals too long."
+
+Mrs. Capron withdrew her fascinated eyes from the ring and shook her
+head sadly.
+
+"She will grow up ugly in every way; and it is just as well. If she had
+Clem's temperament and charm and Bill's beauty she might wreck the
+world."
+
+"Oh, no--only herself," said Poppy, with a tinge of bitterness. "The
+world goes gaily on, whatever befalls. But I don't agree with you at all
+about Cinthie's looks!"
+
+"Most people do. Someone was saying to me the other day--I forget
+who--Mr. Abinger, perhaps--that Cinthie looks like the incarnation of
+all the deviltries Clem and Bill have left undone, all the wickedness
+they have kept under."
+
+"Mr. Abinger is a better judge of deviltries than of good women," said
+Poppy drily.
+
+"He is a rip, of course. But, then, rips always unerringly recognise
+other rips," smiled Mary Capron, and Poppy smiled too, though she was
+not extremely amused.
+
+"Are you accusing Clem of being a rip?"
+
+"Of course not, though Bill is so charming he must have been one some
+time, don't you think?"
+
+"I think he is nearly nice enough to be Clem's husband," said Poppy
+curtly, "and too entirely nice for any other woman." It was an old
+suspicion of hers that Mary Capron was not as real as she pretended to
+be in her friendship for Clem.
+
+"You are a very loyal friend, Miss Chard; and I hope you don't think
+that I am _not_, just because I find it intensely interesting to talk
+about the people I care for?" Mrs. Capron spoke with a quiet sincerity
+that made Poppy feel ashamed of her thought, for, of course, most women
+do find it interesting to talk of people they care for. The best of
+friends do it. After all, Mrs. Capron had said nothing that a friend
+might not lightly say.
+
+"I would never talk about her to anyone but you," continued Mrs. Capron,
+"and I know that you love her as much as I do. But I see that you think
+I am wrong."
+
+"I think, Mrs. Capron, that one would be a stock or a stone to know
+Clem, and yet not be intensely interested in her husband, her child, and
+everything that concerns her," Poppy answered warmly. "I could sit all
+day and watch her face, wondering how she came to know so much about
+life without being old, or bitter, or uncharitable about anything in the
+world."
+
+"She will tell you that the deep lines she has on her face are only
+little mementos of Africa--that Africa always puts her marks on the
+faces of those who love her. But"--Mary Capron's voice was very gentle
+and sad--"I happen to know that she has been _pounded in the mortar_."
+
+Poppy sat silent, thinking how great must be a nature that could be
+pounded in the mortar of life, and come out with nothing but a few
+beautiful marks on the face. Further, her thought was that if Mary
+Capron knew Clem's sorrows, Clem must love her very much indeed, and she
+must be worthy of that love.
+
+She determined that she would never again allow herself to feel jealous
+of the bond of friendship existing between the two women. Mary Capron
+spoke again in a very low voice.
+
+"What I am terribly afraid is that her suffering is not over, but only
+beginning."
+
+Poppy stared at her startled, and saw that the beautiful brown eyes were
+filled with tears.
+
+"Sorrow has her elect!" said the girl gently. "Dear Mrs. Capron, do not
+let your sympathy for Clem beguile you into telling me anything that she
+would not wish me to know; I believe you have her confidence. I wish I
+had too. But I would rather not hear anything ... of her inward life ...
+from anyone but herself." Poppy began falteringly, but she ended firmly,
+for she was convinced that she was right. She had laid her whole life
+bare to Clem, and if Clem had wished to give her confidence in return,
+she had had endless opportunities to do so in their intimate talks. She
+felt that she was right in stopping Mrs. Capron from saying anything
+further. But already Mrs. Capron had gone further.
+
+"_Once_ I have seen her in the ashes of misery and despair. I would
+rather die than witness it again."
+
+Poppy sat up and rested her hand on those of the trembling, troubled
+woman before her.
+
+"Don't," she said soothingly; "don't fret--Clem is brave and strong
+enough to fight every imaginable trouble in the world; and _don't_ say
+anything more; I'm sure she would not wish it."
+
+"But I _must_ ... I must tell you.... She is going to suffer
+again--_terribly_ ... and I want to save her if I can, and I want you to
+save her."
+
+"Me!" faltered Poppy, listening in spite of herself. "What can I do?"
+
+Mary Capron's tears were falling thick and fast now.
+
+"Clem's sorrow is a terrible one," she said brokenly. "She loves a man
+with all the depth and passion her nature is capable of--and the man is
+not her husband."
+
+"Oh!" Poppy went white to the lips. She sat rigidly against the
+orange-tree and stared at the other woman. "Clem!... I'll never believe
+it ... _Clem!_" Afterwards she said burningly: "If it _could_ be true,
+how could you sit there and betray her?"
+
+Mary Capron's eyes flamed at her through the tears.
+
+"How dare you think I could do it idly?... You think no one feels love
+for her but yourself ... I hope you are prepared to show your love and
+prove it ... by saving her. If _I_ could do it, I would. Let me tell
+you, Rosalind Chard, that there is _nothing_ in this world that I would
+not give up for Clem, or do for her. And you? Can you say that too? Or
+is your love of the school-girl type--all marks of exclamation and
+admiration and--was it _condemnation_ that I heard in your voice?" She
+spoke scornfully, yet there was a wondrous, thrilling appeal in her
+words. "Would you condemn her, Rosalind? Do you know nothing of love,
+then? That it is always the best whom it attacks most violently--that no
+one can keep one's heart from straying ... that there are men in the
+world who when they call must always be answered ... whom no woman can
+fight successfully against...."
+
+But Poppy could only whisper to herself: "Clem! Is there _any man in the
+world_ who could beguile Clem from the straight, clear way on which her
+feet are set ... away ... to the deep pits whence comes the wailing
+of ... transgressors! Is there _any man_ ... in the world?..." Suddenly
+she sat up straight and rigid, and her head struck the trunk of the
+orange-tree. A look of terror was in her face. She knew the answer.
+_She knew what she was going to hear._
+
+What came dully to her ears was something she had long known--long,
+long.
+
+"--And when he went away to Borapota she was like a woman mad with
+grief ... I thought she would have died.... She besought me, _besought_
+me to go as far as I could with him ... Nick and I ... in case he should
+sicken and die of fever.... He did get fever again ... was terribly ill
+at Borwezi ... and always his one cry was for her.... Nick would tell
+you ... he too knows ... it was always _Loraine_...."
+
+"Ah!" The girl under the tree gave a cry and covered her smitten eyes
+with her hands.
+
+"Always it was _Loraine_. That was his secret name for her.... I never
+knew till after I came back that it really is her name ... I asked her
+one day ... she only said it was her name, but that she never let anyone
+use it ... _he_ used it though ... he ... _he loved her_... Miss Chard,
+I believe that he loves her still ... it is not possible that a man
+could cease to love a woman like Clem ... a girl's face might attract
+him ... and draw him for a while ... but _Clem_ ... a man would always
+come back to her ... she is the kind that men come back to ... are
+faithful to for ever.... Oh, child! I believe I have hurt you
+bitterly ... deeply to-day ... forgive me ... it is for _her_ sake ... I
+love her ... do _you_ love her ... enough to spare her?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Poppy's hands fell away from her eyes, which were dull now, like
+the eyes of a dead woman, she was alone in the garden. She sat on--all
+through the morning, far into the afternoon hours, and no one disturbed
+her.
+
+Indoors an odd thing had happened. The servants had laid lunch for five
+people, according to the after-breakfast instructions of their mistress.
+But of the five people who were to sit down in the dining-room not one
+appeared. Mrs. Portal had telephoned up from the Point that she and Miss
+Allendner could not be back in time, and so would lunch on the ship with
+Lady Mostyn. Nurse had received the message on the telephone, but there
+was no one in the house to deliver it to. Mrs. Capron had come to the
+nursery window and informed nurse (just free from beguiling Cinthie off
+to her mid-day _siesta_), that she felt faint and ill, and had decided
+to take a rickshaw home instead of remaining for lunch. Then, Mr.
+Portal, after sleeping badly all night and breakfasting in his room, had
+gone afterwards to lie in the garden, to see if he could sleep there.
+But when Sarah went to seek him he was nowhere to be found. His book was
+open on the grass, and the cushion he had taken for his head had a dent
+in it, showing that it had been used. Both were lying by the
+Barbadoes-hedge, under an orange-tree that grew in the middle of it, but
+Mr. Portal had gone. Nurse, however, believed that from the nursery
+window she had seen him walking out of the garden with his hat pulled
+right down over his eyes.
+
+"But then, again," she said to cook, "I really couldn't be sure, for he
+looked so strange, and walked so funny. If I didn't know that master
+doesn't drink, I should have said he'd had a drop too much. But there,
+he's not well--maybe, that's why he looked so queer!"
+
+As for Miss Chard, no one thought about her; the servants supposed that
+she had gone with Mrs. Portal to the Point. If Sarah had thought of
+looking over the Barbadoes-hedge just at the place where Mr. Portal had
+been lying, she would have seen Miss Chard sitting there, sometimes
+staring vacantly before her, sometimes holding her face against the
+orange-tree as though for comfort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+On their way home from the Point, Mrs. Portal and Miss Allendner looked
+in for a while at a friend's house on the Musgrave Road, where an "At
+Home" was in full swing.
+
+Everyone clustered about Clem with solicitous inquiries for the health
+of Miss Chard, and she found herself detained a good while longer than
+she had intended. When at last she reached home she was flushed with
+haste, for not only were there people coming to dine, but two women
+friends were arriving that night to stay for some days; and the margin
+of time she had allowed herself to dress, give a final survey to the
+bedrooms, inspect the _menu_, and attend to the table-flowers, was far
+from wide. Also, she had a longing for a few moments' gossip and rest in
+Poppy's room, for through the rush of small affairs she had been barely
+able to exchange a word with her friend all day.
+
+As soon as she entered the hall Sarah handed her a telegram, which she
+tore open and read immediately, supposing it to be from one of her
+expected guests. But as her eyes fell on the flimsy paper, both Sarah
+and the elderly spinster saw by the change that swept over her face that
+this must be something more serious than a guest's telegraphed regrets.
+A look of blank astonishment was followed by one of horror. Her lips
+went white and the deadly shade crept over her face, seeming to age it
+suddenly. Then, her dazed eyes perceived the two women looking
+anxiously at her. Instantly she controlled herself; gave an order to
+Sarah, asked Miss Allendner if she could possibly arrange the
+table-flowers for her as she didn't think she would have time to do it
+herself, and with apparent indifference took up and read the cards of
+some visitors who had called during the afternoon. She even called Sarah
+back and made some inquiries as to whether any of the visitors had asked
+to see Miss Chard.
+
+"They did so, ma'am. But I could not find Miss Chard anywhere, and I
+thought she was with you--afterwards she came in from the garden."
+
+"Very well, Sarah--give cook as much help as you can this evening."
+
+"Oh, _yes_, m'm."
+
+The maid went her ways, and Mrs. Portal to her room.
+
+When she had closed her door she stood still and re-read the telegram
+upon which her hand had retained a convulsive clutch. Afterwards, with a
+little groan, she dropped it and fell upon her knees by her bed.
+Kneeling there, her face buried in her hands, she after a while lost
+count of time, and did not hear a knock on her door.
+
+When the senses are dulled by suffering they play strange tricks on the
+poor human beings who depend on them. Poppy, who knocked, imagined that
+she distinctly heard a voice say:
+
+"Come in," and opening the door she softly entered.
+
+Clem sprang to her feet and turned her haggard face to the intruder,
+anger in her eyes; and Poppy, aghast and trembling, suddenly shrank
+back.
+
+"Oh, Clem!... I beg your pardon," she stammered. "I was so certain I
+heard you say 'Come in' ... I ... Oh, you _know_ I would not dream of
+intruding on you...." She was whiter even than when she entered; her
+lips were quivering so much she could hardily speak coherently.
+Unwittingly she had seen Clem kneeling there--abandoned to misery! And
+now she saw the tragic eyes that looked at her--and she knew what it all
+meant! _This_ was the first moment in the whole long day Clem had had to
+herself ... and she ... _she_ must needs intrude on the secret grief of
+the woman she loved _and had robbed_! She put out her hand with a
+gesture that implored forgiveness and told of love. Almost for the
+moment she forgot her misery in Clem's. But Clem had turned away and was
+standing at her dressing-table. Over her shoulder she said in a strained
+voice:
+
+"It doesn't matter ... I don't mind _you_ ... I have had some bad news.
+But don't ask me about it, dear. I can't speak of it--_even with you_!"
+
+Was this said in bitterest irony? Poppy wondered dully, and she did not
+know what she answered before she left the room, and that did not
+matter, for Clem Portal did not hear. They were two people walking in
+heavy darkness that cut them off from the voices of their fellows.
+
+Half an hour later the house rang with the laughter and merriment of the
+two new arrivals--old friends of the Portals--who had come down from
+Maritzburg to spend a few days and attend the Durban Club Ball, which
+was to take place the next night. In the drawing-room, before dinner was
+announced, Clem's laughter was the gayest of all; but to Poppy's ear
+there was a note in it like the clank of a broken bell. The
+Maritzburgers were two light-hearted, pretty women of the military set,
+whose husbands' regiments had so recently come from India that they were
+still keenly and sorely feeling the difference between Simla and the
+benighted capital of Natal. But their repinings were for the time
+forgotten in vivacious crowing over the fact that their husbands had
+been unable to accompany them at the last moment, so that there would
+now be nothing to prevent them from having a delightful fling and
+dancing their heels off at the coming ball.
+
+"Robbie is all very well up to supper-time," cried Mrs. Dorand to the
+world at large, "but after supper he gets sleepy, and I meet his sulky
+face at every corner imploring me to come home."
+
+"_Everybody_ knows how foolish Theodore is about my adoration for your
+Billy, Clem." The wife of Major Monk was a violet-eyed, jolly girl from
+the Curragh. "But _now_ I shall be able to dance with him
+uninterruptedly all night."
+
+"Indeed then you won't," said Clem, "for he's been called away on
+business quite suddenly, and I doubt if he'll be back in time for the
+ball--so we shall be a hen party."
+
+Amidst moans and expostulations she added: "But I daresay I can beat up
+a few wild-geese from somewhere. There are several coming to-night." She
+proceeded to recount the names and accomplishments of the men expected,
+and during the tale the rest of the party arrived and dinner was
+announced.
+
+Poppy found herself upon the arm of Luce Abinger.
+
+There were moments during the course of that dinner when she believed
+herself to be on the point of going mad; when the lights and the jewels
+and the wine and the faces were all hideously mixed, and she could have
+shrieked like a banshee at the two merry Maritzburg women, and fled from
+the table and the house. But always she was recalled to herself by just
+glancing to the head of the table where Clem Portal sat, the wittiest
+and most charming of hostesses, with two badly-painted streaks of red in
+her cheeks, and flaming lips which gradually lost their colouring and
+looked oddly at variance with the rest of the "make up" by the end of
+the dinner. Even bad dreams come to an end some time.
+
+If there were two things in Poppy's world impossible to associate with
+peace and gratitude, they were assuredly the darkness of a garden and
+the exclusive society of Luce Abinger. Yet she found herself during a
+part of that nightmare-evening looking upon these things as blessings
+for which to be distinctly thankful to Heaven.
+
+Two other people were sauntering afar, and in the drawing-room a
+quartette had settled down to Bridge, with Miss Allendner at the piano
+playing the stilted _polonaises_ and polkas of her vanished youth.
+
+Abinger and Poppy talked together in a friendly, natural fashion that
+they had never known before. He congratulated her about her work, said
+how much he had enjoyed reading her last book, and asked her if she had
+sold the African rights of her plays, as they were sure to bring in a
+large sum. She told him she had long ago sold all rights and spent the
+money; that, indeed, she had spent most of her money, and must begin to
+think about earning more at once. He knew, of course, about her loss of
+all the work she had recently done. Suddenly the recollection swept over
+her that it was to fight him that she wanted the money. She stood still
+in their idle sauntering, and faced him. All the terror and misery of
+the past, that he indirectly had been the cause of, came back. Yet she
+could not hate him when she saw his haggard, distorted face. And how ill
+he looked! For a moment she forgot her wrongs, in womanly pity.
+
+"You look ill, Luce," she said kindly.
+
+"I am ill; I am a starving man." He came near her and looked at her.
+"You and I are both starving--for something we can't have. I have never
+been able to discover what it is you want--or, to be more precise,
+_who_--but you know very well who it is, and what, that I want."
+
+She drew back from the look in his eyes. His tone changed instantly; he
+looked and spoke idly.
+
+"Well--my offer holds good at any time."
+
+"Your offer?"
+
+"Yes ... don't forget it ... I know that the mere fact of money is
+nothing to you ... but you're not happy. If you like work and fame,
+well--you don't look like a girl who does, that's all!"
+
+They were walking now over the dew-spangled lawn, and she was wondering
+what he meant. Suddenly he stood still and began to stammer at her
+incoherently.
+
+"When I told you the truth in that letter, I did not do it in the spirit
+that a man throws up the sponge--don't think that! I did it," he
+continued hoarsely, "to be fair and square with you for once. To begin
+again with the way clear before us--if you will. It was a rather fine
+thing to do, I thought," his tone changed to the old, sneering one; "but
+like all the fine things I've ever done it ended in repentance. I know
+now that I was a fool to tell you."
+
+"What are you talking about, Luce?" she wonderingly asked. Then for the
+first time since she had locked her studio door on it she remembered his
+unread letter. "Is it something you told me in the letter you sent to
+the cottage?--I never read it. It was burned unopened the night of the
+fire."
+
+A change came over his face. His scar seemed to twitch and gleam
+spasmodically in the moonlight. There was a silence. Then very softly he
+began to laugh, looking at her intently and feeling in all his pockets.
+
+"What was in the letter, Luce?" she said beguilingly. She knew now that
+it was something she ought to know. But he only went on laughing softly.
+She tried to recall and understand the words he had been saying, but she
+could not.
+
+He thought of all the furious rage and contempt he had expended on
+himself within the last few weeks while he waited and waited for some
+word of thanks from her for the fine generous thing he had done in
+telling her the truth at last--that she was not his wife at all; that
+Carmen Braganza, the beautiful Spanish dancer, whom he had secretly
+married in Johannesburg, was still living at the time of the ceremony
+between himself and Poppy----
+
+And she had never read the letter! All was as before!
+
+She did not know, and there was still a fighting chance that, wearied
+out with the strife and siege, she would turn and surrender.
+
+Then he would say:
+
+"Yes--but we will not take the world into our confidence about the
+little ceremony in the White Farm. We'll go and be married publicly."
+
+Thinking of these things, what could he do but look at her and softly
+laugh?
+
+As for her, sick at heart, hopeless, remembering her misery, she turned
+away and set her desolate face towards the house, where a woman whom she
+loved well wore two little painted flames in her cheeks.
+
+                 "What need to strive, with a life awry?"
+
+Life was awry with everyone it seemed! What did it matter what Luce
+Abinger had to say?
+
+She had no fight left in her. Her feet, as she walked up the sloping
+lawn, seemed too heavy to lift--they caught in the grass as she stumbled
+wearily towards the house, Abinger following.
+
+"Good-night, Luce," she said lifelessly as they reached the verandah.
+She felt no anger towards him now. She let him take her hand and she
+listened without resentment to his whispered words.
+
+"When are you coming back to your home and your husband, Poppy?"
+
+Indoors, the card-party had broken up. The travellers were tired, and
+Clem was for hunting them to bed. The men made farewells and went,
+Abinger with them, and Clem and Miss Allendner hustled away to the rooms
+of the guests. Poppy took the opportunity of slipping into the narrow
+little writing-room, which opened off the hall and was meant for
+common-use. She wished to write out a telegram, and she knew there were
+forms to be found there. Sitting down to the desk she found the stack of
+forms and began to write on the top one. But someone had been using it
+before her, and with a violent hand and stubby pencil had left an entire
+message deeply indented on the form beneath the one that had been used
+and torn off. With the first word Poppy wrote the ink flowed from her
+full pen into the rutted words, outlining a part of the message, and she
+read all then as dully and unthinkingly as she had done everything else
+that evening.
+
+  "_Come back to me. You have never been out of my heart for a moment
+  since first I loved you.--Loraine._"
+
+The address was a code word, care of the Rand Club, and the words were
+in Clem's writing. It was the last link in the chain. If Poppy had had
+any lingering, hoping doubt in her mind, it fled now. She forgot the
+words she had meant to write, and then she told herself they didn't
+matter in any case. Vaguely she remembered to tear the form off and
+destroy it; then rose from the desk and walked rather blindly to the
+door and out into the lighted hall. Clem was waiting there to bid her
+good-night.
+
+The red had faded from her cheeks now, or else the light was kinder, and
+her eyes looked big and dim. She put out her hands, took Poppy's, and
+gave them a little, gentle squeeze, and she smiled her own brave
+turned-up-at-the-corners smile.
+
+"Life is a curious thing, Poppy," she said gently. "It is hard to tell
+which is dream and which is real. Sometimes I don't think any of it is
+real at all. Good-night dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+After a week or so at Potchefstroom, Carson returned to Johannesburg, to
+find Rosser beating the town for him, crazy with impatience. Wallerstein
+had offered seven hundred pounds apiece for the South Rands, but Rosser
+had not closed; he considered it madness not to stand out for eight
+hundred.
+
+"It'll only be a matter of a week or two," said he. But Carson gloomed
+and cursed. It maddened him to find the thing still unsettled, for he
+had made up his mind not to return to Durban until he knew definitely
+whether he had poverty or wealth--both comparative, of course--to offer
+to the woman of his heart. However, as he had stayed so long already, a
+few days more could not make much difference, he argued lifelessly with
+himself, so he gave a grudging half-assent to Rosser and went his ways.
+He still had several minor affairs to attend to, and various people to
+see, but he did all half-heartedly. Choosing and despatching a ring to
+Poppy was the only thing that gave him any joy, and that was too
+poignant for pleasure. Then, suddenly, in one day he grew restless and
+haggard. Hunger was on him for the sight of a face, and at last he knew
+he could wait no longer, but must go. The decision came upon him
+suddenly in the Club with the sight and scent of a gardenia Forsyth was
+wearing in his coat at lunch-time. Now, between the scent of a gardenia
+and the scent of Barbadoes-thorn there is scarcely any difference at
+all, except that the gardenia's fragrance is perhaps more subtly
+insistent. Carson spun out of the Club into a cab and in fifteen minutes
+was in his broker's office.
+
+"Close for seven hundred pounds each, Rosser," he said briskly. "And get
+the whole thing fixed up as soon as possible. I'm leaving to-night."
+
+"Oh, but I've already closed for eight hundred pounds each," chirruped
+the elated Rosser. "The transfer is completed and the money paid in." He
+pranced into an inner office and produced voluminous documents. "Loot,
+my son! Loot from the house of Rimmon! I take my little fifteen thousand
+pounds and you take twenty-five thousand. Isn't _that_ all right? _Now_
+will you be good!"
+
+An hour later Carson regained his cab and was driven to his rooms. A
+portmanteau at _Vetta's_ head was a sufficient indication of his
+intentions, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in settling up his
+remaining business matters and appointments by telegram and telephone.
+Then he dined, and caught the eight o'clock express by one minute and a
+half. _Vetta_, who was on the look-out for him, indicated an empty
+first-class, and Carson fell into it and slept like the dead until
+morning.
+
+Those were the days when the run between Johannesburg and Durban
+occupied the better part of twenty-seven hours. The first stop of any
+importance was at Volksrust, the boundary town, and Carson roused
+himself to take a look at country he knew well, and was not likely to
+see again for many years. It was as early as five A.M., and a wet salt
+mist lay over everything, chilling him to the bone as he opened his
+window and looked out at the bleak Drakensberg looming through the haze,
+and tragic Majuba, which throws a shadow athwart every brave man's path
+as he passes. Later, the train dashed through the Laing's Nek tunnel,
+and as it descended the sloping spur of the range, Natal lay before
+Carson's eyes--all beautiful green valleys and running water: the land
+of his desire. The mist had cleared from the air, but it still seemed
+to obscure Carson's vision as he looked, and he passed Ingogo, and Mount
+Prospect, with ill-fated Colley's monument, unknowingly. Only the far
+blue haze that meant the coast lured his eyes, for there for him lay
+heart's content.
+
+Presently, at Newcastle, came the faithful _Vetta_ with tidings of
+breakfast; and Carson scrambled amongst a weary, sleepy crowd, in which
+he recognised no face, for sandwiches and vile coffee flung at him, half
+in cup and half in saucer. When he had breakfasted in this fashion,
+taken a leisurely stroll, glanced in all the carriages to see if there
+could possibly be any passengers he knew, inspected the accommodation of
+_Vetta_, and inquired into the matter of the latter's breakfast, he
+returned to his carriage. There was still a residue of sixteen hours to
+get through before the journey ended. Having no reading-matter with him,
+he thought at first to kill time with pleasant thoughts of a woman in a
+garden, but it was presently borne in upon him that his consciousness,
+or conscience, or memory, or whatever he may have cared to call it, had
+another and less agreeable affair to consider with him. Something
+within, that he would fain have cursed into silence, earnestly solicited
+his attention to the fact that the train which was crawling with him to
+the woman he loved, was at the same time tearing with most indecent
+haste towards one whom he had never loved, and the hour in which he must
+tell her so. Presently the thought of that hour lashed him, cut him with
+knives, turned him sick.
+
+In time, he stared at the wild and rugged outline of the Biggarsberg,
+until it seemed blurred with a red haze; and as the flat and dreary land
+of stunted bush that lies between Elandslaagte and Howick unrolled
+itself monotonously before his window, rocks appeared to grin and gibe
+at him, and isolated trees menaced him with gnarled arms, even as in
+Wiertzs's picture Napoleon is menaced by the arms of women.
+
+As the hours passed his eyes grew bloodshot and his throat dry. His
+mouth sneered with self-contempt; unconsciously his lips opened and
+closed, and he swallowed with the expression of a man who is tasting the
+bitterness of death. But through all, his heart held steadfast to one
+plan--the man's plan, the old plan that was in the beginning and shall
+be till the end.
+
+Later, he lay on the seat of the carriage, his face to the wall, his
+eyes closed, his hands clenched--thinking, thinking. He would remember
+Poppy's shut eyes as he kissed her under the flamboyant tree; how her
+throat shone in the darkness. Then a voice, _not hers_, would break in
+upon him, crying:
+
+"Evelyn, I love you. For your sake men may brand me--swear you will
+never forsake me for another woman!"
+
+Did he ever swear? Was that his voice he seemed to hear?--tender,
+fervent--swearing by her face, by his life, by----
+
+"Oh, Lord God! what a blackguard!" he groaned aloud.
+
+But his heart held steadfast to his plan.
+
+When at last evening fell, the train reached Maritzburg, and the
+passengers poured out into the station dining-room. Carson,
+haggard-eyed, found the bar, and drank three brandies atop of each
+other. He was on the point of ordering a fourth when a Maritzburg
+acquaintance stepped in and saved him the trouble--slapping him on the
+shoulder, and claiming his attention with a little scheme, which he said
+Bramham was standing in with. It was something about coal, but Carson
+never afterwards remembered details, though he listened very politely
+and intently to every word, for it was good to be spoken to by a decent
+man as if he were another decent man, after those years of degradation
+in the train.
+
+The four brandies might have been poured over a rock for all the effect
+he felt of them; but when the starting bell rang, he made his way back
+to the train through the hustling crowd with a calmer mien, and leaning
+from the window, wrung his acquaintance's hand with unassumed warmth.
+Ever afterwards he felt real friendship for that Maritzburg man.
+
+To his surprise, he found that he now had a fellow-passenger, a lady.
+Her figure seemed vaguely familiar as she stood packing her things into
+the rack, and when she turned round he wondered where in the world
+before he had met the unabashed gaze of those large brown eyes beneath a
+massed fringe of dusty, crispy hair. She, on her part, was regarding him
+with the pleased smile of an old acquaintance.
+
+"Sir Evelyn Carson! How funny!" she said, and smiled winningly. Carson
+bowed, and his smile was ready and courteous, for, in truth, he was glad
+not to be alone; but he continued to greatly wonder.
+
+"I believe you don't remember me!" said she archly. "How unkind! And
+I've so often bowed to Mr. Bramham when you've been with him in the old
+days. And you've been to Brookie's office, too, when I was his
+seckertary."
+
+At last Carson was enlightened. He was, in fact, in the pleasant company
+of Miss Sophie Cornell.
+
+"Ah! yes, of course--I remember quite well," said he. Indeed, if she
+could but have known it, he remembered a good deal more than was
+flattering, for Bram's tale of highway-robbery was still clear in his
+mind. She had changed a good deal since then: grown coarser and more
+florid--and there were other things--! When a woman has flung her kisses
+to the world as generously as summer flings daisies in a green meadow,
+the tale of them is marked upon her face for all who run to read.
+However, her dress was black, and so extremely neat that it was a pity
+she should have spoiled its effectiveness by wearing a pair of yellow
+_suède_ evening shoes.
+
+Carson was not surprised when she informed him that she had left the
+uninteresting field of typewriting, to adorn a profession where beauty
+and wit are more readily recognised and liberally remunerated.
+
+"I am in an _awfully_ nice bar in Maritzburg," she told him
+languorously. "Come in and have a drink next time you are there--'The
+Falcon.' All my friends were _awfully_ annoyed with me for leaving
+_literary_ work, but really it was _so_ dull--and, of course, it's a
+great mistake to think one can't stay _a lady_, whatever one does; don't
+you think so, Sir Evelyn, eh?"
+
+"Certainly!" he gravely agreed.
+
+"I am treated as _quite_ the lady by all the smartest men in the town,
+and there's a great difference between that and being bullied from
+morning to night by a little bounder like Brookie, you know. Not that he
+didn't have his good points. But still, the way he treated me in the end
+was perfectly _frot_[6], and there's no other word for it. In fact,
+everybody did. Charlie Bramham, now, always said he'd be my friend, but
+as soon as it suited him, he just scooted off and never came near me
+again ... after persuading me in the first place to come to Durban to
+work for him."
+
+  [6] Rotten.
+
+"Oh! Bramham's a good fellow," said Carson, smiling at this new version
+of a tale of highway-robbery. "I don't think he could have behaved very
+badly."
+
+"Good fellows and bad fellows are all just the same when they're tired
+of you," said Miss Cornell feelingly; adding, with great hauteur: "Not
+that I ever allowed any man to get tired of _me_, Sir Evelyn, I assure
+you. There's not a single fellow in Africa can say a _thing_ about me."
+
+This was very impressive, but Carson did not exactly know what it might
+mean. He only knew that he was growing a little weary.
+
+"And then there was a girl that I befriended. I took her in when she
+came to my house without a rag to her back, or a shoe to her foot, one
+night--fed her, clothed her, and treated her like my own sister--or
+would have done if she hadn't been such a cold-blooded, standoffish
+_slang_.[7] Yet I can assure _you_, Sir Evelyn, that when I was on the
+Durban Race-course three weeks ago, with two _perfect gentlemen_ from
+the Rand, she sat quite close to me in a carriage with that Mrs. Portal,
+and though I smiled and bowed to her _twice_, she deliberately looked
+right through me.... I might have been a bit of rubbish lying in the
+street...."
+
+  [7] Snake.
+
+Something in this narrative dimly, though unpleasantly, interested
+Carson. He forgot his weariness for the moment and looked at the woman
+intently.
+
+"Yes ... what do you think of that? Deliberately _cut_ me ... me who had
+been her friend in need. I supposed it was because she had managed to
+get taken up by a big-pot like Mrs. Portal.... I said so to one of my
+friends--such a nice boy--you may know him--Wolfie Isaacs, of the firm
+of Isaacs and Jacobs. But after he'd been away talking to some other
+men, he came back and told me that _she_ was the great authoress who
+wrote all the cracked books and poems about Africa, and that everyone
+was raving about her. He said I must have made a mistake when I thought
+I knew her! What do you think of _that_? The girl I had taken in without
+any shoes to her feet!... and, oh my! couldn't I tell a tale to her
+swell friend Mrs. Portal if I--" Something in the steely expression of
+the face opposite suddenly arrested her flow of eloquence.
+
+"Do you mind telling me whom you are talking about?" said Carson
+quietly.
+
+"Certainly--I'm delighted to. It is only fair that everybody should know
+what a _slang_ that girl is, to cut _me_ like that, who had taken her in
+without asking a single question about where she came from.... Och! but
+I can tell you I found out afterwards, Sir Evelyn ... she's as bad as
+she can be, that Rosalind Chard----"
+
+Carson's tanned skin had turned an ashy-yellow shade, which was neither
+becoming nor artistic.
+
+"Woman--" he said in a low, hoarse voice, scarcely audible; but his eyes
+said a great deal more than his lips; and Miss Cornell, at first
+surprised, became angrily red.
+
+"Och! don't you _woman_ me!" she cried, bridling. "So _you're_ a friend
+of hers, too, I suppose! She's got very grand all at once!... but I
+wonder if she told you she used to be constantly in a house on the Berea
+with Luce Abinger. That it was from _his_ house she came that night I
+took her in! My _boy_ Zambani saw her come through the gap in the hedge
+that led from Abinger's garden. Ha! ha! and she pretending to be such a
+saint all the time! Ask Mr. Bramham! He knows all about it."
+
+Carson took it like a blow between the eyes. If he had not been sitting,
+he would have reeled. As it was, he leaned against the back of the seat
+and closed his eyes for a moment, though the lids scorched like flame.
+But the woman mistook his attitude for calm unbelief. She thought he
+shut his eyes because he was pretending to be bored, and she was
+furious.
+
+"And she pretending to be such a saint all the time," she repeated. "A
+saint in the company of Luce Abinger!" she laughed coarsely.
+
+Carson's eyes were still closed. He was considering--as well as fury,
+and surprise, and misery, and four neat brandies become suddenly potent
+would let him.
+
+Would this woman dare bade up her vile statement with Bramham's name,
+unless--?... but there must be some explanation. She and Abinger! Oh,
+God! _no!_ Bram could explain ... she could explain ... if she could
+not, he would kill her ... he would take her by that long, fair
+throat----
+
+At that the coldness and calmness of moonlight fell upon him like a
+pall; his brain cleared; he reflected on the inflamed, furious face
+opposite him, surveying it deliberately, insultingly, with stony,
+arrogant eyes. Slowly his handsome lips took on a curve of incomparable
+insolence and contempt--a look no woman could ever forgive. In that
+moment Sophie Cornell knew what she was. The colour left her face, and
+her lips and tongue went dry; She had no words.
+
+His voice was almost gentle.
+
+"It would be scarcely fair to expect a woman of your" (he paused)
+"_inducements_--to understand that Miss Chard's reasons for----"
+
+"No," she sneered, hissing like a cobra. "No--of course not--a _saint_
+like that! But I know well enough what sort of a man Luce Abinger
+is--and so do you. His name isn't spelt L-o-o-s-e for nothing."
+
+That arrow quivered in Carson, but he gave no sign, going on
+deliberately:
+
+"--For knowing Mr. Abinger might be different to your reasons--or shall
+we say inducements?"
+
+She hated him with her eyes.
+
+"You would scarcely credit, perhaps, but there _are_ other things of
+interest in the world besides--inducements. And that the side of Mr.
+Abinger's character which appears to be so well known to you, is one
+that he reserves specially for ladies of your--distractions."
+
+He smiled and added:
+
+"I'm afraid you hardly realise how distracting you are. Here am I, for
+instance, with a number of pressing matters waiting for my
+attention"--he put his hand into the breastpocket of his coat and
+brought out a bundle of letters and papers--"neglecting them to indulge
+in a fascinated contemplation of you. But if you will be good enough to
+release me----"
+
+Miss Cornell damped her lips with her tongue.
+
+"I hate Rosalind Chard," she said hoarsely, "but I am sorry for her, all
+the same, if she gets you. I think you are the worst devil I've ever met
+in my life. Talk about the three bad men! Abinger and Charlie Bramham
+are angels compared to you."
+
+"I will let 'Charlie' know of your favourable opinion of him--he will be
+flattered. Pray excuse me!" He looked apologetically at the papers in
+his hand.
+
+"Oh! go to hell!" she screamed. Carson bowed, and with that insolent
+smile still lingering on his lips, gave his attention to his letters.
+
+At Inchanga he stepped out of the carriage and looked about him with
+careless interest, lighted a cigarette, and presently lounged down the
+platform. Incidentally he went into the telegraph-office and sent off a
+wire, requesting Bramham to meet him at the station or be at home
+waiting for him. When he came out of the little office he was still
+smoking placidly, but the writing on the telegraph-form resembled the
+writing of a drunken or palsied man.
+
+On his return to the carriage he found that Miss Cornell had been good
+enough to remove her distracting presence to some other part of the
+train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+It was the night of the Club ball, the first and chief event of the
+Durban season, and all the fashionable world was busily pranking itself
+for the occasion.
+
+Bramham had dressed early, for he had been elected by Mrs. Portal to be
+one of the wild-geese who were to escort her house-party to the Town
+Hall. Just as he was choosing some cigars for the night at the
+dining-room table, Carson's telegram arrived. He whistled, meditating
+upon it for a while.
+
+"Well, this Carson!" he called out to Abinger, who was in a neighbouring
+room, also arraying himself for the festival. "Wants me to meet him at
+the station, I thank you!"
+
+"Meet him! What for? He ought to get a maid!"
+
+"Well, I can't do it, anyway," said Bramham, and sitting down, hastily
+scribbled a note, saying that he could not possibly wait on account of
+his engagement with Mrs. Portal, but suggesting that Carson, on arrival,
+should dress and come down to the Town Hall. He left this note on the
+table, with instructions to the _boys_ to see that Carson got it as soon
+as he arrived; then jumping into his carriage, he set off for the
+Portals' house.
+
+On his way up he had an impulse to call at the Caprons', to see what
+arrangements Mrs. Capron had made for going to the ball. He was aware
+that Nick had been away for a week, and was not in the way of returning
+yet a while. A man called Lessing had pitched a camp out beyond Inanda,
+to try some experiments in coursing with six pedigree dogs he had
+imported from home, and several other men had joined him, to see the
+sport and incidentally get a little late fishing. Bramham had received a
+note from Lessing that morning, asking him to come out for a few days
+before they broke camp, and mentioning that he should not be in for the
+ball, because Capron, having put in a week's steady drinking without
+anyone particularly noticing the fact, was now in the uproarious stage
+and couldn't possibly be left. Whether Mrs. Capron was aware of the
+state of affairs Bramham did not know, but he thought that a friendly
+thing to do would be to find out if she had arranged for an escort, and,
+if not, to offer to call for her with Mrs. Portal's party.
+
+At the sound of the carriage she came out into her verandah, looking
+supremely lovely, as white-skinned, red-haired women have a way of doing
+in a black setting.
+
+"I thought I'd just look in to make sure that you were coming, Mrs.
+Capron," said Bram, his eyes shining with the delight and excitement he
+always felt at the sight of a pretty woman.
+
+"Yes, I'm coming, though Nick isn't," she said gaily. "He is out at
+George Lessing's encampment, you know. I've lent my carriage to Mrs.
+Portal for some of her party, but Mrs. Lace is going to call for me--she
+will be here any moment now."
+
+"Good! I heard that Nick was still away, and thought I might be of some
+use. When do you expect him back?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she said carelessly. "I haven't heard from him for
+several days. I expect he'll stay until Mr. Lessing breaks up his camp."
+
+"Well, I must bustle on. I'm afraid I'm late, as it is ... but that's
+Carson's fault with his telegrams--" He was off towards the gate.
+
+"Is he back, then?" called Mrs. Capron after him.
+
+"No, coming back to-night--should be in by eleven," said Bram, getting
+into his carriage.
+
+At the Portals' he found that some of the party had already gone. Mrs.
+Portal was not quite ready, but Miss Chard was in the drawing-room. She
+was resting in a big chintz chair, with her white chiffon skirts foaming
+all round her, and her hands holding a great bunch of shining orange
+leaves that gave out a faint, crushed scent. She had them held to her
+face when Bramham came in, and her eyes were closed. She looked like a
+woman praying. At the sound of him she started up, and the leaves
+dropped rustling to the floor.
+
+"Oh!" she cried in a wild, odd voice that Bramham did not recognise. He
+looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Did I startle you? I'm sorry!"
+
+"No--oh no ... not at all ... only I thought--" She regained her
+composure rapidly and sat down again, arranging her draperies.
+
+"I believe I must have been asleep, and you woke me up," she smiled. Her
+face was as white as her gown, but her eyes were dark and dilated, as if
+she were under the influence of a drug. Bramham thought she looked like
+death, until she smiled, and then he decided that he had never seen her
+more alluring.
+
+"Unlucky man! you will have to ferry three of us down!" she said. "Mrs.
+Portal is insisting on Miss Allendner coming too. The poor soul has been
+so depressed ever since the fire----"
+
+"Good," said Bramham. "The carriage will hold a quartette easily, but if
+you want more room for your skirts, I'll sit up aloft."
+
+"Not at all. You will come in with us or I shall sit up aloft too."
+
+They laughed, and he asked if he might secure a dance or two from her
+now.
+
+"I know it's no use asking for the first waltz," he ventured.
+
+"Oh, yes ... you can have it, if you like."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Yes, really--and whichever others you like." Bramham seized her card
+blithely.
+
+"Now this comes of getting ahead of pirates like Abinger and Carson----"
+
+"But ... _he_ ... has not returned?" she asked quickly. It occurred to
+Bramham to be wily in the interest of his dances. Carson is big enough
+and ugly enough to look after himself, was his thought.
+
+"No ... not yet. But he _might_ run in, mightn't he? You're not thinking
+of going back on me, are you?"
+
+"Of course not!" She turned away.
+
+He dotted his initials thickly on her card, for he had discovered at a
+little informal affair that she danced delightfully. When he gave it
+back, her hands were trembling violently. Even the mention of Carson's
+return had power to shake her whole being.
+
+Mrs. Portal came in, looking thin and worn, but with her little gay air
+that carried everything along and made people forget to observe that her
+eyes were ringed, and her cheeks drawn, or what colour she was dressed
+in. Laughing and apologising, she implored Poppy to give a glance at the
+back of her gown to see if it was all right.
+
+"Really, I believe I laced it with my toes," she said. "My hands haven't
+had a moment since daybreak.... Come along, or we shall be late, and
+have to sit glued to the wall all night.... Miss Allendner, you simply
+take the shine out of us all in that gown ... you are _all_ shine ... I
+never saw any one so shamefully magnificent.... Come along, good
+peoples." She pushed the pleased old soul gently out of the room before
+her, and Bramham and Poppy followed. Miss Allendner was, indeed, at her
+best in a shining sequined gown, which Mrs. Portal had been at some
+pains to reconstruct and bring up-to-date.
+
+Eventually they set off--Poppy still carrying her bunch of orange
+leaves, faintly scenting the carriage. Sometimes when the others were
+absorbed in talk, she secretly pressed them against her heart. She felt
+as though she had gone back again to the days of her childhood, when
+misery claimed her, and there was no hope of comfort, or strength, or
+kindness, from anything but trees and green leaves. She was glad that
+she wore her mother's old green brooch and that there were great pieces
+of green malachite in the high Empire comb she had stuck in her piled-up
+crown of black, black hair; she needed all the strength that green
+things could give her to-night.
+
+One of the first people they saw on entering was Mary Capron, standing
+in the centre of the ball-room, a little crowd of people about her,
+supremely beautiful in black lace and diamonds. She came over to them at
+once with a little loving pat of welcome for Clem and a brilliant smile
+for the others. She half extended her hand to Poppy, in friendliness;
+but Poppy turned away from her. She could not welcome the touch of a
+hand that had smitten happiness out of her life. They all moved down the
+big ball-room together. There were little groups everywhere of laughing
+men and women, and the seats that ran all round the room were all
+occupied. The bandsmen up on the stage, massed with palms and flags and
+greenery, were making quivery-quavery sounds on their instruments.
+
+Other women came up and greeted them.
+
+"What a crush!... we shall have the gowns torn off our backs when the
+dancing begins ... don't you think it was a mistake to have the ball so
+early?... so hot still!"
+
+Behind her Poppy heard one of the Maritzburg women say to the other in a
+low voice:
+
+"Clem's got paint on again.... She never used to do it ... I wonder if
+Bill has been badly hit in the slump? There's _something_ wrong!"
+
+"I hear that Nick came in from the camp at the last moment. Do you think
+it could possibly be true, Clem?" said Mrs. Capron.
+
+"That depends on who told you."
+
+"Young Head. He said he heard someone say that Nick and your Billy were
+both at the Club. Perhaps they are going to surprise us by appearing."
+Mrs. Capron's voice did not express much enthusiasm. Clem's eyes flashed
+like lightning round the room, in search of young Head, and she saw him
+immediately, busily collecting dances. She had an inclination to rush
+straight over to him, but she curbed it. Another inclination that almost
+overwhelmed her was to fly from the hall, and take a rickshaw to the
+Club; but she curbed that too, though to do so cost an effort that threw
+up her rouge-spots more clearly by reason of the increased pallor of her
+cheeks. She continued to talk easily.
+
+"How did you get here, Mary?"
+
+"I drove down with Mrs. Lace. How do I look, darling? This is my
+_Machinka_ gown ... you haven't seen it before, have you?"
+
+"Perfect, dear. I never saw you look more beautiful.... Isn't Poppy
+wonderful to-night, too? ... she looks like a woman who has stepped out
+of a dream ... no wonder the men crowd round her. If I could only catch
+her eye, we'd move on."
+
+When Poppy's card was all but full, a voice said at her elbow:
+
+"Don't forget _me_." Nothing could have looked more out of place in that
+gay ball-room than Abinger's scarred, sardonic face. But he stood there,
+cool and irreproachably dressed.
+
+"I'm sorry. I'm afraid there are none left."
+
+"I am unfortunate." He shrugged and turned away, and Poppy, looking
+round for the others, caught Clem Portal's face with the mask off for
+one moment. With that sight her faltering, fainting purpose changed to
+firm resolution. Softly she called after Abinger, but when he reached
+her again she seemed breathless.
+
+"I have a dance ... number five--" She held out her card, and while he
+wrote upon it she spoke again, swiftly and low. The preliminary soft
+bars of the first waltz were already floating down the room.
+
+"Will you please be where I can see you--and reach you _instantly_ ...
+if I should want you?"
+
+A slight, bitter smile came to his lips.
+
+"Certainly! The middle of the room would be a good place, I should say."
+
+Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. Then a subtle, alluring look
+crossed her face, for all her lips were the lips of a ghost. She half
+whispered to him:
+
+"Do you want me--_Luce_?"
+
+Her eyes looked into his for one short instant before she veiled them
+quickly, and her heart seemed to turn over within her, for desire
+stalked, naked and unashamed, in the eyes of Luce Abinger.
+
+"Do I want you. By God!" he said, under his breath.
+
+"Well--to-night--I think I may come--_home_," she faltered; then without
+another word or look she turned away, and took Bramham's arm for the
+first waltz.
+
+Abinger did not approach her again; neither did he dance. He lounged
+conspicuously in a doorway, and if anyone spoke to him, he snarled at
+them and they went hastily away. When the fifth dance came, he waited
+until the music began; then walked across to where Poppy was sitting,
+offered his arm nonchalantly, and they took the floor together. When
+they had been dancing for a few moments he spoke:
+
+"Poppy ... _to-night_?"
+
+"To-night," her pale lips gave back answer. Her feet moved in time to
+the waltz, but she lay half fainting in his arms. He had the daring to
+bend his head and touch her face with his burning lips. Amid the
+flashing lights of jewels, and the whirling faces, it was almost safe to
+have gone unnoticed; everyone was too busy to watch what others were
+doing.
+
+But there happened to be a man standing in a doorway, hiding his grey
+travelling tweeds behind two or three immaculates, who were trying to
+persuade him that it would be quite a remarkable joke if he would come
+in as he was, and pirouette amongst the dancers.
+
+"Come on now, Carson ... give us a taste of the old Karri of old, mad
+days," a Rand man was saying; and Carson, though listening and laughing,
+was watching two people in the room. So it happened that he saw the
+kiss--and the woman's face almost lying on Abinger's shoulder. How could
+he know that she was dazed, half unconscious, not knowing what she did,
+or caring? Abruptly he pushed through the laughing group and stood full
+in the doorway. For an instant he was on the verge of trampling over
+everyone in the room to get to those two and tear them apart; for an
+instant the other men thought they were going to have a return of mad
+Carson with a vengeance, and were sorry they had spoken; one of them
+laid a hand on his arm. But in that instant a woman's eyes had met
+Carson's--long, topaz-coloured eyes, full of eager welcome and
+tenderness. The next moment he had flung away from the other men, and
+was striding through the wide vestibule, down the Town Hall steps
+towards a rickshaw, to take him God knew where. As he put his foot on it
+a hand fell to his shoulder, and Brookfield's voice to his ear--full of
+relief.
+
+"Carson! By gad! I'm glad you're back; Capron's cut his throat, and they
+say he's dying at the Club. Come on!"
+
+Carson stared at him with a stunned air.
+
+"Capron!" he stammered.
+
+"Yes; sliced his head off nearly. He was too drunk to go home, so they
+hid him in Ferrand's room at the Club with Portal in charge. But while
+Portal was out of the room for a moment, Nick found Ferrand's best
+razor."
+
+"Well, I can't come," said Carson roughly, after a pause. "I have
+business of my own."
+
+"You've _got_ to come, Karri. He's raving for you. Someone said you'd
+arrived, and Ferrand told me to find you, or he'd have another
+hæmorrhage. Come on, now. He won't keep you long; he's booked!"
+
+Carson cursed and muttered, but eventually they got into the rickshaw
+and went off together.
+
+Five minutes later a woman shrouded in a long, black satin cloak, her
+head muffled in veils, slipped down the steps and beckoned a rickshaw.
+In a whisper she directed the _boy_ and told him to hurry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At about an hour after midnight Clem came to Poppy, who was sitting out
+a dance with a peaceful partner, and drawing her aside said:
+
+"Dear, something awful has happened to Nick Capron and Mary can't be
+found. I fancy she must have been feeling ill and gone home without
+telling anyone. Anyway, Mr. de Grey and I are going to see. I've asked
+Bramham to take you home as soon as you would like to go.... the others
+will want to dance until dawn.... Billy is at the Club, too, it
+appears."
+
+"I'll come now," said Poppy quickly, forgetful of everything in the
+momentary excitement.
+
+"No; I can't wait for you, dear, as I'm ready. Better come on with Mr.
+Bramham or Mr. Abinger. Suppose you and Miss Allendner wait at Sea House
+for me?... It's an easy drive from the Club.... I'll call for you there,
+and we'll all go up home together.... it will probably be painful,
+breaking the news to poor Mary. I'll come as soon as I can afterwards."
+She hurried away, and Poppy, excusing herself to her partner, went to
+the dressing-room for her wraps. On her way she met Abinger, told him
+swiftly what had happened, and asked him to find Miss Allendner. But
+when she emerged from the dressing-room Abinger and Bramham were waiting
+for her, minus the companion.
+
+"She was dancing so happily for the first time to-night, that I hadn't
+the heart to drag her away," said Abinger, with unheard-of benevolence.
+The truth was that Miss Allendner did not at all enter into his plans
+for the evening, and so he had not bothered to look for her.
+
+The three of them left the hall together and reached Bramham's carriage,
+which had been sent for. Afterwards they drove away in the direction of
+Sea House. Bramham, with permission, smoked moodily out of a window, and
+Abinger, without permission, under cover of the uncertain light, took
+Poppy's hand; but it lay like a smooth, cold stone, and gave no response
+to his hot hold. His hands were as bad as his eyes; by just holding a
+woman's hand for three seconds, he could tell her things which for her
+soul's sake she had avoided knowing all her life.
+
+They were a silent party when they arrived at Sea House. In the
+dining-room they sat down and Bramham drummed his fingers on the table,
+wondering where Carson was. Luggage was lying in the verandah, and
+Bramham's note was open on the table; but of Carson himself no sign.
+
+Inspiration came to Abinger to go and rout out the servants to make
+coffee and sandwiches, for there was a distinct chill in the air, and as
+none of them had partaken of any supper to speak of, they felt weary and
+collapsed. As it happened, the servants had not gone to bed, so the
+coffee soon made its appearance, and at Poppy's suggestion a further
+supply was ordered to be ready for Mrs. Portal and de Grey. They sat at
+the table, and Poppy poured out the coffee; but Bramham was restless and
+began to walk the room, staring out at the night, and then into Carson's
+room, which led from the dining-room, and the door of which stood ajar.
+Once he sniffed the air, and then stopped and listened.
+
+Abinger smiled sourly at him.
+
+"Whose trail are _you_ on, Bram?"
+
+"There's something odd in the air--some unusual scent," was the answer.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Chard can account for it," suggested Abinger. Bramham
+ventured near her, sniffing still.
+
+"I never use scent," said she, "but I, too, seem to smell some heavy
+scent."
+
+"Someone's been here," said Bramham, convinced, and thereupon called in
+the _boys_ again and questioned them in Zulu.
+
+"No--no one had been," they said, "excepting only _Intandugaza_, who had
+remained but a little while and gone away very angry."
+
+Both Abinger and the white woman in the white gown who sat by the table
+understood Zulu, and heard for the first time now of Carson's arrival
+that evening. To Abinger the fact did not mean much. But Poppy sat
+staring with frozen lips at her bunch of orange leaves which lay now
+upon the table. Also, she was listening intently. It seemed to her that
+the sea, rustling and whispering on the beach at the foot of the garden,
+had a message for her that she had often heard before, but had never
+understood. Dimly, for the first time, the meaning of its mysterious
+sighing was creeping into her weary brain.
+
+"_Rest, rest, rest--peace--rest_," it whispered and sang.
+
+Bramham came to the table, took another sandwich, and ate it walking
+about the room.
+
+"Well, I can smell something," he averred, as though making a new
+statement. "Can't you, Abinger?"
+
+"Oh, have some more coffee, Bram. Your nerves have gone back on you."
+
+Poppy poured him out another cup.
+
+"We are all odd to-night," she said, with a wan smile.
+
+"It must be the news about poor Nick Capron," Bram said, and was just
+taking his coffee-cup from her hand when they thought they heard a
+sound. They looked at each other. It was a gentle little sound, and
+might have been anything imagination suggested--a groan, or a cough, or
+an exclamation. They waited intently to hear it repeated, but it never
+came again. Abruptly Bramham caught up a lamp--the lamp with Mrs.
+Brookfield's little pink-silk shade upon it, and walked towards the only
+door of the room that was open. It was the door of Carson's
+bedroom--Poppy's eyes saw that in a moment. She and Abinger had risen
+and followed Bram, and stood behind him in the doorway. Her eyes took in
+every detail of the wide, breezy room; the long, green curtains at the
+windows, the heavy oak furniture, the guns, and whips, and rods standing
+about, the books--and a big photograph of Mrs. Portal's gay-sad face,
+smiling, on the mantelpiece.
+
+Then she went back to her chair and listened once more to the whispering
+sea:
+
+"_Rest, rest--peace, rest._"
+
+"I swear I heard someone say 'Oh!'" said Bramham angrily.
+
+"Look under the bed," mocked Abinger.
+
+"Look under it yourself, my dear fellow!"
+
+They returned to the dining-room.
+
+"What a beast of a night!" continued Bramham explosively. "What is one
+to do? I've a good mind to take a run up to the Club and see whether I
+can do anything, or where the others are ... shall I? Will you people
+come too?"
+
+"No," said Poppy quietly. "We'll stay here. I have something to say to
+Mr. Abinger."
+
+At any other time Bramham might have found this remark surprising, but
+on this upside-down night, when nothing had happened as it should have
+done, and the air was full of odd scents and sounds, he merely thought
+it in keeping with the rest of things, so he departed, without even
+taking his hat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Nick Capron lay on a bed in one of the bedrooms of the Club--a sobbing,
+raving, blaspheming figure, fearful in bandages sodden with blood, his
+arms strapped to the sides of the bed to keep him from tearing at his
+throat. The doctor and Portal stood by, regarding him, one with a calm,
+professional eye, the other with a wet forehead. Carson sat on a chair
+at the foot of the bed with a face like a stone wall, staring straight
+before him, his hands in his pockets.
+
+The injured man spoke continuously in a gurgling, guttural way, half of
+his words intelligible, the other half maniacal. His main plaint was for
+the sight of Carson, whom he had not recognised.
+
+"I wish you'd fetch Carson ... there's no one like old Karri ... he's
+worth the whole damned boiling of you ... besides, I have something to
+say to him ... if I am booked for the last stretch I'd like Karri to see
+me off.... Oh, blazes! what the----is this at my throat? Carson!
+Karri--where is my devoted wife, too? _She_ ought to be here to speed
+the parting guest ... Mary--a damned iceberg ... but I'd like some
+ice.... Give me some ice, Karri----"
+
+After a time the narcotic administered began to take effect, and the
+watchers were relieved from the strain of listening to these ravings.
+Ferrand and Portal took drinks and sat down to wait for the coming of
+Mrs. Capron.
+
+"--And an infernal long time she is about it," said Ferrand. "What do
+_you_ think, Karri?"
+
+If Carson had an opinion on the subject he did not state it, but he
+roused himself and looked at the time. It was nearly half-past one.
+
+"I must get home," he muttered. "If you want me Ferrand, you can
+telephone to Bramham's house. I want to see Bramham," he added absently.
+
+Ferrand cocked a professional eye at him.
+
+"You're used up, Carson. Go home and sleep, but first see if you can
+find Mrs. Capron, there's a good chap. We can't have this over again
+when he comes to. She _must_ be here and that's all there is to it. You
+can use my cart if you like, to get home in. Get a rest, old man ... you
+look just about _peleela_ ... take my cart."
+
+Carson accepted the offer and went out, followed by Portal through the
+silent rooms of the Club to the front verandah.
+
+Ferrand's red-wheeled dog-cart, with its coolie-driver, usually formed
+part of the street furniture, for the doctor had a happy habit of
+leaving it outside the Club door, going in and settling down to poker
+and forgetting all about it. But at the moment it was nowhere to be
+seen, the fact being that the man, tired of sitting still, had begun to
+walk the horse, and was now out of sight at the far end of the street.
+
+There was not a rickshaw to be seen; they were all waiting for revellers
+outside the Town Hall. Fatigue was beginning to tell on Carson: he
+rapped out a bad and bitter word.
+
+"Cheer up!" said Portal blithely. "You'll soon be dead!"
+
+It was a well-worn expression, and Carson was accustomed to it, but upon
+this occasion it jarred. Something in Portal's voice was jarring, too.
+Now that Carson came to remark it, for the first time that evening there
+was something wrong with Portal's appearance as well as his voice.
+Instead of being in evening-dress, he had on a brown tweed morning-suit,
+in which, to judge by its appearance, he might have been knocking about
+the veldt for several weeks. On the other hand, his face was as
+bloodless and sallow as if he had been shut in a cellar for a month, and
+his eyes were sunk deep in his head. Withal, he was cheerful, full of
+suppressed excitement--almost it might be said that he was gay. After
+many years in Africa, Carson was accustomed to all kinds of moods and
+tenses in his friends; also, being an intimate of Portal's, he was aware
+that the latter possessed a troublesome liver. But somehow, none of
+these things could quite account for the extraordinary aspect and manner
+of Portal to-night. Under the powerful rays of a street light which
+fizzled and hummed close by, Carson observed him intently.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Bill? You look queer. Anything wrong? ...
+besides Capron, I mean...?"
+
+The other responded with apparent composure.
+
+"No, nothing. I'm only glad to see you, Carson, that's all. I'd no idea
+you were back from the Rand. I had arranged to go up there after you,
+but----"
+
+"When? What for?" asked Carson in surprise. He was unable to make head
+or tail of Portal's speech.
+
+"Oh, nothing; just wanted to see you. You're a fascinating chap."
+
+Carson gazed at him.
+
+One of Portal's hands spasmodically gripped and ungripped the verandah
+rail. With the other he appeared to be holding something stiff in the
+right pocket of his coat. He continued to talk in parables.
+
+"I went as far as Maritzburg, but I came back to-night to put my affairs
+into shape and write a few letters--then those fellows came in and asked
+me to take charge of Capron ... I left him asleep, I thought ... I was
+writing a letter to--well, never mind who to--when I heard a row ...
+and there was Capron ... _he'd got ahead of me_."
+
+"But, good Lord! what do you mean?" Carson burst out. "What's wrong with
+you? Have your finances gone smash?" he brought an iron hand down on the
+restless one gripping the verandah railing. The stiff article in
+Portal's pocket twitched. Carson's career had been adventurous and
+dangerous, but he had never been nearer death than at that moment.
+Entirely unconscious of the fact, he went on speaking.
+
+"If you've had a smash-up, Bill, everything I've got is at your
+disposal.... I've just made a good turn-over in the market.... I thought
+I should need it, for ... but _my_ castle is in ruins.... You can have
+it if it's any good to you."
+
+"Thanks, Carson--my finances are all right."
+
+"Then what in thunder's the matter with you?--haven't you got the only
+good woman in this filthy country I'd like to know! I could swear to
+_two_ until to-night. _Now_, if it were not for your wife, I should say
+they were all rotten to the core ... false as--Oh, well, what's the
+use?" he turned wearily away.
+
+"Have you spoken to my wife since you got back?" asked Portal. He had
+come closer and was staring intently into Carson's odd eyes as if
+searching for something there. His gay air was gone; he breathed
+heavily.
+
+"I haven't spoken to any woman--except a devil in the train to-day--for
+nearly three weeks. And after to-night I think I'll be able to exist
+without 'em forever. But I saw Mrs. Portal from the door of the Town
+Hall; and she looked to me remarkably ill. Is _that_ your trouble?"
+
+Portal did not answer at once, and Carson turned on him austerely and
+keenly. "If it's any other woman, don't expect _me_ to sympathise with
+you--I could forgive any man that but you--bah! but it couldn't be ...
+impossible!... Look here, Bill, I may as well tell you something now ...
+you can take it how you like ... I'm not ashamed of it ... I was in love
+with your wife for years ... she has never known it for one moment ...
+but I loved her crazily--everything and everyone else went by the
+board ... until I met her I was--well, I needn't tell _you_ what I
+was--no follower of Plato, anyway--and you can take this how you please,
+too--I am not going to pretend that there was anything platonic about my
+feeling for her ... there was _not_.... But, because she never turned
+her eyes my way ... or stepped down once in all the years I've known her
+and you from her shrine ... it got finer and finer until it got to be
+the highest, finest thing in my life, and anything decent that I've ever
+done was because of it."
+
+Portal had turned his head away before Carson had finished and appeared
+to be looking at something down the street. The thought came to Carson
+that he was either indifferent or not listening.
+
+"Ah, well!" said he, angry to have wasted his confidence and yet too
+weary to be angry long. "I daresay this doesn't interest you much ...
+you know, of course, that dozens of men have been in love with your
+wife ... she's one of the women men can't help loving with all that's
+decent in them--any more than one can help loving one's mother. A love
+like that is like a star in the sky of a man's life ... a star that
+shows the way to the east.... And if _you_ are one of those fellows that
+don't know when a star has come down to you, why----"
+
+Portal turned a shaken, strange face to the other man.
+
+"Carson, you must excuse me; I'm queer to-night ... I've been listening
+to Capron's ravings until I'm nearly raving myself ... but I think I
+understand ... I begin to see through it all.... Women do and say
+strange things in the name of Love!... But I _know_ that what you say is
+true--I believe in you, Karri."
+
+Carson could not pretend to understand the meaning of this, and
+moreover, Ferrand's cart was at the door, and the sickening remembrance
+of his own broken hopes was upon him.
+
+"Well, good-night, old man.... I must go home. If anything I've got can
+be of any use to you, let me know." He held out his hand and Portal
+gripped it.
+
+"Good-night, Karri--I'm going home, too." His face was transformed.
+
+Carson never solved the problem of that conversation with Portal; never
+knew how near death he had been, never knew how his accidental
+confidence had saved his life and given back her husband to Clem Portal.
+Indeed, he never remembered much about his interview with Portal at all.
+The memory of it was lost amongst the crowded events of that
+phantasmagorial night.
+
+Ferrand's coolie spun the cart along at a great rate behind the doctor's
+best polo pony. Just as they turned into West Street a flying rickshaw
+passed them, but though Carson heard a man's voice hailing he did not
+respond. Mrs. Portal and de Grey were in the rickshaw returning from
+long and vain seeking for Mrs. Capron, and it was de Grey who shouted,
+thinking he recognised the doctor's cart in the darkness.
+
+But even if Carson had known, he would not have stopped. He had been too
+long delayed from his own affairs, and he was driving now to get ease
+from the torture burning in his brain and searing his heart. His
+thoughts were fixed on one thing now--an interview with Bramham.
+
+"He's the only honest man amongst us, by Heaven!" he said loudly, so
+that the coolie driver gave him a nervous glance, and drew away. "The
+only one I'd take the trouble to believe."
+
+He stopped the cart at the gate of Sea House, and told the man to go
+back to the Club, then strode away up the sea-sanded path. Lights
+gleamed brilliantly from the dining-room, but silence reigned, and every
+other part of the house was dark as death. Walking through the verandah
+with light, swift feet and into the dining-room, he came upon Poppy and
+Abinger sitting there, facing each other across a corner of the table.
+There were tears on her face, and one arm was flung out before her with
+the gesture of one who has thrown the dice on a last and desperate
+venture. Abinger's hand lay on hers.
+
+They stood up as Carson sped into the room, his eyes blazing light in
+his dark face, and before anyone could speak he reached Abinger and
+without word or warning struck him a tremendous blow between the eyes,
+felling him to the floor, where he lay quite still. Then he took the
+girl by the throat--the long, white throat that shone in the darkness.
+
+"By God! I must kill you!" he said, and his voice was whispering like
+the sea's. She heard him; but she made no movement upward of her hands,
+though the pressure on her throat was terrible to bear. She closed her
+eyes and prepared to die. The thought slipped into her mind then that it
+would be good to have rest at last from the ache and storm of life. That
+was the message the sea was whispering.
+
+"_Rest, rest ... peace ... rest!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a long while she opened her eyes and found that she was sitting in
+the same chair she had previously risen from. Bramham's broad back was
+before her, but she could see Evelyn Carson leaning heavily against the
+wall like a drunken man, and Abinger seated in another chair delicately
+wiping his lips. His scar had opened, and blood was trickling down it.
+The silence was broken by Bramham's voice--quite calm and pleasant.
+
+"If you want to kill each other, take a brace of revolvers and go out
+and do it decently somewhere in the open, where it won't make a
+mess--killing Miss Chard, however, is quite another matter."
+
+Again silence prevailed. Later, Carson said collectedly:
+
+"She can live--_if she wants to_"--he gave her a look that lashed across
+her face like a whip, leaving it distorted. "Let them both live, and be
+damned to them!"
+
+The tone and expression of bitter pleasantry Bramham had adopted, died
+away.
+
+"Well! _you_ fellows from home--!" he began, and looked from face to
+face. Abinger continued to wipe blood delicately away, but he did not
+wipe the sneer from his lips. The girl had the face of a little tired,
+weeping child: the sight of it turned Bramham's heart to water. He put
+out a hand to Carson, appealingly:
+
+"God! Karri, what is it?"
+
+The paleness of Carson under his tan had once more given place to an
+inartistic-grey tint, and his eyes were dull; but he appeared strangely
+composed.
+
+"Nothing, Bram," he said. "Only to find the girl you love--less than
+nothing."
+
+A cry broke upon their ears, and all started and stared about them,
+especially at the open door of Carson's room, from whence that muffled,
+involuntary sound had come. A stiffness came over them; their masks
+slipped on. What unknown person had listened to the wild words that had
+been spoken?
+
+Suddenly Bram remembered the sensations and scents that had assailed him
+earlier in the night; catching up the same pink-shaded lamp, he once
+more entered Carson's room. He gave one searching glance about him, and
+then instinct took him to the only possible cover--a narrow curtained
+recess in which to hang clothes. He thrust his hand between the
+curtains. Mary Capron spared him further trouble--she swept out from the
+recess, and from the room, giving him one burning glance of hatred as
+she passed.
+
+In the dining-room she stood still, the centre of attraction for the
+second time that night. Her cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and her
+beautifully-_coiffé_ hair was ruffled and limp, her eyes were long
+gleams of topaz light in a carved-stone face. And for some reason she
+poured the full measure of her rage and scorn upon poor Bramham, who had
+dazedly followed her, stepping carefully to avoid her train, and
+standing there now with the little pink lamp in his hand.
+
+"Have you peered and pried enough?" she asked, piercing him with her
+eyes. "Is your curiosity satisfied--now that you have dragged me out? I
+came here to speak to Evelyn Carson--hearing voices, I foolishly hid....
+Is your taste for scandal appeased?"
+
+Poor, gallant, woman-loving Bramham! He paled and started, like a man
+who has unexpectedly been struck in the face; then, turning, still
+dazed, he walked away with the lamp in his hand from the room, and from
+the house--_his_ house! In the pathway he discovered the lamp in his
+hand and put all his strength and disgust into flinging the hapless
+thing with a crash into a bush.
+
+In the room the girl, still sitting in her chair, but with an awakening
+look of amazement and hope upon her face, said some words very softly to
+Mary Capron:
+
+"So you lied! ... false woman! ... and _base friend_!"
+
+But Mary Capron turned from her. Shaking with rage and defeat, she flung
+a torrent of low, rushing words at Carson.
+
+"_You_ love this girl ... girl! ... her confessions to Luce Abinger here
+to-night were not very girlish ... I could not hear all that she said
+to him, but I heard enough.... She told him that she gave herself to
+some man in a garden three years ago ... that she belonged _only_ to
+that man and could never love any other----"
+
+"No more," broke fiercely from Carson's white lips.
+
+"But you _shall_ hear!" she cried, flinging out a hand and catching his
+arm. "_She has had a child_ ... she boasted of it ... _the child of the
+man in the garden_.... Do you deny it? Do you deny it?" she cried,
+turning to Poppy. But Poppy did not deny, did not speak: only lifted her
+head proudly and smiled.
+
+"There ... there ... you see?... let her deny it if she can!"
+
+Stiffly Carson turned his head now and looked at Poppy; his lips twisted
+like a man's who is tasting poison; his eyes demanded.
+
+"Yes, I have borne a son," she said simply.
+
+For a moment there was such a silence as is found in rooms where the
+dead are lying. Then Mary Capron broke it again:
+
+"She is proud of it!... You _see_ ... you see what you love? Is it
+possible that for a woman like _that_ ... that for _her_ you can turn
+from my love, I who would let men brand me in the face for you--who----"
+
+"Oh, for God's sake!--are you mad?... be silent." Carson caught her
+hands roughly and made to draw her away. But she was beyond herself.
+"And now Nick is dying ... I have heard them saying it ... and they are
+looking for me to go to him, but I will not ... I will not!... I will
+stay here with you, Eve--I am terrified of blood--I--" she finished on a
+high note that was almost a shriek, for Abinger had risen quietly from
+his chair in the corner and was before her with his scarred, bleeding
+face. Then at last she was silent. What there was to be said, Abinger
+said--blandly, softly.
+
+"Oh! I think you had b-better come, Mary. It will not be the first
+t-time you've seen a man cut about. You remember the night this was
+done?" He touched his face and she shrank away blenching. "The night
+Carmen punished me for _our_ sins. You were quite brave then. You saw
+the whole performance without uttering a scream or a cry that might have
+brought people to the scene and discovered you. No one should blame you
+for that, but--I think you could be brave enough to see Nick." He held
+out his hand to her. She shrank from him, wilting with shame, her eyes
+frozen in her face; but he was inexorable.
+
+"I think you had better come. It seems to me that you have said enough
+for one night to Carson and Miss Chard. She is free of me for ever--I
+have told her so. And Carson is free of you. Is not that plain to you?
+They love each other ... let us leave them to settle their affairs. You
+and I--have many old memories to discuss--unless you would rather
+discuss them here?"
+
+She went at that, with hurrying feet; and the man with the bleeding,
+smiling face followed her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carson and Poppy were left alone. They stared into each other's eyes
+with an agony of love and longing and fear. Anger was all gone from
+Carson's face; only fear was there--fear that was terror. It was the
+girl who stood now; he had fallen into a chair, wearily, desperately.
+
+"Is it true?" he muttered; "is it true, after all?--_a child!_" His own
+sins were forgotten in this overwhelming, bitter revelation.
+
+She went over to him, and kneeled between his knees.
+
+"Yes; it is true, Eve ... _your_ child! ... child of the night you
+dreamed that poppies grew upon the eternal hills.... _I am Poppy!_ Do
+you not know me?" He sat up straight then and looked down at her, looked
+down deep into the glimmering eyes. "I am Poppy," she said, and her
+voice was wine in a crystal beaker. She dragged the malachite comb from
+her hair, and it came tumbling down upon her shoulders in long black
+ropes. "I am Poppy who gave you all her gifts."
+
+The sea helped her; it sent into the room a strong, fresh wind that blew
+the veils of her hair across his face and lips. He breathed sharply.
+God! What strange scent of a lost dream was here? What sweet, elusive
+fragrance of a most dear memory!
+
+He took hold of her hair as though he would have torn it from her head.
+A light was in his face--he drew her to him, staring into her eyes.
+
+"Poppy? ... _Poppy!_ ... _not_ a dream?... _Not_ the ravings of
+fever?... Poppy!" He held her hair across his face as though smelling
+some wonderful flower.
+
+"Eve ... did you not say to me, '_If I were stricken blind in this
+hour_--'" she stopped.
+
+"'--_from ten thousand women I could search you out by the scent of your
+hair_,'" he finished.
+
+Again they stayed long, staring into each other's eyes. Staring--glance
+falling to glance and rising again; staring with the brave,
+shame-stricken looks that women give to men they adore and endow, and
+men to women they rob, and bless--and rob again. Strange that two people
+who love each other cannot for long bear the ardent flame of each
+other's eyes.
+
+"Part of it is lost--for ever," he said at last.... "Gone! ... only
+fragments remain. But there never was a dream like the dream we dreamt
+on that lost night." And after a long time:
+
+"Poppy--where is my son?"
+
+She lifted her eyes to him. The tears which she could never shed for
+herself would always come rushing forth for that sweet memory.
+
+"All my love could not keep him, Eve."
+
+She pulled a child's framed face from her bosom and held it up to his
+eyes. He saw the little familiar face he had looked at once before,
+pictured in a field of corn and poppies, and trembled. He gave it one
+swift, sorrowful look and then he wrapped his arms about her, and she
+lay on his breast.
+
+"Do you regret?" he asked. "Have you ever regretted? Oh, God! how can I
+ask?"
+
+"No, no," she cried, but her voice was faint. Even while she spoke she
+knew--none better than she--how vain were denials against the truth of
+the past. How all their memories and all their gladness to come must
+ever be salted with pain and tainted with the bitter gall of regret.
+How, when she laid a child in his arms, their thoughts would terribly
+fly to that lost son of a lost dream lying far from them in an alien
+land. They were transgressors--and the reward of transgressors must ever
+be theirs!
+
+Not much more was said. Only enough to chase the shadows of others from
+the road of life they meant to take together and make it clear before
+them. For the rest--they had all the years to come in which to
+understand and suffer and forgive.
+
+He thought of the turmoil and transgression and "tremendous disarray" of
+his life--and of dark, still nights far away in Borapota, with this
+woman of his dreams by his side--and his heart sent up a cry that was
+not unworthy of it.
+
+"O, Lord God--forgive me my sins!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Bramham came into the room long after, she was still kneeling there
+in her white gown and her loosened hair, and she thought it no shame for
+him to find her so. She rose to her feet and gave him her hand, and he
+held it closely, preciously--for he, too, loved this woman.
+
+"Thank God that out of this jumble and carnage comes one good thing!" he
+said. "_Your_ ship is home in port. Take her out to the gate, Carson.
+Mrs. Portal is waiting, and they're going to pick up Portal at the Club.
+Capron will recover, Ferrand says."
+
+When Poppy had hastily fastened her hair, and Carson had wrapped her in
+her cloak, they went down to the gate where Clem waited half in and half
+out of a carriage window. Her face was radiant, too. She drew Poppy in
+beside her.
+
+"Are you two happy?" she whispered. "So am I." But she told nothing of
+the golden moment that had been hers within the past hour, when, in the
+darkness of the Club verandah, a big, sullenly handsome man had taken
+her in his arms and just whispered:
+
+"Forgive!--_Loraine!_"
+
+She was that lovely thing, a close woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+The quay at the Point was crowded with people to see the sailing of the
+_Tunis_. The English Government had chartered the vessel specially to
+take Sir Evelyn Carson, his men, stores, horses, guns, mining and
+agricultural machinery, and all the other quantities of things needed in
+the great business of opening up and civilising the latest possession of
+the Empire--to Borapota.
+
+The sailing of the ship was, of course, an event of great public
+interest, but Sir Evelyn had, at the last moment, provided a further and
+electrifying sensation by being quietly married that morning to the
+distinguished African authoress, _Eve Destiny_; and his wife was
+accompanying him to Borapota on the _Tunis_.
+
+Durban considered itself badly treated in not having been invited _en
+masse_ to witness the ceremony; also, in being cheated of introspective
+discussion of the match, by having no faintest prenotion of it. But it
+was not to be done out of at least a parting glimpse of the principals
+in this unexpected _dénouement_. And so it happened that the quay was
+crowded, for the fashionable world had come down like the Assyrians, and
+everyone with the slimmest claim to the acquaintance of Carson or his
+wife made occasion to visit the _Tunis_ before the hour of sailing. The
+rest of the world was obliged to be content with lining the docks and
+blackening the Breakwater.
+
+Just after twelve, with the tide at full, preliminary sirens and
+scrunching of chains began to be heard, and word was given for people
+to leave the _Tunis_. That was a sign for everyone to come on deck, and
+the curious watchers ashore got a chance at last of seeing the special
+object of their curiosity. She appeared in the companionway door,
+smiling, with her hand through the arm of her great friend, Mrs. Portal;
+behind were a little group of men with Eve Carson towering in their
+midst.
+
+Lady Carson was still wearing the gown she had been married in, and she
+looked vividly beautiful. Shimmering leaf-green draperies swept the
+decks, under a long coat of pale-grey velvet, and her poem face was
+shadowed by a plumed, grey hat. Her husband thought that she looked like
+the incarnation of Ireland--and than the beauty of _that_ imagination
+could no further go.
+
+She and Clem Portal, alone together for the first time in all that busy,
+eventful day, walked a little apart to make their farewells, and the
+eyes of the men followed them, resting naturally on the vivid glowing
+woman in the shimmering green-and-grey. Her husband's were the only eyes
+that did not follow her. He had given her one deep, long glance at the
+altar; and since then had not looked her way. His tanned face wore the
+impassive, almost cataleptic expression that men assume when they wish
+to conceal deep emotion from the eyes of the world. But he walked as one
+whom the gods have chosen to honour. Bramham strongly suspected him of
+suffering from what is known among men as--a swagger in the blood!
+
+"I expect he feels tall enough to pull the sky down to-day," was the
+loyal fellow's thought, and he smiled affectionately and put an arm on
+Karri's shoulder.
+
+Clem and Poppy walked along the deck together. They did not say much.
+Only, under cover of a big, grey velvet sleeve, and a stole of delicate
+lace Clem wore, their hands were tightly clasped together. The Portals
+would be gone from Africa before Eve Carson's five years' work in
+Borapota was over; and where, or when, the two women would meet again
+was a matter that lay upon the knees of the gods. Neither wished to let
+one word of regret mar the gladness of the day; but each knew how deeply
+the other felt the parting.
+
+"Oh, Clem!" Poppy said at last, with something like a sob in her voice.
+"It is all so wonderful--to be out of the 'tangled wild' at last, with
+the clear, open land before us! Can it be true? I have had so many blows
+in the face, and I am so undeserving of this great happiness--_can it be
+true_?"
+
+"Chance is more just than we are!" Clem softly quoted. "Poppy, before we
+part I must tell you something ... about my name--_Loraine_. Bill wants
+me to tell you ... and he says _you will know why_. It is my own name,
+dear--but I have never allowed anyone to call me by it but Bill. When
+people love each other very much _you know_--they give each other little
+secret gifts that no one else must know of--this was one of mine to
+Bill. All the world can call me Clem--but _Loraine_ was only for him.
+Others came to know of it by accident, but I never gave anyone the right
+to call me by that name but Bill----"
+
+Poppy held the little brown, thin hand more tightly.
+
+"I know, I know, darling," she fervently said. She could not at this
+time tell Clem how much else she knew--all that Carson had told her of
+the secret love he had borne for Clem for many years; but she had no
+feeling of bitterness now, or anger concerning that love. Clem went on,
+a little hurriedly, for time was flying:
+
+"I had another reason too--under my mask I am dreadfully superstitious
+and primitive. All the Loraines in my ancestral history have lost those
+whom they loved--in some tragic way. I am afraid of history. Oh, Poppy!
+when one loves ... when one loves ... one is afraid of _everything_."
+She turned white and began to tremble. "How _fearful_ one is! I have
+been so fearful always for Bill ... that I have never even dared show
+_him_ how much I care. I always think if I am silent, silent, silent ...
+never bragging, never telling of my soul's idolatry, God will be
+merciful to me." She was trembling like a leaf, and stammering with
+pallid lips--this calm, well-masked, self-possessed woman of the world.
+Never before had any woman's eyes seen past the barriers into the inmost
+chapel of Clem Portal's heart. And Poppy, overwhelmed, could only
+tenderly say:
+
+"Dear Clem ... thank you.... God bless you!" Bramham bustled up.
+
+"We've got to clear out, Mrs. Portal ... they're going to haul up the
+gangway!" He turned to Poppy. "And the siren is hooting us out of your
+paradise. Well, Lady Carson! the world will expect wonderful things from
+your pen up in the silences of Borapota!"
+
+She smiled at him with radiant, misty eyes.
+
+"Let it expect. I shall never be able to write any more, Charlie. I can
+never do anything again but live. I know how to _live_."
+
+The others joined them then, and the whole group moved gangwaywards,
+individual remarks swamped in general farewells, jests, laughter, good
+wishes. All were ashore at last, leaving Poppy and Carson standing
+alone, side by side, with the keen winter sunlight bright upon them.
+
+When they could no longer recognise friendly faces to wave to, they
+turned and looked at each other. Catalepsy disappeared from Carson's
+face--it grew boyish, ardent, gay.
+
+                  "'The Lord is debonair,
+                    Let sinners not despair,'"
+
+said he, and they smiled into each other's eyes.
+
+And so their ship swept out to sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ashore, one or two acrid things were said. In a little detached group,
+of which Mrs. Gruyère, Mrs. Lace, and Cora de Grey were the central
+figures, Brookfield thought it interesting to say:
+
+"There's a rumour that she's as wicked as her books--if so, Carson is
+not to be envied."
+
+Cora de Grey, who was sometimes also called _Cobra_ de Grey, bit into
+him swiftly:
+
+"If she's wicked, she's clever beyond the cleverness of any woman, for
+none of her men friends have ever given her away."
+
+"Her _men_ friends--that's a new story!" retorted the surprised
+Brookfield.
+
+"Oh, no; quite an old story amongst married women," said Cora, with her
+Karoo smile. "When a woman is _really_ wicked, some renegade will always
+tell his dearest friend, or his wife, and then--short shrift for _her_."
+
+Brookfield retired.
+
+Mrs. Gruyère said:
+
+"It's a scandal that he didn't marry May Mappin. And I _know_ Charles
+Bramham was in love with _her_. What will he do now, I wonder?"
+
+Mrs. Gruyère's voice was so penetrating that it often reached the ears
+of her victims. Bramham, coming up, answered her cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, haven't you heard?" said he, grinning. "My dear Mrs. Haybittel is
+arriving from Paris to pay Durban a visit. Everyone is sure to make her
+as comfortable as they can--for fear she should make them as
+uncomfortable as _she_ can. She says she's bringing out twelve trunks
+full of French gowns."
+
+This was terrible news for Mrs. Gruyère, who only feared two things on
+earth--French gowns and the malicious pen of Mrs. Haybittel. But she
+preserved a brave front.
+
+"Let us hope that she has had her face enamelled to wear with them," was
+her last barb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Driving home, Clem said to her husband:
+
+"Will they be happy, think you, Billy-Bill?" And he, with the deep
+wisdom vouchsafed only to true lovers, answered her:
+
+"Happy? Of course not! But they will count unhappiness with each other
+the best that Life can give."
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+p. 22 corrected doubled "she"
+
+p. 68 "unwittingy" changed to "unwittingly"
+
+p. 72 "eared" changed to "cared"
+
+p. 110 "relasped" changed to "relapsed"
+
+p. 146 "widow" changed to "window"
+
+p. 178 "quater" changed to "quarter"
+
+p. 183 "champange" changed to "champagne"
+
+P. 272 "aways" changed to "always"
+
+p. 356 "whatver" changed to "whatever"
+
+p. 361 "knowlege" changed to "knowledge"
+
+p. 377 "found" changed to "round"
+
+p. 449 "love each very much" changed to "love each other very much"
+
+Minor punctuation corrections left unnoted.
+
+Words with multiple spellings left as in original.
+
+Italics indicated with underscores _like this_.
+
+Small caps and bold indicated with upper case _LIKE THIS_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
+
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+<body>
+
+
+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poppy
+       The Story of a South African Girl
+
+Author: Cynthia Stockley
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2011 [EBook #36138]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPPY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+<img id="coverpage" border="0" src="images/frontcover.jpg" alt="Cover" />
+</div>
+
+<p class="caption">Poppy<br />
+The Story of a South African Girl</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter"><img border="0" src="images/frontispiece.png" alt="Frontispiece" /></div>
+
+<div>
+<p class="caption">"IN HIS LOOMING ABOUT THE ROOM HE HAD STOPPED DEAD
+BEFORE WATTS'S PICTURE 'HOPE' OVER THE MANTELPIECE"<br />
+From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A.<br />
+<span style="float : right">(<i>See p. 336</i>)</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1 id="booktitle">POPPY</h1>
+
+<p class="h3">THE STORY OF A SOUTH AFRICAN GIRL</p>
+
+<p class="h3">BY</p>
+
+<p class="h2">CYNTHIA STOCKLEY</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="h4">G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS<br />
+NEW YORK AND LONDON</p>
+
+<p class="h5">The Knickerbocker Press</p>
+
+<p class="h6">1910</p>
+
+<p class="h6">
+Published, March, 1910<br />
+Reprinted, March, 1910; May, 1910<br />
+July, 1910 (twice); August, 1910<br />
+September, 1910; October, 1910</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="h6">The Knickerbocker Press, New York</p>
+
+<br />
+
+<p class="h5">To</p>
+<p class="h4">Em</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class="pagenum">[2]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">PART I</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"... and some do say of poppies that they be the tears of the moon shed
+in a land beyond the seas: and that they do bring forgetfulness and
+freedom from pain."
+<span style="float : right">(<i>From an old Irish Legend</i>.)</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[3]</span></p>
+
+<h2>POPPY</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">NOTHING more unlike a gladsome poppy of the field
+was ever seen than Poppy Destin, aged nine, washing
+a pile of dirty plates at the kitchen table.</p>
+
+<p>Pale as a witch, the only red about her was where she
+dug her teeth into her lips. Her light lilac-coloured eyes
+were fierce with anger and disgust. Her hair hung in
+long black streaks over her shoulders, and her dark hands,
+thin and bony as bird's claws, were each decorated with
+a bracelet of greeny-yellowy grease.</p>
+
+<p>There had been curry for dinner. Horrible yellow
+rings floated on the top of the water in the <i>skottel</i> and
+Poppy hated to put her hands into it.</p>
+
+<p>She was hating her work more than usual that day
+because she was hungry as well as angry. She had slapped
+her little cousin Georgie for throwing a heavy hammer at
+her which had cut a gash in her leg; and her punishment
+for this crime had been two stinging boxes on the ear and
+sentence to go without food all day. Fortunately the
+incident had occurred after breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice she looked longingly at the scraps on the
+plates, but she did not touch them, because her aunt had
+eaten from one and she was not sure which, and she knew
+that to eat from anything her aunt had touched would
+choke her.</p>
+
+<p>So she threw the scraps to Nick the black cat, under the
+kitchen table, and went on hating her aunt, and washing<span class="pagenum">[4]</span>
+up the plates. She would have liked to smash each plate
+on the floor as she took it out of the water, and to have
+thrown all the greasy water over the freshly-scrubbed white
+shelves and dresser. And she would have done it too, only
+that she did not like boxes on the ear.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she tried to fill her bitter little heart and her
+empty little stomach by going on with the story inside her
+head. She always had a story going on inside her head,
+and it was always about just two people&mdash;a beautiful lady
+and a man with a face like Lancelot. She used to begin at
+the end to make sure they should be quite happy, and when
+she had married them and they were living happily "ever
+after," she would go back to the beginning&mdash;how they met
+and all the sad things they had to go through before they
+could be married. Afterwards she would make a little
+song about them.</p>
+
+<p>That day she had a heroine with red gold hair for the
+first time, because she had seen such a beautiful red-gold-haired
+lady in the street the day before, dressed in brown
+holland with a brown hat trimmed with pale green leaves.
+Poppy dressed her heroine in the same fashion, instead of
+the usual white velvet with a long train and a wreath of
+white roses resting on her hair. Just as Lancelot was
+telling the heroine that her eyes were as beautiful as
+brown wine, a harsh voice called out from the dining-room:</p>
+
+<p>"Porpie! Haven't you done that washing-up yet?
+Make haste there! You know you got to smear the
+kitchen before you clean yourself and take the children
+up to the Kopje."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy gritted her teeth and furious tears came into her
+eyes; her aunt's voice always seemed to scrape something
+inside her head and make it ache; also, she detested taking
+the children up to the Kopje. It was such a long way to
+carry Bobby&mdash;all up Fountain Street in the broiling sun<span class="pagenum">[5]</span>&mdash;and
+she <i>had</i> to carry him, because if she put him into the
+pram with his twin, Tommy, they kicked each other and
+screamed, and when the children screamed, Aunt Lena
+always got to hear of it and boxed Poppy's ears for ill-treating
+them.</p>
+
+<p>Listlessly she dried the plates and stuck them up in
+lines on the dresser, soaked the <i>fadook</i> and washed all round
+the edges of the bowl, making the water swirl round and
+round so that the grease would not settle again, then, while
+the water moved swiftly, carried the basin to the back
+door and emptied it with a great "swash" into the yard.
+The fowls flew shrieking in every direction and the water
+ran down in little rivers to where old Sara was doing some
+washing under the shade of the biggest acacia tree. When
+the little stream reached her bare black feet she clicked
+her teeth, crying, "Aah," and moved round to the other
+side of the stones on which she banged the clothes to make
+them white.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy dried her basin out with the <i>fadook</i>, wiped the
+table dry, and put the bowl upside down upon it. Then
+she went into the yard again and approached an old pail
+which stood in the forage-house. It was full of an atrocious
+mess, slimy and thick, giving out a pungent odour that
+made her nose wrinkle in disgust. Nevertheless she took
+it up and carried it down to old Sara to get some soapy
+water. The old Basuto in her red <i>kop-dook</i>, rolled the
+whites of her eyes sympathetically and muttered in her
+native tongue as she watched Poppy stir the green slime
+with a stick. She was sorry for the child. She knew it
+was Kaffir's work to smear floors. Black hands are hard,
+and the little thorns and stones to be found in the wet cow-dung
+do not hurt them; neither does the pungent smell
+disgust black noses.</p>
+
+<p>"But the <i>old missis</i> had strange ways! Clk! It seemed
+she liked the <i>klein-missis</i> to do Kaffir's work!" Old Sara<span class="pagenum">[6]</span>
+shrugged her fat, wobbly shoulders, and flopped over her
+wash-tub once more.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy went back to the kitchen. She had swept it just
+before dinner, now she sprinkled it heavily with water,
+then kneeling down on a folded sack beside the bucket, she
+rolled up her sleeves, closed her eyes, and plunged her
+hands into the sickening mess. Quickly she withdrew
+them, flinging two handfuls on to the floor and began to
+smear it with the flat of her right hand.</p>
+
+<p>Kitchens and verandahs (or stoeps) in old-fashioned
+South African houses always have what are called "mud
+floors," which means that they are just mother-earth with
+all the stones picked out and the surface kept smooth and
+level by constant smearing in or pasting on of wet cow-dung
+once or twice a week. Smearing is a disgusting business,
+but joy comes after. When freshly dry the floor looks
+cool and green and fresh, and no longer does the <i>mis</i> smell
+vilely; rather, there is a soft odour of grasses and flowers,
+as though some stray veldt wind had blown through the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy had no time to enjoy the result of her labour.
+After she had spread sacks upon the floor to prevent feet
+from marking her work until it was dry, she stopped for a
+moment to dig out a thorn from her thumb with a needle,
+but immediately her aunt's menacing voice could be heard
+from the front stoep, where now she sat drinking her after-dinner
+cup of coffee with her husband, admonishing the
+slowness of Poppy's proceedings, and demanding that she
+should "makaste."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy ran into the bedroom which she shared with
+her two elder cousins, and cleaned herself of all traces of
+her recent occupation. Later she appeared on the front
+stoep, in a print pinafore over her grey linsey dress, and an
+old straw hat much bitten at the edges shading her pale
+fierce little face.<span class="pagenum">[7]</span></p>
+
+<p>"My word, that child looks more like an Irish Fenian
+every day!" was her aunt's agreeable greeting.</p>
+
+<p>Weak, good-looking "Uncle Bob," who was really no
+more than a second cousin of Poppy's, laughed in a deprecating
+kind of way. He was cutting a twist of tobacco
+from a great roll that hung drying from the stoep roof.</p>
+
+<p>"Och, you're always going on at the girl, Lena!"</p>
+
+<p>"And good cause I have," retorted Mrs. Kennedy.
+"Stand still, Ina, while I tie your cappie."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy said nothing, but if having black murder in your
+heart makes you a Fenian, she knew that she was one.</p>
+
+<p>Silently she assisted her aunt to put their pinafores upon
+the struggling twins, and to array Ina in her cape and bib&mdash;all
+starched to stand about them like boards, to their everlasting
+misery and discomfort. Mrs. Kennedy gloated
+upon the fact that all the neighbours said, "How beautifully
+kept Mrs. Kennedy's children are!"</p>
+
+<p>At last Tommy was in the pram; Bobby pranced astride
+on Poppy's small bony hip, and Ina, who was just four,
+clung toddling to her skirt. Thus Poppy set forth, pushing
+the pram before her.</p>
+
+<p>"And mind you bring them in before sun-down, and
+don't let them sit on the damp grass&mdash;" was Mrs. Kennedy's
+last word shouted up the street after the procession.</p>
+
+<p>A little lane lined with syringa trees led from the house
+and was shady and sweet to loiter in, but Fountain Street
+glared and blazed under the afternoon sun. Poppy was
+pale and sadly-coloured as some strange cellar-plant when
+at last she brought her charges to a halt by the Kopje.
+She put Bobby down from her hip with a bump, tilted the
+pram and let Tommy scramble out the best way he could,
+then sat down on a rock and covered her face with her
+hands.</p>
+
+<p>Bobby was a heavy-weight, and though she changed
+him from one hip to another all the way up the street, she<span class="pagenum">[8]</span>
+never got to the Kopje without a pain in her stomach and
+a feeling of deathly sickness.</p>
+
+<p>Nearly all the children of the town came to the Kopje
+in the afternoons. It was only a slight hill, but it had
+bushes and clumps of mimosa trees, and little quarried-out
+holes and masses of rocks, and other fascinating features
+dear to children. The Kaffir-girl nurses squatted under
+the trees jabbering amongst themselves, and the children
+congregated in small herds. Poppy was the only white-girl
+nurse to be seen. She had a little circle of trees and stones
+where she always took her brood, and if she found anyone
+else in possession, she threw stones at them until they
+retreated.</p>
+
+<p>When she had spread a rug for them to sit on, the
+children were left to amuse themselves in whatsoever
+fashion seemed good unto them. Poppy sat dreaming to
+herself, wrapped in the veils of poetry and romance.
+Near the Kopje was St. Michael's, a high school for girls
+kept by an English sisterhood, and when Poppy and her
+brood reached their haunt before three o'clock, she would
+see all the girls coming out of the gates, passing by in their
+nice dresses and hats with bags of books in their hands.
+They would stare at Poppy, and sometimes laugh; then
+the pain in her stomach would come into her throat and
+almost choke her. No one ever spoke to her. They knew
+quite well who she was, but she did Kaffir's work, and her
+clothes were old and ugly, and she was altogether a person
+to be despised and laughed at.</p>
+
+<p>But sometimes a little ray of human friendliness would
+break through the hedge of snobbery. On this summer
+day a girl called Edie Wyllie, who used to sit next to her in
+Sunday-school, called out in quite a jolly way as she passed:</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, Poppy Destin!"</p>
+
+<p>But her sister pulled at her arm at once and rebuked
+her.<span class="pagenum">[9]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Edie! You know mother doesn't let us speak to
+Poppy Destin."</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" called out Poppy with the utmost scorn and
+derision. "Who wants to speak to you? I hate you."</p>
+
+<p>She made fearful faces at them; but when they had all
+gone past, she rocked on her stone and wept.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate them! I hate them!" she sobbed. "And I
+hate God! God is a beast."</p>
+
+<p>Ina stood by and listened, with her pinafore in her mouth.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell mother that, what you say," she remarked
+gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"'Tell-tale-tit, your tongue shall be slit.' Go away
+from me, else I'll beat you," shouted Poppy, and Ina ran
+for her life and hid behind some rocks. Poppy continued
+her weeping, dry-eyed now, but sobbing spasmodically.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a voice behind her!</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter little girl?"</p>
+
+<p>Turning round she saw that the beauteous lady in the
+holland dress was sitting on a stone opposite her, smiling
+kindly. Her hair was like sovereigns shining in the
+sunlight, Poppy thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Do tell me what is the matter!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing's the matter," said Poppy defiantly.</p>
+
+<p>The lady laughed long and merrily as though she found
+something refreshing in the child's sulky misery.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but how silly of you to cry and make your eyes
+red for nothing! You've got such pretty eyes, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy stared at her, gasping.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! If I only thought I had pretty eyes&mdash;" she said
+breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you have indeed. And they are most uncommon
+too&mdash;just the colour of lilac, and 'put in with a smutty
+finger' like an Irish girl's. Are you Irish?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was about to inform her that she was a Fenian,
+but she thought better of it.<span class="pagenum">[10]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I was born here in Bloemfontein," she answered.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps your mother came from Ireland, for you
+have <i>quite</i> an Irish face: only you're so thin, and you look
+so cross&mdash;are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes. I am always cross. I hate everybody."</p>
+
+<p>"Good heavens! What a little savage! but you
+shouldn't. It makes one so ugly to hate."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it?" Eagerly. "Do you think if I was never
+cross I'd get beautiful?"</p>
+
+<p>"You are much more likely to," said the other encouragingly,
+thinking in the meantime that nothing could ever
+make harmonious and beautiful that small tormented face.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that why you are so beautiful?" was the next
+question.</p>
+
+<p>The beauty smiled: a little complacently perhaps.</p>
+
+<p>"I expect so. I am never cross and never unhappy, and
+I never mean to let anyone make me so." She opened her
+brown holland sunshade lined with sea-green silk and got
+up to go.</p>
+
+<p>"Now be sure and remember that," she said pleasantly.
+"Never cry, never be unhappy, never hate anyone, and
+never be cross and&mdash;you'll see how beautiful you'll
+become."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I will, I will," cried Poppy ardently.</p>
+
+<p>"Now I must go," said the beautiful one. "I want to
+take one last walk round your pretty Bloemfontein, because
+I am going back to Cape Town to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Have you any little girls in Cape Town?" asked Poppy,
+wishing to detain her a little longer. She laughed at that.</p>
+
+<p>"You funny child! Why I'm not even married. But
+I'm going to be, and to the most fascinating man in Africa."</p>
+
+<p>"Is his name Lancelot?"</p>
+
+<p>"No. His name is Nick Capron. How old are you,
+child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nine."<span class="pagenum">[11]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Only nine! You look about thirteen, you poor little
+thing. Well, good-bye, I must really go."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye; and thank you so much for speaking to
+me," Poppy stammered. She felt that she could adore
+the beautiful study in brown holland, who only laughed
+at her again and went on her way.</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy, sitting on her rock had a gleam of hope and
+happiness; for at last she knew the secret of being
+beautiful; <i>and</i>&mdash;it had been told her&mdash;her eyes were
+pretty.</p>
+
+<p>She sat thinking for a long time and making resolutions.
+She even determined to strive to hate Aunt Lena less.
+Minor resolutions were&mdash;not to be unkind to the children
+when they made her angry and told tales on her; not to
+quarrel with her two elder cousins, Clara and Emily; not
+to scratch them and beat them with her fists when they
+called her <i>Foelstruis</i>,<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id="FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class="fnanchor">[1]</a> because her legs were so long and
+thin; not to fly into awful rages in which she could not
+speak, only shake all over and bite her hands and lips till
+the blood came; not to sit and think of Aunt Lena's ways
+until a red curtain came down before her eyes and her heart
+felt like a red-hot coal burning her to death.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Ostrich.</p></div>
+
+<p>These were a few of the terrible obstacles in the path to
+beauty which she set herself to overcome. There were
+other arts, too, she would practise to the same end. She
+would brush her hair until it sprang into waves, even as
+the hair of the beautiful one in brown. She would cut her
+eyelashes, as Clara did, to make them thick and long.
+She would run and jump, even when she was tired, to make
+her body strong and her cheeks pink. She would walk
+upright, even when she had the pain in her stomach, so
+that she might grow tall and graceful. Furthermore, she
+would find out from old Sara where that wonderful milky
+cactus grew, which the young Basuto girls gathered and
+<span class="pagenum">[12]</span>rubbed upon their breasts in the moonlight to make them
+grow round and firm as young apples.</p>
+
+<p>Last, but most important of all, she evolved from her
+dreamings and devisings a promise to herself that she
+would never, <i>never</i> do mean things, for meanness she surely
+knew to be the friend of hideousness. Meanness showed
+in the face. Could not anyone see it in Aunt Lena's face?
+The traces of mean thoughts and deeds showed in the
+narrow space between her eyebrows, in the specks in her
+pale eyes, were brushed into her sleek, putty-coloured hair
+and crinkled her coarse thick hands. If you only looked
+at the freckles and loose skin all round her wrists, her fat
+fingers and the way her ears stuck out, you must see how
+cruel and hateful she could be, thought Poppy. Whereupon,
+forgetting the greatest of her resolutions in a moment,
+she fell to hating her Aunt Lena again with a particular
+malignancy. But presently she noticed that the trees were
+casting long giant shadows towards the town, pansy-coloured
+clouds were in the sky, and a certain dewiness
+had come into the air. Hastily collecting the children she
+departed with them. In the same order as they came,
+they returned home down the long white street.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But it was hard in the house of Aunt Lena Kennedy
+to attain beauty through virtue.</p>
+
+<p>On Saturdays Poppy even forgot that she had ever
+made resolutions to that end. Upon that day of days,
+Mrs. Kennedy subjected her house and all that therein
+was to a scrubbing in which there was no niggardliness of
+what she termed "elbow grease." Poppy was not exempt;
+her turn came at ten o'clock at night; and that was the
+hour of shame and rage for Poppy. When all the rest of
+the children were comfortably in bed, sucking their weekly
+supply of <i>lekkers</i>, Mrs. Kennedy would roll up her sleeves
+and approach in a workmanlike manner the big pan-bath<span class="pagenum">[13]</span>
+in the middle of the kitchen, wherein stood Poppy, lank,
+thin-limbed, and trembling&mdash;but not with cold&mdash;under the
+scrutiny of the speckled eyes she hated so well.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you bad-tempered little cat!" was the usual preliminary;
+"why can't you be grateful to me for taking the
+trouble to keep you clean? It isn't every aunt by marriage
+who would do it, I can tell you. I suppose you'd like
+to go about with the dirt ingrained in you! What are you
+shivering and cringing like that for? Are you ashamed of
+your own body?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is horrible to be naked, aunt," she would retort,
+striving to keep tears from bursting forth and full of apprehension
+that someone might come into the wide-open
+kitchen doors.</p>
+
+<p>"Horrible! what's horrible about it, I'd like to know,
+except in your own nasty little mind? A body like a
+<i>spring-kaan</i>,<a name="FNanchor_2_2" id="FNanchor_2_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_2_2" class="fnanchor">[2]</a> that's what you've got ... and don't want
+me to see it, I suppose! Dirty pride! the ugliest child <i>I've</i>
+ever seen ... the longest legs ... and the skinniest
+arms ... look what nice fat arms Clara and Emily's
+got! ... one would think you never got enough to
+eat ... pass me that other arm."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_2_2" id="Footnote_2_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_2_2"><span class="label">[2]</span></a> Grasshopper.</p></div>
+
+<p>With a rough flannel and blue mottled soap she scoured
+Poppy's body and face as if it had been the face of a rock;
+scrubbing and rubbing until the skin crackled like a fire
+beneath her vigorous hand. Later came a scraping down
+with a bath towel made of something of the same fibre as
+a door-mat. At last Poppy crept to her bed, her eyes like
+pin-points in her head from the scalding of the strong soap;
+her hair strained back from her sore, glazed face and
+plaited as tightly as possible into two pig-tails behind her
+ears.</p>
+
+<p>On such nights she was far enough from the beauty she
+so much coveted. To herself she appeared hideous<span class="pagenum">[14]</span>&mdash;<i>hideous</i>.
+It gave her pain to look at herself in the glass.
+And she believed that her aunt made her hideous with
+malignant intent. Her cousins had their hair loosely
+plaited, and it hung nicely over their faces, and they had
+frills to their nightgowns. Poppy's nightgown of unbleached
+calico had a tight narrow neck-band that nearly
+strangled her when buttoned with a linen button the size
+of a small saucer.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the nights when a thousand devils ate at
+her heart and fought within her, and she knew she could
+never be beautiful. She would lie awake for hours, just
+to loathe her aunt and concoct tortures for her. In imagination
+she cut slits in that hated body and filled them with
+salt and mustard, or anything that would burn; dug sharp
+knives into the cruel heart; saw the narrow hard face lying
+on the floor and beat into it with a hammer until it was red,
+red, red&mdash;and everything was red.</p>
+
+<p>"Scorpion! Scorpion!" she would rave.</p>
+
+<p>Worn out at last and half asleep she would choke and
+groan and bite her pillow, thinking she had her enemy
+under her hands, until her cousins in their big bed across
+the room would call out:</p>
+
+<p>"Ma! I wish you would come and speak to Miss
+Poppy here. She's calling you a 'scorpion'!"</p>
+
+<p>The chances were that Mrs. Kennedy, in no pleasant
+temper after all her exertions, would fly into the room,
+tear down the bedclothes, and administer two or three
+stinging slaps on Poppy's bare body, crying out upon her
+for an ungrateful, vile-tempered little fagot.</p>
+
+<p>"You want a <i>sjambok</i> round you, that's what you want,
+my lady, and you'll get it one of these days. I shan't
+go on with you in this patient way for ever."</p>
+
+<p>"I won't have a <i>sjambok</i> used on a child in my house,"
+Uncle Bob would mutter in the dining-room, asserting
+himself in this one matter at least.<span class="pagenum">[15]</span></p>
+
+<p>But Clara and Emily would jeer from their beds, calling
+her <i>Miss</i> Poppy in fine derision.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Now</i> you've got it! How did you like that, hey?
+<i>Lekker</i>, hey?"</p>
+
+<p>Some time after midnight Poppy would weep herself to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Once Poppy used to go to St. Gabriel's Infant School,
+where she had learned to read and write; but when the
+twins arrived in the world, Aunt Lena could no longer
+spare her from home, and her education languished for
+three years. But at last there came a letter from her
+god-mother in Port Elizabeth saying that she had sent
+five pounds to St. Michael's Home, asking the Sisters to
+give Poppy as much education as possible for that sum.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was wild with delight. It had been beyond her
+wildest dreams to go to St. Michael's and learn all sorts of
+wonderful things with all the <i>grand</i> children of Bloemfontein.
+She could not believe that such joy was to be hers. Mrs.
+Kennedy made great objections to the scheme, and seemed
+likely to get her way until her husband took the trouble
+to insist. So Poppy went off one morning full of hope
+and high ambition, in a clean, very stiffly starched overall
+of faded galatea, her old straw hat freshly decorated with a
+yellow pugaree that hung in long tails down her back.</p>
+
+<p>But school was only the beginning of a fresh era of
+misery. The girls stared at her old boots and sneered at
+her pugaree, and no one would be friends with her because
+she wore white cotton stockings, which were only sixpence
+a pair, and sold to Kaffir girls to wear on Sundays.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy gave back sneer for sneer and taunt for taunt
+with great versatility; but her heart was sometimes near
+bursting under the galatea overall. It seemed to her that
+even the teachers despised her because of her shabbiness
+and ugliness, and that when she worked hard at her lessons<span class="pagenum">[16]</span>
+she got less praise than the pretty girls. "Yes! it's because
+I'm ugly, and everything I wear is ugly," she whispered
+to herself as she walked home alone every day, hurrying
+because she knew the children would be dressed and ready,
+waiting to be taken to the Kopje as soon as she had bolted
+her cold dinner. Clara's and Emily's dinner was always
+kept hot. They went to the Dames' Institute, another
+school of some importance where all the nice high Dutch
+Boers sent their children: and they got home at two o'clock.
+Mrs. Kennedy said she would keep no dinner hot later
+than that hour, so that Poppy, arriving at three, found her
+stewed mutton cold in a dish of fatty gravy, and sometimes
+a bit of cold suet pudding. She would always have "filled
+up" contentedly enough with bread, but Mrs. Kennedy
+grumbled when too much bread was eaten, as she only
+baked once a week.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, when Poppy had been very unhappy at
+school, she used to stop at the Kopje instead of hurrying
+home, so that she could cry without being spied on by
+Ina or the twins. She would lie down among the rocks
+and the kind green leaves, and moan and cry out against
+God and everybody in the world. Her little songs and
+stories seemed to have died in her heart and been buried.
+She would call out to God that He <i>might</i> have let her have
+<i>something</i>&mdash;a kind mother, or golden hair, or brains, or a
+white skin, or a happy home, or <i>something</i>; it wouldn't
+have hurt <i>Him</i>, and it would have made all the difference
+to her. Later she passed from argument to anger and
+from anger to frenzy; shouting at the sky because she
+was ugly and poor and horrible within as well as without,
+so that no one loved her and she hated everyone.</p>
+
+<p>At last, tired out, hopeless, sick with bitter crying, she
+would lay her head against an old mimosa tree that had a
+curve in its trunk like the curve of a mother's arm, and the
+soft odour of the fluffy round yellow blossoms would steal<span class="pagenum">[17]</span>
+over her. Later, a land of peace and strength seemed to
+come out of the tree to her, and she would have courage to
+get up and go on her way.</p>
+
+<p>One of the teachers, Miss Briggs, was always scolding
+her about her hands. She would draw the attention of the
+whole class to them, covering Poppy with shame. They
+were not big hands like Clara's and Emily's but they were
+rough and coarse with housework and through being continually
+in the water washing stockings and handkerchiefs
+and plates; and in the winter they got horribly chapped,
+with blood marks all over them, so that the teachers
+couldn't bear to see them and the girls used to say "Sis!"
+when she reached for anything. Her nails, too, were often
+untidy, and her hair. She never had time in the mornings
+to give it more than just one brush and tie it back in her
+neck, and she used to have to clean her nails with a pin or a
+mimosa thorn while she was hurrying to school, learning
+her lessons on the way. It was the only time she had to
+learn them, except in the afternoons when she took the
+children out. If they were good and would stay happy,
+she could get out her books from under the pram seat and
+learn; but almost immediately Ina would want to be played
+with, or Georgie would fall down and hurt himself and
+whimper in her arms for half an hour. The fact was that
+the children had been brought up to believe that Poppy was
+in the world entirely for their comfort and convenience, and
+they could not bear to see her doing anything that was not
+for them.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell ma," was their parrot cry: and that meant
+boxes on the ear.</p>
+
+<p>"I up with my hand" was a favourite phrase of Aunt
+Lena's.</p>
+
+<p>In the evenings Ina must always be sung to sleep, and
+sometimes would not go off for more than an hour. Then
+Mrs. Kennedy would say briskly:<span class="pagenum">[18]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Now get your lessons done, Porpie!"</p>
+
+<p>But by then Poppy's head would be aching and her
+eyes would hardly keep open, and what she did learn would
+not stay in her head until the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>And after all, none of the teachers seemed to care much
+whether she learned them or not. If by accident she did
+them well, she got no praise; if she did them ill she was
+scolded and the lesson was "returned"&mdash;that meant being
+kept in on Friday afternoons until the lesson had been
+learnt or rewritten. But when Friday afternoon came,
+Poppy could not stay; there were the children to be taken
+out, and her ears would be boxed if she were too late to do
+that; she would get no tea, and the whole house would be
+thoroughly upset. So the "returned" lessons had to go to
+the wall. She would slink home when supposed to be taking
+recreation in the play-ground before the "returned" bell
+rang. That meant bad conduct marks, unpopularity with
+the teachers, and as the deserted Fridays mounted up&mdash;all
+hope lost of gaining a prize. After a while the teachers
+said she was incorrigible, and gave her no more attention.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder you bother to come to school at all, Poppy,"
+was the favourite gibe of Miss Briggs.</p>
+
+<p>When examination days came she did badly, except in
+history and geography, which she liked and found easy.</p>
+
+<p>Break-up day was the worst of all.</p>
+
+<p>The girls all came in their pretty soft white frocks and
+looked sweet. Only Poppy was ugly, in a piqu&eacute; frock,
+starched like a board, her hair frizzed out in a bush, her pale
+face looking yellow and sullen against the over-blued white
+dress; her long legs and her narrow feet longer and narrower
+than ever in white stockings and elastic-sided boots.</p>
+
+<p>There was never any prize for her.</p>
+
+<p>She knew there never would be. She used to keep saying
+inside herself:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Of course</i> there isn't a prize for you"; and yet she<span class="pagenum">[19]</span>
+was so silly, her ears were cracking and straining all the
+time to hear her name read out of the list. And her heart
+used to feel like a stone when the list came to an end without
+her name being called; and her pale face would be
+strangely red and burning like fire. Sometimes a little
+extra piece would be read, that Poppy Destin's historical
+essay or geography paper was the best, but the prize had
+been passed on to the second best on account of this girl's
+disobedience, untidiness, and the number of undone returned
+lessons against her name. Then everybody would
+look at Poppy Destin, and her heart would stop so still that
+she believed she must fall down dead in one minute.</p>
+
+<p>But the entertainment would go on. The girls fetched
+their prizes from the table covered with lovely books, and
+curtseyed to Lady Brand, who spoke and smiled to each
+one of them. Afterwards would come the recitations and
+songs that everyone joined in but Poppy. She had been
+turned out of the singing-class because she sang off the key.
+Also, Sister Anna said, she moaned instead of singing;
+though Poppy was aware that she had lovely tunes going
+on inside her head all the time. It must have been true
+about the moaning, for Ina used to say when Poppy sang
+to her at nights:</p>
+
+<p>"Your songs always sound just's if you are crying all
+the time, Poppy."</p>
+
+<p>She loved music, but was not allowed to learn it. Clara
+learned and Emily could have if she had liked, but Aunt
+Lena said she couldn't afford those "frills" for Poppy.
+Once a lady named Mrs. Dale offered to teach the child
+if she could be spared two afternoons a week, and Poppy
+begged her uncle to let her go. He shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>"You must ask your aunt if she can spare you, Poppy."</p>
+
+<p>"Spare her!" shrieked Mrs. Kennedy. "Isn't she
+away all day now? What help do I get from her, I'd like
+to know? and now she wants to go gadding off in the<span class="pagenum">[20]</span>
+afternoons, the only time she can be of a little use to take
+the children off my hands. Music indeed! Gadding with
+Nellie Dale is more like it."</p>
+
+<p>"Only twice a week, uncle," pleaded Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"My girl, you must do what your aunt thinks best.
+Can't you spare her two afternoons a week, Lena?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let her go ... fine musician she'll make, <i>I'm</i>
+sure," said that lady. And for two weeks Poppy went.
+Then Mrs. Kennedy, storming and raving, refused to let
+her go again. She missed her slave; so Poppy went back
+to the old life of weariness; but she had something new
+to think over. Mrs. Dale had known her mother quite
+well, and remembered Poppy as a baby.</p>
+
+<p>"You were a sweet little thing," she said. "So beautifully
+kept, and the apple of your mother's eye."</p>
+
+<p>This was most wonderful and shining news. Any illusions
+Poppy might have had about her mother had long
+since been scattered by such remarks from her aunt
+as:</p>
+
+<p>"Your mother ought to be alive. She'd have skinned
+you for your dirtiness&mdash;your deceit, your laziness" (whatever
+the crime might be).</p>
+
+<p>Or:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a good thing your mother's lying cold in her grave,
+my girl&mdash;she would have had murder on her soul if she had
+had <i>you</i> to deal with."</p>
+
+<p>Now, to hear that her mother had been a gentle and kind
+woman, not beautiful, but with wonderful Irish eyes and
+"a laugh like a bird's song!"</p>
+
+<p>"Clever, too," said Mrs. Dale. "Though she was only
+a poor Irish girl and came out here with the emigrants, she
+had a lot of learning, and had read more books than anyone
+in Bloemfontein. I think the priests must have educated
+her."</p>
+
+<p>"But why has no one ever told me before?" asked Poppy<span class="pagenum">[21]</span>
+in amazement. "No one speaks of her, or of my father,
+to me! Why?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dale shook her gentle head.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah well, my dear, she's at rest now and your wild
+Irish father too. Her heart broke when he broke his neck
+somewhere down on the diamond diggings, and she didn't
+want to live any longer, even for you&mdash;her Poppy-flower
+she always called you. One day, when I went to see her,
+she said to me, looking at you with those eyes of hers that
+were like dewy flowers: 'Perhaps my little Poppy-flower
+will get some joy out of life, Mrs. Dale. It can't be for
+nothing that Joe and I have loved each other so much. It
+must bring some gift to the child.' And she told me that
+the reason she had called you Poppy was that in Ireland
+they have a saying that poppies bring forgetfulness and
+freedom from pain; but then she took to weeping, that
+weeping that is like lost melodies, and that only the Irishry
+know.</p>
+
+<p>"'But I see,' she wailed, 'that she's marked out for
+sorrow&mdash;I see it&mdash;I see it.' And three nights after that
+she died."</p>
+
+<p>This was Mrs. Dale's story. Poppy treasured it in her
+heart with the verbal picture of her mother, "eyes like a
+dewy morning, black, black hair, and a beautiful swaying
+walk."</p>
+
+<p>"It must have been like hearing one of those old Irish
+melodies played on a harp, to see her walk along the
+street," was the thought Poppy evolved from Mrs. Dale's
+description.</p>
+
+<p>After that she never found life quite unlovely again.
+But she longed to hear more, and whenever she could,
+even at the risk of curses and blows, she would steal to
+kind Mrs. Dale for another word. How ardently she
+wished her mother had lived. How unutterably beautiful
+to be called Poppy-flower! instead of <i>Porpie</i>! Her mother<span class="pagenum">[22]</span>
+would have understood, too, the love and craving for
+books which had seized her since she had more learning.
+She would not have been obliged to creep into the fowls'
+<i>hok</i> or the forage-house when she wanted to read some
+book she had borrowed or found lying about the house,
+or the old Tennyson which she had rescued from the ash-heap
+one day and kept hidden under the chaff-bags in
+the forage-house.</p>
+
+<p>"There's that Porpie with a book again!" was her
+aunt's outraged cry. "Lazy young huzzy! For ever
+squatting with her nose poked into a book reading some
+wickedness or foolishness I'll be bound.... Anything
+rather than be helpful ... no wonder your face is yellow
+and green, miss ... sitting with your back crooked up
+instead of running about or doing some housework ...
+more to your credit if you got a duster and polished the
+dining-room table or mended that hole in the leg of your
+stocking." Oh, the thousands of uninteresting things
+there are to be done in the world! thought Poppy. The
+dusters and damnations of life!</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>She used to long to be taken ill so that she might have
+a rest in bed and be able at last to read as much as she
+liked. But when she broke her arm she was too ill to care
+even about reading, and when she got scarlet fever she
+could not really enjoy herself, for Ina sickened of it too,
+and was put into bed with her, and was so fretful, always
+crying unless she was told stories or sung to. So they
+got better together and <i>that</i> was over.</p>
+
+<p>Before she was twelve Poppy's schooldays came to
+an end. The five sovereigns had been spent and there
+was no more to come. Wasted money, Mrs. Kennedy
+said, and wrote and told the god-mother so. The fact
+that never a single prize had been won was damning
+evidence that the culprit was both idle and a dunce. It<span class="pagenum">[23]</span>
+was quite true that she had learnt nothing much in the
+way of lessons. History and geography or anything with
+a story in it, or poetry, were the only things that interested
+her. Grammar and arithmetic were nothing but
+stumbling-blocks in her path, though she never spoke bad
+grammar, being quick to detect the difference in the
+language of her teachers and that of her aunt, and profiting
+by it, and she learned to use her voice as they did too&mdash;softly
+and low&mdash;never speaking the half-Dutch, half-English
+patter used by Mrs. Kennedy and her children
+to the accompaniment of "Och, what?" "Hey?" and
+"Sis!" Her Uncle Bob had a sweet way of turning his
+words in his lips, which made even the kitchen-Dutch
+pleasant to the ear, and with great delight Poppy discovered
+one day that she also had this trick. Not for years however,
+did she realise that this was Ireland in her tongue;
+her country's way of marking Bob Kennedy and Poppy
+Destin as her own, in spite of Africa.</p>
+
+<p>Her ear was fine for beautiful sounds and her aunt's
+voice scraped the inside of her head more and more as
+time went on, and whenever the latter dropped an "h"
+Poppy picked it up and stored it in that dark inner
+cupboard of hers where was kept all scorn and contempt.</p>
+
+<p>She never made a remark herself without <i>thinking</i> it
+first and deciding how it was going to sound, so afraid
+was she of getting to speak like her aunt. Often she used
+to practise talking, or recite to herself when she thought
+no one was listening, but when overheard, fresh sneers
+were thrown at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Was she going daft then? ... speaking to herself
+like a crazy Hottentot ... concocting impudence, no
+doubt ... the lunatic asylum was <i>her</i> place ... and
+don't let me hear you again, my lady, or I'll up with my
+hand ... etc."</p>
+
+<p>One day Ina fell very ill, and Mrs. Kennedy sent a<span class="pagenum">[24]</span>
+messenger flying for the doctor. When he came he shook
+his head gravely, and after a week or two announced that
+the child had dropsy. It sometimes followed on scarlet
+fever, he said ... especially if the child had taken
+cold ... probably she had been sitting on the damp
+ground. At once Mrs. Kennedy's imagination conjured
+up a picture of Ina sitting on a damp stone on the Kopje
+while Poppy amused herself reading a book. That was
+quite enough to convince her as to who was the cause
+of the child's illness. Thereafter she never ceased to
+reproach Poppy with this new crime.</p>
+
+<p>"If it hadn't been for <i>your</i> wicked carelessness, my
+child wouldn't be lying at death's door now," was her
+eternal cry, followed by a long list of all the sins and
+offences committed by Poppy since first the affliction of
+her presence had fallen upon the Kennedys' home.</p>
+
+<p>"A thorn in my side, that's what you've been ever since
+I first set eyes on your yellow face.... I don't know
+what God lets such beasts as you go on living for ... no
+good to anyone ... dirty, deceitful little slut ... nose
+always in a book ... muttering to yourself like an Irish
+Fenian ... ill-treating my children.... Your mother
+ought to have been alive, that's what ... <i>she</i> would
+have learned you ... etc."</p>
+
+<p>A fresh offence was that little Ina would have no one
+else with her but the despised and evil one. The cry on
+her lips was always, "Poppy, Poppy&mdash;come, Poppy!"</p>
+
+<p>She lay in her cot, white and swollen, and marbly-looking,
+and at first the doctor steamed her incessantly;
+a wire cage covered with blankets over her body, a big
+kettle, with its long spout stuck into the cage, boiling at
+the foot of the bed. She would moan and fret at the heat
+and Poppy had to be singing to her always; even fairy
+tales she would have sung to her. One day the doctor
+cut three slits in the instep of each poor little foot while<span class="pagenum">[25]</span>
+she lay in Poppy's arms, clinging and wailing, and Poppy,
+quivering and sick, watched the sharp little knife and the
+water spouting out almost up to the ceiling&mdash;no blood came.
+After that, all Ina's marbly look was gone, and it was plain
+to see that she was nothing but a little white skeleton; and
+so weak she could hardly whisper to Poppy to sing to her&mdash;"There's
+a Friend for little children," and "Snow-white
+and Rose-red"&mdash;her favourite hymn and her favourite
+fairy-tale.</p>
+
+<p>It had never occurred to Poppy that the child would
+die; but one day the doctor stood a long time watching
+her as she lay staring straight at the ceiling with her pretty
+brown eyes all glazy, and her little ghost hands clutching
+the bars of her cot, and presently he shrugged his shoulders
+in a hopeless way and turned to Mrs. Kennedy.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we might save her as she was so young,
+but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Then he went away and did not come so often after.
+And day by day Ina grew thinner and whiter, and her
+eyes got bigger and shone more, and she never made a
+sound except to whisper, "Poppy&mdash;sing, Poppy."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's voice had gone to a whisper too, then, and she
+could only make strange sounds in her throat; but Ina
+did not notice that.</p>
+
+<p>The whole family used to creep into the room and stand
+round the cot, while Poppy sat there with Ina's hand in
+hers, whispering songs between the bars of the cot, while
+her head felt as though there were long sharp needles
+running through it, and her throat and body were full of
+horrible pains. Sometimes the room seemed all cloudy
+and she only faintly saw dead faces through the dimness;
+Ina and she whispering together seemed to be the only
+alive people in the world.</p>
+
+<p>Even Aunt Lena's tongue was still those days, and<span class="pagenum">[26]</span>
+forgot to abuse, but sometimes when Ina turned away
+from her, moaning for Poppy, the mother's eyes could be
+seen gleaming malignantly across the cot. Poppy glared
+back, for she had come to love little Ina so passionately
+that she could hardly bear anyone else to come near. No
+one had ever wanted Poppy and loved her before, and
+from her gratitude sprang a deep love for the sick child.
+All through the day she sat by the cot, even taking her
+food there, and at night she slept wrapt in a blanket on
+the floor or sitting in a chair by the bed.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One evening at nine o'clock Ina died.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy had been singing a little Boer love song to her in a
+dreadful rustling voice, with face pressed against the cold
+bars and eyes shut, when she heard a gentle sigh that
+seemed to pass over her face like soft white feathers. She
+left off singing and peered down into the cot. The room
+was very dim, but she could see the little white face with
+the soft damp rings of hair round it, lying very still and
+with eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ina," she whispered with a dreadful fear. "Ina,
+speak to Poppy&mdash;open eyes, darling."</p>
+
+<p>But Ina never opened eyes or spoke again.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Immediately Mrs. Kennedy filled the house with her
+lamentations, and mingled with them were cursings and
+revilings of Poppy. She would kill her, she shrieked, even
+as her child had been killed by that cursed Irish Fenian.
+She was raving mad for the time, and no doubt she would
+have killed Poppy, or attempted it, if her husband had not
+been there to keep her by main force from violence. But
+that Poppy should be driven from the house she insisted.</p>
+
+<p>"She shall not sleep under my roof with that innocent
+little corpse," she screamed. "Go, go out of the house,
+brute and beast and devil." And breaking loose from<span class="pagenum">[27]</span>
+her husband's hands she caught hold of the ghost-like
+child and flung her into the yard.</p>
+
+<p>When Poppy got up from the ground it was late and the
+door was shut for the night. The world was black save
+for a few pale stars. She wondered heavily where she could
+go and lie down and sleep. She was like a man who has
+walked unceasingly for hundreds of miles. She could
+think of nothing but sleep. She groped for the forage-house
+door, thinking how sweet it would be to rest there on
+the bundles of forage, with the smell of the pumpkins coming
+down from the roof, where they were ripening; but
+the door was locked. The fowl-hok swarmed with lice in
+the summer; even in her weariness her flesh crept at the
+thought of spending the night there. She remembered the
+Kopje and her old friend the mimosa tree, but there was a
+certain gloom about the Kopje on a dark night. At last she
+thought of the poplar trees by the Big Dam; they were her
+friends&mdash;all trees were her friends. When her heart hurt
+her most and her eyes seemed bursting from her head
+because she could not cry, if she could get close to a tree
+and press against it, and put the leaves to her eyes, some
+of her misery seemed to be taken away: thoughts and
+hopes would come into her mind, she could forget what
+had made her unhappy and her little songs would begin
+to make themselves heard.</p>
+
+<p>When she broke her arm she used to cry all night for
+them to put green leaves on the place to stop the aching,
+but they would not. Only the doctor, when he heard
+about it, brought her a bunch of geranium leaves one
+morning. She put them quickly under her pillow and
+when no one was there laid them down by her side, because
+she could not get them under the splints, and they eased
+the pain, until they were withered and "Aunt Lena" found
+them in the bed and threw them away: then the pain was
+as bad as ever.<span class="pagenum">[28]</span></p>
+
+<p>The poplar trees grew in a long line of thirty or so by the
+side of the Big Dam which lay just outside the town past
+the Presidency. Poppy was sometimes allowed to take the
+children there, when Clara and Emily went to help mind
+the children, in case they climbed up the dam wall and fell
+into the water. They were tall, grand trees, that never
+ceased rustling in the breeze that crept across the big
+expanse of water, even on the hottest days. Poppy had
+climbed every one of them, and she never forgot the
+moment of pure gold joy that she felt when she reached
+the top of each and sat there silent and afar from the
+world, cloistered round by the mysteriously whispering
+leaves. But the seventh tree was her specially loved
+friend. It belonged to her&mdash;and she had climbed to its
+very tip, higher than anyone ever had before, and cut her
+name in the soft pale bark.</p>
+
+<p>And this was the friend she turned to on that night of
+dreadful weariness when Ina died.</p>
+
+<p>She never knew how she got through the town, silent
+and dark, and over the little hill thick with <i>bessie</i> bushes
+and rocks that lay between the Dames' Institute and the
+Presidency. She did not even remember climbing the
+tree, which had a thick smooth trunk and was hard to get
+up for the first six or seven feet. But at last she was in her
+seat at the top between two branches, cuddling up to the
+mother-trunk with her arms round it and her eyes closed.</p>
+
+<p>Then, even though her heart took comfort, the darkness
+and strange sounds of the night terrified her, and filled
+her with dread and despair. There were wild ducks flying
+and circling in long black lines against the pallid stars
+over the dam, wailing to each other as though they had
+lost something they could never, never find again. And
+the wind on the water made a dreary pattering that sounded
+like the bare feet of hundreds of dead people who had
+come out of the graveyards close by, and were hurrying<span class="pagenum">[29]</span>
+backwards and forwards on the dam. Then there would
+be a mysterious rushing through the trees and all the
+leaves would quiver and quake against each other, like
+little ghosts that were afraid to be out in the dark night.
+Poppy wondered if Ina's little ghost was with them.</p>
+
+<p>In the highest windows of the Dames' Institute there
+were still a few lights showing, and a dim red glow came
+from a window at one end of the Presidency, and when
+Poppy opened her eyes these seemed like friends to her.
+But they went out one by one, and with the last, light
+seemed to go out of her mind too. She shut her eyes again,
+and pressed her heart against the poplar tree, and called
+through the darkness to her mother. She did not know
+whether she really called aloud, but it seemed to her
+that a long thin shriek burst from her lips, as a
+bullet bursts from a gun, piercing through the air for
+miles.</p>
+
+<p>"Mother! Mother! Mother, my heart is breaking."
+She sobbed, and sobbed, and sobbed, gripping the little
+ghostly leaves and pressing them to her eyes. But her
+mother did not come, of course. No one came. Only the
+little ghostly leaves shivered more than ever and the dreary
+dead feet came pattering over the water. At this time a
+sweet, sad cadence of words streamed into Poppy's head
+and began to form a little song. Strange, that though its
+burden was misery and wretchedness, it presently began to
+comfort her a little.</p>
+
+<p>"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea"&mdash;it ran.</p>
+
+<p>Yet Poppy had never seen the sea.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone in the world seemed to be sleeping except the
+dead people and Poppy. Even the clock in the Government
+buildings struck as though muffled up in blankets,
+speaking in its sleep. When it was striking she raised
+her head to listen and count the strokes, and forgetting
+the horror of the night opened her eyes&mdash;and beheld a<span class="pagenum">[30]</span>
+terrible, shroudy vision creeping over the world. It came
+very slowly and stealthily, like a grey witch in a tale of
+horror, and ate up little patches of darkness as it came,
+swelling larger as it ate. Oh! the dead people swaying to
+and fro on the water! She prayed they might be gone
+back to their graves before the grey witch reached them
+with her long, clutching fingers; she prayed in a frenzy
+of fear for herself, calling to Christ and Mary Mother of
+God, to save her from the grey witch. She rocked herself
+backwards and forwards, praying and moaning, and almost
+falling from the tree, and at last in reckless desperation
+opened her eyes, and glared out over the dam&mdash;and saw
+that the dawn had come. The grey witch had turned
+into a lovely lady, all decked in palest pink, with her arms
+spread wide in the sky, trailing long veils of sheeny lavender
+cloud behind her.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A man and a boy with guns in their hands were creeping
+along under the dam wall, trying to get near a covey of
+wild duck on the water. Presently they stopped, and
+crouching, took aim and fired. The birds rose in a swarm
+and flew shrieking in long black lines, leaving two poor
+little black bodies on the dam&mdash;one flapping the water
+with a feeble wing, trying to rise, and falling back every time.
+The boy threw off his clothes and went in after them,
+while the man drew under the shadow of the dam wall, and
+began to run, making for the far side of the water, where
+the ducks seemed likely to settle again.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the lady of the sky grew brighter and streaks
+of gold came into her pink and lavender veils; the grass
+was all silvery with the heavy dew, and the earth gave up
+a sweet and lovely smell. God seems to go away from
+Africa at night, but He comes back most beautiful and
+radiant in the morning. Birds began to chirrup and twitter
+in the trees and bushes, and take little flying journeys in<span class="pagenum">[31]</span>
+the air. The clock struck five&mdash;clear and bell-like strokes
+now, that sang and echoed out into the morning.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy felt cold and stiff and hungry, and very tired, as
+though she should fall down and die if she stayed in the
+tree any longer.</p>
+
+<p>There was nothing to do, and nowhere to go but home.
+After all, Aunt Lena could only kill her once. Then
+she would join Ina and see her mother, and hear Irish
+melodies, and be where it was not cold or lonely any more.
+She got down from the tree almost cheerfully and made her
+way through the grass, plucking a few <i>crase bessies</i> by the
+way and munching them as she walked. There was hardly
+anyone about the town, except a few <i>boys</i> carrying pails
+of water from the fountain. When she reached home, she
+found that the house was still shut and locked, with all the
+blinds down. So she sat on the kitchen step and waited
+until old Sara, coming out to get wood for the fire, nearly
+fell over her.</p>
+
+<p>"Tch! Tch! Tch!" she clucked. "<i>Arme kentze!
+War vas sig gisterand?</i>" (Poor child! Where were you
+last night?)</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Dar bij de dam. Ge koffi O'Sara. Ik is freeslik kow.</i>"
+(Up by the Big Dam. Give me some coffee, Sara. I am
+very cold.)</p>
+
+<p>"Jah! Jah!" said old Sara, and hurried away, clucking
+and muttering, to make the fire and get the morning coffee.
+Poppy went in and warmed herself, and presently got
+down the cups and beakers and stood them in a row on the
+kitchen table. Cups and saucers for aunt and uncle and
+Clara and Emily, and beakers for the children. Old Sara
+poured them full of steaming black coffee, added milk and
+sugar and a home-made rusk in each saucer, and carried
+them away to the bedrooms. Poppy sat down with a
+beaker full, dipping a rusk into the coffee and eating it
+sopped, because the rusks are too hard to eat any other<span class="pagenum">[32]</span>
+way. Presently old Sara came and squatted on her
+haunches by the fire too, drinking her coffee from a white
+basin with a blue band round it (blue that it gave Poppy
+a pain to look at, it was so cold and livid), and making
+fearful squelching noises, she sopped and ate. Rolling
+her big black and white eyes at Poppy, she whispered all
+that had happened after she had gone. Aunt Lena had
+screamed and cried for hours, raving that she would not
+have her child's murderess in the house again. She could
+go and live in the fowls' <i>hok</i>, or the forage-house, until
+another home was found for her, but if Poppy came into
+her sight again, she would tear her limb from limb. Afterwards
+she had coughed and spat up blood. Old Sara
+wagged her head, giving this piece of information as one
+who should say: "Serve her right, too." The doctor had
+come and said that "something was broken inside." Old
+Sara patted her wobbly stomach. "She must go to bed
+and not move for a month or she would go too." Old
+Sara pointed sanctimoniously upwards.</p>
+
+<p>It was even so. Aunt Lena lay for weeks on her bed,
+but still ruling her house from it. Poppy was not allowed
+to eat or sleep under the house roof. A blanket was given
+to her, and she slept on the bales of chaff in the out-house
+with a bundle of forage for a pillow. Old Sara brought to
+her there such meals as she was allowed to receive.</p>
+
+<p>The twins were not allowed to speak to her: a strange
+girl was hired to take them out&mdash;Poppy did not mind that.
+Clara and Emily passed her in the yard as though she
+was a jackal or some unclean beast&mdash;she minded that
+even less. The only thing she minded at all, was not being
+allowed to see Ina before she was buried.</p>
+
+<p>On the day of the funeral, the little cold form in the coffin
+was not more cold and numb than one lying out in the
+out-house between two bales of chaff. Despair of mourning
+had Poppy by the throat. She could have wailed like a<span class="pagenum">[33]</span>
+banshee. Indeed, if her voice had not gone from her, it is
+probable that she would have relieved the pressure on
+her heart and brain in this fashion. As it was, she was
+the only person in the place who gave no outward sign of
+mourning. Her old blue galatea overall, with the pattern
+worn faint in front, and the sleeves in rags, might have
+grown to her back. But old Sara was given a dark dress of
+Aunt Lena's, and a new black <i>dook</i> to wear on her head.
+Clara and Emily had new black alpaca dresses, with tucks
+round the bottom and black ribbon sashes. Eight little
+girls came dressed in white, with their hair down and long
+floating white muslin veils hanging behind, and bunches
+of white flowers in their hands. They were to carry the
+coffin in turns, four carrying and four walking behind,
+because it was a very long way to the graveyard. Mr.
+Kennedy and Georgie and Bobby walked behind them, and
+then a great many men. But the saddest mourner of all
+watched from the crack of the forage-house door, and
+thought how sad and beautiful it all was, and how it would
+have been spoilt if she had gone out and joined it in her
+blue overall; and after the procession was out of sight, lay
+there on her face on the chaff, and could not cry; and
+seemed to have swallowed a stone, that stuck in her
+throat and gave her dreadful pains all across her chest;
+and whose heart kept saying: "I hate God! I hate
+aunt!" And when she tried to scream it aloud, found
+that she had no voice.</p>
+
+<p>In the evening when the sun was set, but before it was
+dark, a figure stole out of the back yard, crept through
+the empty <i>spruit</i>, slipped through a private garden and
+came out by the cathedral steps; then up past the big
+church bell that tolled for the dead, and so to the graveyard.</p>
+
+<p>All the way she gathered wild flowers and grasses&mdash;rock-maiden-hair,
+<i>rooi gras</i>, moon-flowers, and most especially
+shivery-grass, and the little perky rushes with a flower<span class="pagenum">[34]</span>
+sprouting out of them, which the children call <i>tulps</i>. Ina
+had always loved these. Some "four o'clocks" too, stolen
+from a front garden as she passed, were added, and even
+a <i>stink bloem</i> graced the great bunch with which Poppy
+entered the churchyard.</p>
+
+<p>She found a new little heap of red earth that she knew
+must be Ina's grave, for it was all covered with wreaths
+and the bunches of flowers the eight girls had carried.
+Scraping them all to the foot of the grave, Poppy laid hers
+where she thought Ina's hands would be, whispering
+down through the earth:</p>
+
+<p>"From Poppy, Ina&mdash;Poppy who loves you best of all."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Some nights old Sara would come sneaking softly over to
+the forage-house, to sit a while with Poppy; sometimes
+she had a rusk to give the prisoner; most often she had
+nothing but an end of candle, but that was very welcome.
+Lighting it, and sticking it on a side beam, she would squat
+on the floor, and taking off her <i>dook</i>, proceed to comb
+her wool. Poppy was glad of company, and interested
+in the frank way old Sara attended to the business of
+catching and killing her <i>chochermanners</i>; besides, there
+were a lot of interesting things in old Sara's wool besides
+<i>chochermanners</i>: there was a little bone box full of snuff, and
+a little bone spoon to put it in the nose with; and a piece
+of paper with all old Sara's money in it; and a tooth
+belonging to old Sara's mother, and several small home-made
+bone combs and pins and charms.</p>
+
+<p>Old Sara's Dutch was poor, and Poppy could not speak
+Basuto, so that much conversation did not ensue, but
+black people can tell a great deal without saying much.</p>
+
+<p>Once Poppy asked her why she did not go to her <i>kraal</i>
+and live with her children instead of working for white
+people.</p>
+
+<p>Old Sara took snuff and answered briefly:<span class="pagenum">[35]</span></p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ek het n&ecirc; kinders, oor Ek is ne getroud.</i>" (I have no
+children, because I am not married.)</p>
+
+<p>This was good, but not infallible logic, as Poppy even
+in her few years had discovered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you get married when you were young,
+old Sara?" she queried.</p>
+
+<p>Old Sara rolled her eyes mournfully at the child, and
+muttered some words in her own language. Then slowly
+she undid the buttons of many kinds and colours which
+adorned the front of her dress. From the left bosom she
+took a large bundle of rags, and placed them carefully on
+the floor, then opening her bodice wide, she revealed her
+black body bare to the waist. Poppy's astonished gaze fell
+upon a right breast&mdash;no object of beauty, but large and
+heavy; but where the left breast should be was only a
+little shrivel of brown skin high up out of line with the
+other.</p>
+
+<p>That was old Sara's only answer to Poppy's question.
+Afterwards she quietly replaced her bundle of rags, and
+rebuttoned her dress.</p>
+
+<p>As for Poppy, she pondered the problem long. At last
+she made a little song, which she called:</p>
+
+<p>"The woman with the crooked breast."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One night old Sara brought news.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's box was being packed. In two days she was
+going to be sent away in the post-cart. Poppy thrilled
+with joy, and had no foreboding until next day when she
+overheard Clara and Emily whispering together in the
+yard. It transpired that though they envied Poppy the
+journey to Boshof in the post-cart, they did not envy her
+subsequent career under the protection of their mother's
+sister, Aunt Clara Smit.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember that time ma sent us there when
+Ina had the diphtheria? We never got anything but<span class="pagenum">[36]</span>
+bread and dripping, and she was eating chops and steaks
+all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Clara, "and remember how she used to
+beat <i>Katzi</i>, the little Hottentot girl, in bed every night
+for a week until the blood came, just because she broke
+a cup."</p>
+
+<p>"Ha! ha!" they chirruped, "won't Miss Poppy get it
+<i>just</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and mammer's going to give her something before
+she goes, too. She sent me to buy a <i>sjambok</i> this morning,
+because pa's hidden his away, and when he's gone out to
+the 'Ph&#339;nix' to-night, she's going to have Poppy across
+the bed in front of her. You're to hold her head and me
+her feet."</p>
+
+<p>"Tlk! Won't she get it!"</p>
+
+<p>This interesting piece of news determined Poppy on
+a matter which had long been simmering in her mind.
+She decided at last that she would take no more beatings
+from Aunt Lena, and neither would she sample the quality
+of Aunt Clara Smit's charity. She would run away.</p>
+
+<p>All that afternoon she lay turning the matter over, and
+later she took old Sara into her confidence for two reasons:
+old Sara must commandeer some food for her, and must
+also get for her the only thing she wanted to take away
+with her&mdash;a round green stone brooch which had belonged
+to her mother, and which Aunt Lena kept in her top
+drawer.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy felt sure that with her mother's brooch on her
+she need fear nothing in the world; it was green, and
+therefore kindly disposed, as all green things were, being
+akin to trees.</p>
+
+<p>It took a long while to beguile old Sara to obtain the
+brooch, for the old woman was very honest and she thought
+this looked too much like a stealing matter. Eventually
+she was persuaded, and a little after seven o'clock she<span class="pagenum">[37]</span>
+brought it stealthily to the forage-house, together with a
+pocketful of food-scraps saved from her own portion of
+the evening meal.</p>
+
+<p>After this, Poppy did not dare wait another instant.
+She knew that as soon as he had finished his supper, her
+uncle would light his pipe and stroll off to spend a cheerful
+evening in the billiard-room of the "Ph&#339;nix Hotel";
+then they would come to fetch her indoors!</p>
+
+<p>With a hasty farewell to old Sara, her only friend,
+she slipped out through the dark yard and ran swiftly up
+the street. Her direction was towards the <i>Uitspan</i>, a big
+bare place about half a mile from the town where wagons
+halted for a night before starting on a journey, or before
+bringing their loads into town in the morning. There
+was a big <i>Uitspan</i> out beyond St. Michael's, and she made
+for that one, remembering there were always plenty of
+wagons there.</p>
+
+<p>When she stole near it in the darkness, she counted
+eight wagons, four of which were loaded to depart, since
+their dissel-booms were turned away from the town.</p>
+
+<p>There were several fires burning, and the fume of coffee
+was on the night air. Someone was making <i>as-kookies</i>
+(ash-cakes) too, for a pleasant smell of burnt dough assailed
+Poppy's nose. Four Kaffir <i>boys</i> were sitting round a three-legged
+pot, dipping into it and jabbering together, and by
+the light of another fire a white woman and three children
+were taking their evening meal. The wagon behind them
+was loaded with furniture and boxes, and by this Poppy
+was sure that they were a family on the move. She crept
+nearer to them, keeping in the shadow of the close-growing
+bushes. The dull red fires and the stars gave the only
+light there was.</p>
+
+<p>"Ma," said one of the children at the fire, "I see a
+spook over there by the bushes." The mother's response
+was: "Here, you make haste and finish your coffee and<span class="pagenum">[38]</span>
+get into the wagon. It's time you children were asleep.
+They're going to inspan at eleven and you'd better
+get a good sleep before the wagon starts creaking and
+jolting."</p>
+
+<p>This was useful information to Poppy. Her plan was
+to follow the wagon when it started and keep near it until
+late the next day, when too far from Bloemfontein to be
+sent back.</p>
+
+<p>She crouched lower among the bushes, and presently
+began to munch some of her oddments of food, while still
+she watched the family she meant to adopt. When they
+had finished their meal they first washed up their tin
+beakers and plates with water from a small <i>fykie</i> which
+hung under the wagon; then everything was carefully put
+away into a wooden locker, and they prepared to retire
+for the night. The mother was a round-faced, good-natured-looking,
+half-Dutch colonial, evidently. She
+climbed sturdily into the tented wagon by the help of the
+brake and a little <i>reimpe</i> ladder. Across the tent was
+swung a <i>cartel</i> (thong mattress) and atop of this was a big
+comfortable mattress with pillows and blankets arranged
+ready for use. By the light of the lantern which the woman
+fixed to the roof of the tent, Poppy could see that the
+sides of the tent were lined with calico bags with buttoned-over
+flaps, all bulging with the things that would be needed
+on the journey. The woman proceeded to store away
+more things from a heap in the middle of the bed, some
+she put under the pillows, some under the mattress, and
+many were tied to the wooden ribs of the tent so that it
+presently resembled a Christmas-tree. Meantime the
+children clustered on the brake and the <i>reimpe</i> ladder,
+fidgeting to climb into the snug-looking nest. The mother
+talked while she worked:</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Alice! I'll put this pair of old boots into the
+end bag, they'll do for wearing in the veldt&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum">[39]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, sis, ma! I hate those old boots, they hurt me&mdash;" expostulated
+Alice.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, how can they hurt you? You keep your
+new ones for Pretoria, anything'll do on the veldt. Now
+you all see where I'm putting the comb&mdash;and this beaker
+we'll keep up in your corner, Minnie, so we don't have to
+go to the locker every time we're thirsty. I hope that
+boy will hang the <i>fykie</i> where we can reach it. Begin to
+take your boots off, Johnny. I'm not going to have you
+in here treading on my quilt with those boots; no one is
+to get in until they're <i>carl-foot</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll get <i>deviljies</i> (thorns) in my feet if I take them off
+out here," says Johnny. "Can't I sit on the edge of the
+bed?"</p>
+
+<p>"All right then, but keep your feet out. Minnie, take
+off that good ribbon and tie your hair with this piece of
+tape," etc.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually they were all in the tent, lying in a row
+crossways, the mother by the opening as a sort of barricade.
+They did not undress&mdash;only loosened their clothes.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone wanted to lie across the opening. They
+couldn't see anything at the back of the tent, they complained;
+only had to lie and stare at the things bobbing
+overhead.</p>
+
+<p>"You never mind that," said the mother, arguing.
+"You've got three or four weeks to see the veldt and the
+oxen in. I'm going to lie here so that I can keep you
+children from falling out while we're trekking. Why I
+knew a woman once who let her baby lie on the outside,
+and in the middle of the night she woke up and heard an
+awful crunching under the wheels, and when she felt for
+the baby it wasn't there!" This story caused a great
+sensation, but presently Johnny asked how the baby's
+bones could crunch under the wheels "if it fell out behind
+the wagon!"<span class="pagenum">[40]</span></p>
+
+<p>The mother considered for a moment, then said:</p>
+
+<p>"It was the wheels of the wagon behind, of course,
+<i>dom-kop</i>."</p>
+
+<p>But Johnny pointed out that a whole span of oxen
+would come before the wheels of the next wagon, and that
+the baby would be all trodden to bits before the wheels
+reached it.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>Kgar! Sis!</i>" cried the sisters; and at this his
+mother told him amiably to shut his mouth and go to
+sleep.</p>
+
+<p>But though she put out the lantern the talk still went
+on intermittently until replaced by snores.</p>
+
+<p>The <i>boys</i> and the transport-drivers all lay wrapped in
+their blankets, snoring too. Only afar the oxen could be
+heard moving as they grazed, and the bell on the neck of
+one of them clanked restlessly. The fires had died down
+to dim red spots. The watcher in the bushes was the only
+one awake in the camp. She feared that if she slept the
+family in the wagon might be up and away. Her mind
+was made up to accompany that good-natured-looking
+woman and her family to Pretoria, since that was where
+they were bound for. She would follow the wagons and
+join them when a long way from Bloemfontein, and her
+tale would be that she belonged to a wagon which had gone
+on in front. She would pretend that she had got lost, and
+ask to be taken on to rejoin her relations in Pretoria.</p>
+
+<p>At about eleven o'clock the moon rose, but no one
+stirred in the camp. Suddenly the figure of a man arose,
+took a long whip from the side of a wagon, unwound it,
+walked a little way from the camp, swung it whistling
+softly round his head for a moment, then sent a frightful
+report ringing across the veldt. Afterwards he lay down
+again until a great crackling and trampling and shouting
+told that the oxen were in the camp with their herders
+hooting and yelling round them. In a moment other still<span class="pagenum">[41]</span>
+figures were on their feet; a clamour arose of voices
+shouting, wooden yokes clattering, dissel-booms creaking;
+bullocks were called at by their names and sworn at
+individually:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rooi-nek! Yoh Skelpot! com an da!</i>" (Redneck! You
+tortoise! come on there!)</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Viljoen! Wat makeer jij?</i>" (Viljoen! What's wrong
+with <i>you</i>?)</p>
+
+<p>Loud blows and kicks were heard and demands for
+missing oxen.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Jan, war is de Vaal-pans?</i>" (John, where is the
+yellow-belly?)</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ek saal yoh net now slaan, jou faarbont.</i>" (I'll strike
+you in a minute, you baseborn.)</p>
+
+<p>"<i>De verdomder Swart-kop!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Each wagon had a span of eighteen or twenty oxen,
+and as soon as the last pair was yoked, a small black boy,
+the <i>voerlooper</i>, would run to their heads, seize the leading
+<i>rein</i> and turn them towards the road. Then came a
+tremendous crack of the driver's whip, a stream of oaths
+and oxen's names, intermingled and ending in:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yak!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>One by one the four wagons took the road, raising clouds
+of red dust, the drivers and boys running alongside.</p>
+
+<p>Usually passenger-wagons go first in the line, but the
+wagon with Poppy's adopted family in it, started last,
+because <i>Swart-kop</i>, a big black-and-white ox, had been
+particularly fractious, and had delayed the operation of
+inspanning, putting the driver into a terrible passion.
+Poppy waited until his cursings and revilings were only
+faintly heard on the air, then slipping quietly through the
+camp which had returned to peaceful sleeping, she plunged
+into the clouds of dust.</p>
+
+<p>Throughout the night hours she padded along, her
+throat and ears and mouth filled with the fine dirt, her<span class="pagenum">[42]</span>
+eyes running and sore; afraid to get too near the wagons
+for fear of being seen; afraid to be too far behind for fear
+of she knew not what.</p>
+
+<p>Towards dawn they passed through a narrow <i>sluit</i>. The
+water was filthy at the <i>drift</i> when all the wagons had gone
+through it, but she left the road and found a clean place
+higher up where she thankfully drank and laved her
+begrimed face. As the dawn broke she could see that the
+veldt was well-bushed with clumps of rocks, and big ant-heaps
+here and there; there would be plenty of hiding-places
+when the wagons stopped.</p>
+
+<p>Presently there were signs of a coming halt. The oxen
+slackened pace, the drivers began to call to each other, and
+the man who was evidently the <i>Baas</i> of the convoy went
+off the road and inspected the ground.</p>
+
+<p>Then a long loud:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Woa! An&mdash;nauw!</i>" passed along the line, each wagon
+took to the veldt, drawing up at about fifty yards from the
+road.</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter came the outspanning, with the identical
+accompaniments of the inspanning. When the oxen had
+gone to seek water and food in charge of their herders, the
+<i>voerloopers</i> departed to gather wood and <i>mis</i> (dry cow-dung)
+for the fires, and the drivers unrolled their blankets
+and lay upon them resting, but not sleeping, until a meal
+had been prepared; someone began to play a concertina
+at this time. Afar from the encampment Poppy had
+found a big dry hole in the heart of a clump of bushes.
+The thorns tore her face and her clothes as she struggled
+through them, but in the hole at last she fell down and
+succumbed to the passion for sleep which overwhelmed her.
+She lay like a stone all through the day, hearing nothing
+until the loud clap of a whip pulled her out of her dreams.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Yak&mdash;Varns!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Half dead with weariness&mdash;stiff, wretched, hungry<span class="pagenum">[43]</span>&mdash;she
+crept from her hiding-place and stumbled on her way,
+wrapped once more in the impenetrable dust.</p>
+
+<p>On the night of the second day she discovered herself
+to the family in the tented wagon. Staggering from the
+bush at the side of the road she climbed on to the brake
+of the slowly moving wagon and appeared before the comfortable
+contented occupants&mdash;a filthy, tattered, unkempt
+vision; her face peaked and wan under the dirt, her eyes
+glazy. "Give me food and water," she whispered&mdash;her
+voice had never returned since Ina's death.</p>
+
+<p>After one long stare, and amidst screams from the
+children, the woman pulled her up into the tent, bade
+the children make room, and quickly found water and
+biscuits.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy ate and drank ravening, then lay back and cried
+weakly, the big hot tears washing white streaks down her
+cheeks. The woman with an eye to her clean bedclothes,
+proceeded to sponge her face with water in a tin beaker,
+and told Alice to take off the tattered boots and stockings.
+She questioned Poppy the while, but Poppy cared for
+nothing but sleep. She lay back and slept even as they
+washed her. About noon she awoke and found herself still
+lying on the big bed, and the woman was standing on the
+brake with coffee and a plate of stew.</p>
+
+<p>"Wake up and eat this, girl; and now you are better
+tell me where you come from and where you're going,
+hey?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, between eating and drinking, recited her tale:
+she was travelling with her father and brothers and sisters
+to the Transvaal; had wandered away from the wagons
+and got lost on the veldt&mdash;believed she had been wandering
+for a week; her name she fancifully gave as Lucy Gray
+(it seemed to wake no echoes in the minds or memories of
+her listeners); no doubt, she said, these wagons would
+catch the others up in a few days. She begged the woman<span class="pagenum">[44]</span>
+to take care of her in the meantime. She would help with
+the cooking and the children&mdash;she wouldn't eat much.</p>
+
+<p>The woman regarded her suspiciously once or twice, but
+she was stupid as well as good-natured and had not the
+wit to find flaws in the well-thought-out tale. She consented
+to fall in with Poppy's request&mdash;in common humanity
+she could do little else&mdash;found some clean clothes for
+her and a pair of old boots, and gave her <i>fat</i> to smear on
+her wounds and sore feet.</p>
+
+<p>But first Poppy had to be passed before the <i>Baas</i> of the
+wagons&mdash;the big fierce-looking Boer who fortunately was
+not at all fierce, only very stupid, and although he refused
+to believe her tale, turning to Mrs. Brant and remarking
+briefly: "<i>Sij l&ecirc;!</i>" (she lies!) he could not offer any suggestion
+as to what the truth might be; nor did he make
+any objection to Mrs. Brant's plans; so Poppy was outcast
+no more. She became one of a family, and speedily made
+herself so useful to Mrs. Brant that the good woman was
+glad to have her.</p>
+
+<p>Followed many long happy weeks. Happy even when
+the wet-season swooped down on them and they had to
+wait on the banks of swollen rivers fireless for days; or
+remain stuck in a mudhole for hours, until their wheels
+could be dug out or pulled out by three spans of oxen
+combined, while mosquitoes bit and swarmed over them,
+leaving a festering sore for every bite they gave; even under
+the heavy sweltering <i>sail</i> that was flung over them at
+nights to keep rain out, and which also kept the air out
+and made the small tent like a pest-house; even when the
+food gave out and they had to rely on what they could get
+at the scattered farms.</p>
+
+<p>In spite of all the mishaps, everyone was kind and good-natured.
+No one offered blows or taunts to Poppy, and
+her starved heart revived a little and began to hold up its
+head under the gentle rain of kindliness and friendliness.<span class="pagenum">[45]</span>
+Then, the glamour of travel was upon her for the first
+time. Never before had she seen the hills, the mountains,
+the great rolling spaces of veldt, the rivers sweeping and
+boiling down their wide ravines. It was most wonderful
+and beautiful, too, to wake every dawn and step out of
+the wagon to a fresh world. Where last night had been
+a hill, to-morrow would be a rushing river, befringed with
+mimosa, whose odour had been sweet on the breeze all the
+day before. The next day would find them on a bare
+plain, with no stick or stone to give shelter from the burden
+of the sun or the rain, and the next they would lie in the
+purple shadow of a mountain, on which were scarlet
+geraniums as tall as trees, and strange flowers shaped like
+birds and insects grew everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>And oh! the fresh glory of the morning dews! The
+smell of the wood smoke on the air! The wide open empty
+world around them and the great silence into which the
+small human sounds of the camp fell and were lost like
+pebbles thrown into the sea! Happy, rain-soaked, sun-bitten
+days! Bloemfontein and misery were a long way
+behind. Poppy's sad songs were all forgotten; new ones
+sprang up in her heart, songs flecked with sunlight and
+bewreathed with wild flowers.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>But a cloud was on the horizon. The convoy of wagons
+drew at last near its destination. Poppy began to be
+haunted at nights with the fear of what new trouble must
+await her there. Where would she go? What would
+she do? How could she face kind Mrs. Brant with her
+tale of parents and friends proved false? These frightful
+problems filled the nights in the creaking wagon with
+terror. The misty bloom that had fallen upon her face
+during the weeks of peace and content, vanished, and
+haggard lines of anxiety and strain began to show.</p>
+
+<p>"Child, you look peaky," said good Mrs. Brant.<span class="pagenum">[46]</span>
+"What'll your ma say? I must give you a Cockle's pill."</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy grew paler and more peaky.</p>
+
+<p>Two days' <i>trek</i> from Pretoria she was missed at inspan
+time. Long search was made. The wagons even waited
+a whole day and night for her; the <i>boys</i> called and the
+drivers sent cracks of their great whips volleying and
+echoing for miles, as a signal of their whereabouts in case
+she had wandered far and lost her bearings. At night they
+made enormous fires to guide her to their camping-places.
+But she never returned. It was then and for the first time
+that two little lines of verse came into the memory of Alice,
+the eldest girl, who had been at a good school. She recited
+them to the family, who thought them passing strange and
+prophetic:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p>"But the sweet face of Lucy Gray<br />
+Will never more be seen."
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Unfortunately, after leaving the wagons and hiding herself
+in a deep gulch, Poppy had fallen asleep, and that
+so heavily after her many nights of sleepless worry, that
+she did not awake for more than fourteen hours. When
+she did wake she found that some poisonous insect or reptile
+had stung one of her feet terribly: it was not painful, but
+enormously swollen and discoloured, and she found it
+difficult to get along. The wagons had gone and she
+could never catch up with them again, even if she wished.
+On the second night she heard, many miles away, the
+cracking of the whips and saw little glow-worms of light
+that might have been the flare of fires lighted to show her
+the way back to the wagons; and her spirit yearned to be
+with those friendly faces and kindly fires. She wept and
+shivered and crouched fearsomely in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>The next day it rained: merciless, savage, hammering
+rain. Sometimes she wandered in it, fancying herself<span class="pagenum">[47]</span>
+wandering in a forest of trees, all with stems as thick as a
+rain-drop; sometimes it was so strong she could lean
+against it; sometimes she thought she was a moth beating
+against glass, trying, trying to get out.</p>
+
+<p>Another night came.</p>
+
+<p>Through most of that she lay prone on her face, thinking&mdash;believing&mdash;hoping
+that she was dead and part of the
+earth she lay on.</p>
+
+<p>And, indeed, the greater part of her was mud.</p>
+
+<p>She had long ago lost the road. She supposed she must
+be in the Transvaal somewhere; but at this time, half-delirious
+from pain, hunger, and terror, she believed herself
+back near Bloemfontein&mdash;seemed to recognise the hills
+outside the town. Terrified, she took another direction,
+falling sometimes and unable to rise again until she had
+slept where she lay. Whenever she saw bushes with berries
+or fruits on them she gathered and ate.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes from her hiding-places she could see Kaffirs
+pass singly, or in small parties; but after searching their
+faces, she let them pass. Even in her delirium something
+warned her not to make herself known.</p>
+
+<p>One night, it seemed to her weeks after she had left
+the wagons, she was suddenly dazzled by the sight of a
+red light shining quite near her. She gathered up her
+last remnants of strength and walked towards it; she
+believed she urged and ran&mdash;in reality she merely drifted
+by the help of a friendly wind that happened to be blowing
+that way. At last she saw that it was not one&mdash;but many
+lamps and candles shining through the windows of a house.
+But the windows themselves could be only dimly seen
+through the leaves of a tree, which overhung the house
+and threw long claw-like shadows everywhere. Next, her
+broken feet knew gravel under them: white walls were
+before her, too&mdash;and green doors and green window-shutters,
+all laced and latticed with the shadows of one<span class="pagenum">[48]</span>
+great tree that stood like a monster in the path by the
+big door. The lights that shone out and dazzled showed
+her that the tree was very, very green, with a myriad
+strange scarlet eyes glowing in it; eyes that glowed with an
+alert brightness that was not friendly. Poppy had always
+loved trees and believed them to be her friends, but this
+tree frightened her. Nevertheless she crept closer to the
+biggest, brightest window of the house, and peered in
+through the glass panes, a little dulled and dimmed by the
+ever-beating, everlasting rain. She saw a man sitting at
+a table spread with beautiful shining vases of flowers, dishes
+of food, plates and glasses that glittered, fruit&mdash;two black
+<i>boys</i> waited on him, dressed in white uniforms, and through
+an open doorway a tan-skinned old woman with a white
+<i>dook</i> could be seen speaking to one of the <i>boys</i>&mdash;handing him
+a dish that flamed with little blue flames. The man at the
+table leaned back in his chair and faced the window. If it
+had not been that she believed herself dying, or perhaps
+already dead, Poppy would rather have gone back to the
+veldt than into the house where that face was master, for it
+terrified her even as the faces of the Kaffirs on the veldt
+had done. The man was not ugly; but his mouth was
+cruel and bitter, and his eyes were of the same hard, cold
+blue as the stripe on old Sara's coffee-basin. And across
+his face, from the left eye to the corner of his mouth, was
+a long, raw, newly-healed scar.</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Poppy that while she stood watching this
+man, something inside her shrivelled up and blew away
+from her like a leaf in the wind. It came into her head
+then that, after all, she would not stay here at this house;
+it would be better to go back to the veldt. Wearifully she
+stepped down from the high steps she had climbed, reached
+the green door, and then her hobbling feet would go no
+further.</p>
+
+<p>She sank on the steps and her head knocked against<span class="pagenum">[49]</span>
+the door. At once dogs barked inside, voices came near,
+the door opened, letting strong light fall across the face of
+Poppy, now lying on the floor. She saw black faces around
+her and heard native voices crying, "Wha!" in astonishment.
+Then someone lifted her up very strongly and
+held her under a hanging lamp and looked at her. She saw
+through failing eyes that it was the man with the scar.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you, child?" he asked, and his voice was quite
+kind and friendly.</p>
+
+<p>Again the feeling of terror and panic swept over the
+child's heart; but she was very tired. She believed she
+was already dead. Her head fell back.</p>
+
+<p>"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf," is what she answered.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class="pagenum">[50]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">PART II</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>"I never saw anything like the way a poppy lives with its heart
+and soul every second of the day.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the most joyful flower in the world. Not a joy of strength,
+for it is fragile, but just sheer delight in existence and devil-may-care.
+I would much rather have poppies on my coffin than stupid affected
+lilies and white roses.</p>
+
+<p>"Then the sheer cheek of a poppy, and the way it dies quickly, without
+any bother, when picked! It is such a definite vivid thing, whether it
+is braving the sun, or sleeping folded under the stars. A wild, fresh
+individuality; not a banal neutral-tinted affair out of the garden, or
+something with a smile on its face and a claw underneath, like a rose."<br />
+<span style="float : right">(<i>Extract from a letter.</i>)</span></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[53]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">THE girl, with a little curling motion, leaned back in
+the rickshaw and gazed with fascinated eyes at the
+moving picture before her, seen through the hazy heat
+of a summer day.</p>
+
+<p>Above the wide main street of Durban the sun blazed
+and glared like a brazen image of itself in the high ardent
+blue. Men in loose white ducks and flannels sauntered
+along, or stood smoking and talking under the shop
+awnings.</p>
+
+<p>Carriages and rickshaws flew past, containing women
+in light gowns and big veils, with white and sometimes
+scarlet sunshades. Black boys at the street corners held
+out long-stalked roses and sprays of fragrant mimosa
+to the passers-by, beguiling them to buy. Coolies with
+baskets of fish on their heads and bunches of bananas
+across their shoulders, shambled along, white-clad and
+thin-legged. One, with a basket of freshly-caught fish
+on his arm, cried in a nasal sing-song voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Nice lovely shad! Nice lovely shad!"</p>
+
+<p>Two water-carts, clanking along in opposite directions,
+left a dark track behind them on the dusty road, sending
+up a heavy odour of wet earth which the girl snuffed up
+as though she had some transportingly sweet perfume at
+her delicate nostrils.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure there is no smell in the world like the smell
+of wet Africa," she cried softly to herself, laughing a little.
+Her eyes took on a misty look that made them like lilac
+with the dew on it.<span class="pagenum">[54]</span></p>
+
+<p>Her black hair, which branched out on either side of
+her forehead, had a trick of spraying little veils of itself
+over her eyes and almost touching her cheek-bones, which
+were pitched high in her face, giving it an extraordinarily
+subtle look.</p>
+
+<p>She was amazingly attractive in a glowing ardent fashion
+that paled the other women in the street and made
+men step to the edge of the pavement to stare at
+her.</p>
+
+<p>She looked at them, too, through the spraying veils of
+her hair, but her face remained perfectly composed under
+the swathes of white chiffon which she wore flung back
+over her wide hat, brought down at the sides and twisted
+round her throat, with two long flying ends.</p>
+
+<p>The big Zulu boy between the shafts, running noiselessly
+except for the pat of his bare feet and the "Tch-k,
+tch-k, tch-k" of the seed bangles round his ankles, became
+conscious that his fare was creating interest. He began
+to put on airs, giving little shouts of glorification, taking
+leaps in the air and tilting the shafts of the rickshaw backwards
+to the discomfort of its occupant.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned forward, and in a low voice spoke a few edged
+words in Zulu that made him change his manners and give
+a glance of astonishment behind him, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Aa-h! Yeh&mdash;boo Inkosizaan!</i>" behaving himself thereafter
+with decorum, for it was a disconcerting thing that
+an <i>Inkosizaan</i> who had come straight off the mail-steamer
+at the Point should speak words of reproof to him in his
+own language.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he came to the foot of the Berea Hill, which
+is long and sloping, causing him to slacken pace and draw
+deep breaths.</p>
+
+<p>A tram-car dashed past them going down-hill, while
+another climbed laboriously up, both open to the breeze
+and full of people. The road began to be edged with<span class="pagenum">[55]</span>
+fenced and hedged-in gardens, the houses standing afar
+and almost hidden by shrubs and greenery.</p>
+
+<p>The girl spoke to the rickshaw-puller once more.</p>
+
+<p>"The <i>Inkos</i> at the Point told you where to go. Do you
+know the house?"</p>
+
+<p>He answered yes, but that it was still afar off&mdash;right
+at the top of the Berea.</p>
+
+<p>She leaned back again content. It delighted her to be
+alone like this. It was quite an adventure, and an unexpected
+one. A malicious, mischievous smile flashed
+across her face as she sat thinking of the annoyance of
+the <i>Inkos</i> left behind at the docks. He had been furious
+when he found no closed carriage waiting for them.</p>
+
+<p>There was one on the quay, but it was not theirs, and
+on approaching it and finding out his mistake, he stood
+stammering with anger. But she had flashed into a waiting
+rickshaw, knowing very well that he could not force
+her to get out and go back to the ship without making a
+scene.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing would induce him to make a scene and attract
+the attention of people to himself. He had indeed told
+her in a low voice to get out and come back with him to
+wait for a carriage, but she merely made a mouth and
+looked appealingly at him, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Luce! It will be so lovely in a rickshaw. I have
+never ridden in one like this yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, ride to the devil," he had amiably responded,
+and turned his back on her. She had called out after him,
+in an entrancingly sweet voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know, Luce; but what is the address?"</p>
+
+<p>"It was a shame," she said to herself now, still smiling;
+"but really I don't often vex him!"</p>
+
+<p>A man and a woman passed, as she sat smiling her
+subtle smile through her spraying hair, and looked at her
+with great curiosity.<span class="pagenum">[56]</span></p>
+
+<p>Afterwards the man said excitedly:</p>
+
+<p>"That girl takes the shine out of Mary&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The woman, who looked well-bred with a casual distinguished
+manner, agreed with him, but did not tell him
+so. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"Her eyes look as though they were painted in by
+Burne-Jones, and she is dressed like a Beardsley poster;
+but I think she is only a girl who is glad to be alive. Mary,
+however, is the most beautiful woman in Africa."</p>
+
+<p>The girl heard the words "Burne-Jones eyes," and knew
+they were speaking of her.</p>
+
+<p>At last she arrived at the gates of her destination.
+Big, green iron gates, that clanged behind her as she
+walked quickly forward down a winding path into a deep
+dim garden. There was no more to be seen but trees and
+tangles of flowering shrubs and bushes and stretches of
+green grass, and trees and trees and trees. Some of the
+trees were so tall and old that they must have been growing
+there when Vasco da Gama first found Natal; but there
+were mangoes and sweetly-smelling orange arbours, that
+could only have been planted a mere twenty or thirty
+years. The magnolia bushes were in bud, and clots of red
+and golden flowers were all aflare. Cacti, spreading wide
+prickly arms, and tall furzy grasses. Cool wet corners
+had grottos frondy with ferns; other corners were like
+small tropical jungles with enormous palms trailed and
+tangled over with heavy waxen-leaved creepers and
+strangely shaped flowers.</p>
+
+<p>At last, deep in the heart of this wild, still garden, she
+found the house. A tall rose-walled house, its balconies
+and verandahs, too, all draped and veiled with clinging
+green. One lovely creeper that clothed the hall-porch was
+alive with flowers that were like scarlet stars.</p>
+
+<p>She broke one of them off and stuck it in the bosom of
+her gown, where it glowed and burned all day.<span class="pagenum">[57]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then she rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>After a minute, someone came bustling down the hall
+and the door opened, discovering a stout and elderly
+coloured woman in a tight dress of navy-blue sateen with
+large white spots. Upon her head she wore a snowy <i>dook</i>.
+At the sight of the girl she shrieked, and fell back into a
+carved oak chair that stood conveniently at hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy!" she cried; "and no carriage sent for Luce!
+What time did the steamer come, in the name of goodness
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use asking that question now, Kykie," said the
+girl grimly. "The only thing to do is to send a carriage
+down at once."</p>
+
+<p>Kykie departed with amazing alacrity, while the girl
+examined the hall, and opening the doors that gave off it,
+peeped into several rooms.</p>
+
+<p>"Most of the old furniture from the farm!" she commented
+with a look of pleasure. Presently she came to
+a flight of three stairs, and directed by the sound of
+Kykie's voice, she stepped down them and found herself
+in a large white-washed kitchen lined with spotless deal
+tables and broad shelves. An enormous kitchen range,
+shining and gleaming with steel and brass, took up the
+whole of one side of the kitchen. Wide windows let in
+a flood of cheerful sunshine.</p>
+
+<p>Kykie, having loaded three Zulu boys with imprecations
+and instructions and driven them forth, had sunk into a
+chair again, panting, with her hand pressed to her heart,
+and an expression of utter misery on her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be so excited, Kykie," said the girl. "You
+can't escape the wrath to come; what is the use of making
+yourself miserable about it beforehand?"</p>
+
+<p>Kykie rolled her big eyes heavenwards; the whites of
+them were a golden yellow.</p>
+
+<p>"His first day home!" she wailed. "They told me at<span class="pagenum">[58]</span>
+the shipping office the steamer wouldn't be in before
+three. May their mothers&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy walked round the kitchen, looking at everything.</p>
+
+<p>"You've got all the same nice old copper things you
+had at the farm, haven't you, Kykie? But it is a much
+bigger kitchen. Which table will you let me have to mix
+the salads on?"</p>
+
+<p>Kykie's face became ornamented with scowls.</p>
+
+<p>"My salads are as good as anyone's," she asserted.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense! you know Luce always likes mine best.
+Come upstairs now and show me my room."</p>
+
+<p>"Me? With the lunch to get ready!" screamed Kykie,
+and jumping up she ran to the stove and began to rattle
+the pots.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I will find it myself," said Poppy, going towards
+the door, "and I think you're very unkind on my first
+day home."</p>
+
+<p>But Kykie gave no heed. As a rule she was of a sociable
+turn of mind and under other circumstances would have
+hung about Poppy, showing her everything and bombarding
+her with questions; but now she was in the
+clutches of despair and dismay at the thought of her
+neglect of her adored master, Luce Abinger, and her very
+real fear of the storm that would surely break over her
+head when he arrived.</p>
+
+<p>Kykie called herself a "coloured St. Helena lady,"
+but by the fat gnarled shape of her, it is likely that she
+was more than half a Hottentot. Also the evidence of
+her hair was against her: it was crisp and woolly, instead
+of being lank and oily as a proper "St. Helena lady's"
+should be. However, she always kept it concealed beneath
+a spotless <i>dook</i>. Her real name, as she often informed
+Poppy in aggrieved accents, was Celia Frances Elizabeth
+of Teck Fortune; but Luce Abinger had brutally named
+her Kykie, and that was all she was ever called in his<span class="pagenum">[59]</span>
+house. By way of retaliation it was her agreeable custom
+to address her master and Poppy Destin by their Christian
+names; but Luce Abinger only laughed, and Poppy
+didn't mind in the least. The old woman was quite
+ignorant and uneducated, but she had lived all her life as
+a servant amongst civilised people, and she spoke correct
+and fluent English, tacking many curious expressions of
+her own to the tails of her remarks with an air of intense
+refinement.</p>
+
+<p>She was often crabbed of temper and cantankerous of
+tongue, but the heart within her wide and voluptuous
+bosom was big for Luce Abinger and all that pertained
+to him. She had served him during the whole of his
+twenty-five years of life in South Africa; and she was a
+very pearl of a cook.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy found her room without any difficulty. On
+opening the first door on the first landing and looking
+in, she recognised her books, and the faded yellow silk
+counterpane with the border of red poppies worked by
+Kykie in past days. She took off her hat and surveyed
+the room with contentment. Her cushions were in her
+chairs; her books in their accustomed book-shelves;
+her long mirror with the slim gilt frame hung between
+two windows that gave upon the balcony; her writing-table
+stood opposite the mirror where she could look up
+and see herself as she wrote. Her brown print of <i>Monna
+Lisa</i> was above her dressing-table, and her silver cross
+with the ivory Christ nailed to it hung over her head&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:12em">
+<p>"To keep a maid from harm!"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>There were no pictures on the pale gold walls: only
+three wonderful drawings of herself, done in grey and
+blue and scarlet chalk on sheets of rough-edged common
+brown paper and fastened up by drawing-pins. These
+were the work of Luce Abinger.<span class="pagenum">[60]</span></p>
+
+<p>She observed that all the bowls and vases were filled
+with green leaves&mdash;no flowers. Kykie and the <i>boys</i> knew
+that green leaves were dearer to her than flowers.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she rose and went to the mirror on the wall.
+Her hair did not quite please her, so she took out two little
+gold side-combs and ran them through it, until it branched
+out characteristically once more. She performed this
+ceremony on an average of twenty times a day, and always
+with a look of the frankest pleasure at the sight of herself.</p>
+
+<p>"How nice my hair is!" she thought, "and how glad
+I am that it branches out in that fascinating way that
+just suits my face! If it were any other kind of hair,
+sleek, or smooth, or curly, I should not look nearly so
+charming."</p>
+
+<p>Later she stepped into the balcony. The sun still glared,
+but the place was full of dim coolness, for its roof was
+massed with clematis and Virginia creeper, and heavy
+curtains of creeper hung from roof to rail; but long openings
+had been cut in the greenery to afford a view of the town
+and sea. Over the tops of the trees, far away below,
+beyond many white houses and gardens and a shining
+beach, was the Indian Ocean. It lay very still and splendid:
+a vast sheet of S&egrave;vres enamel with a trivial frill of white
+at its edges, like the lace froth at the bottom of a woman's
+ball-gown. When storms sweep the Natal coast, that
+still shining sea can boom and roar and flash like a thousand
+cannons bombarding the town; but on the day that Poppy
+Destin first looked at it from her balcony, it was as still and
+flat as a sea on a map.</p>
+
+<p>Long, long thoughts were hers as she stood gazing there;
+and the best of them all was that she was back once more
+in the land where the roots of her heart were planted deep.</p>
+
+<p>While she stood lost in her reveries, Luce Abinger
+passed through the garden below, walking noiselessly
+across the green lawns. He saw her dreaming there, in<span class="pagenum">[61]</span>
+her white gown with the scarlet flower flaming at her
+breast, and his tormented face became even less lovely.
+At that time his mood resembled the mood of Job when
+he desired to curse God and die.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, becoming hungry, went down to look for lunch.
+She found the master of the house already seated, beating
+and jangling his forks together, a habit of his when he was
+impatient. He never touched his knives. Poppy had
+come to the conclusion that, like James I, he had some
+reason to hate and fear naked blades.</p>
+
+<p>"The g-gong has been sounded twice for you," he began
+agreeably. "Were you afraid the view wouldn't be there
+after lunch?"</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon, Luce. I didn't know you were in,
+and I never heard a sound of the gong. Kykie, you should
+beat it louder."</p>
+
+<p>Kykie was at the sideboard decanting whiskey. She
+resembled a person who had recently taken part in a
+dynamitic explosion. Her <i>dook</i> was pushed to the back
+of her head, her eyes stuck out, and perspiration beaded
+her nose and cheek-bones. Several of the buttons of her
+tight dress had come undone.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavenly me!" she retorted in shrill staccato, "you
+never hear anything you don't want to, Poppy." With
+that she banged the decanter down and floundered from
+the room.</p>
+
+<p>"What can be the matter with Kykie!" said Poppy
+in a wondering voice. What she was really wondering
+was, whether the fireworks had all been exhausted on
+Kykie's devoted head or whether there would be a
+detonation in her own direction shortly.</p>
+
+<p>Babiyaan, a <i>boy</i> who had been in Luce Abinger's service
+for ten years, waited upon them with deft, swift hands.
+Poppy gave an inquiring glance at him; but though
+he had also received a generous share of obloquy and<span class="pagenum">[62]</span>
+vilification, his face was as serene and impassive as an
+Egyptian's.</p>
+
+<p>Some delicious fish was served, grilled as only Kykie
+could grill, followed by cutlets and green peas, and a
+salad of sliced Avocado pears, delicately peppered, and
+with a ravishing dressing.</p>
+
+<p>Luce Abinger always preferred Poppy to mix the salads.
+He said that she combined all the qualifications demanded
+by the old Spanish receipt for the maker of a good salad&mdash;a
+spendthrift for the oil, a miser for the vinegar, a
+counsellor for the salt, and a lunatic to stir all up. It
+appeared that she sometimes fell short in the matter of
+salt, but she assured him that he had a fine stock of that
+within himself to fall back on, and acids too, in case of a
+lack of vinegar.</p>
+
+<p>Kykie's salad was very good, and Poppy told Babiyaan
+to tell her so. Later, she also sent a message of praise
+concerning the <i>omelette au Kirsch</i>. Except for these
+remarks the meal was partaken of in silence. Poppy,
+while she ate, observed and approved the old-rose walls,
+the few beautiful mellowy pictures upon them, the dark
+polished floor and the Persian praying-rugs spread sleekly
+down the room. She looked everywhere but at the face
+of Luce Abinger, for she knew that his devils were at him;
+and as the possessor of devils of her own, she both felt
+compassion and exhibited courtesy in the presence of
+other people's. She never looked at Luce Abinger's face
+at any time if she could help it, for the sight of unbeautiful
+things always gave her intense pain; and his face had
+the added terror and sadness of a thing that has once been
+beautiful. Its right side was still strong and fine in line;
+and it was easy to see that the mouth, before it was dragged
+out of drawing by the scar and embittered and distorted
+by its frightful sneer, must have been wonderfully alluring.
+The scar had left his eyes untouched, except for a slight<span class="pagenum">[63]</span>
+pulling-down of the outer corner of the left one where
+the disfigurement began. They must have been strikingly
+beautiful blue eyes once, but now a sort of perpetual
+cold fury at the back of them gave them an odd and startling
+light. Apart from that, they were eyes which it
+was not good for women to search in. Poppy sometimes
+thought of them as dark and sinister pools from which
+it was best to retreat, for fear of drowning and strangling
+in strange waters.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Babiyaan brought in the little silver urn
+and placed it before Poppy, and she lighted the spirit-lamp
+under it and made the coffee as she was always used
+to do in the old white farm. Cigars and cigarettes were
+put before Abinger.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger drank his coffee as he had eaten, in absolute
+silence. Then, getting up suddenly, he bit off a word of
+apology with the end of his cigar, and left the room,
+Babiyaan following him.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy immediately helped herself to a cigarette, put
+her elbows on the table and began to smoke. Later, she
+took her coffee and sat in the verandah. It was shady
+and full of deep comfortable chairs. From thence she
+presently saw Abinger emerge from the front door and
+depart into the garden; the closing clang of the gate
+told her that he had gone out. The heat of the day was
+oppressive. She lay back, staring at the lacy green of
+the trees against the blue, and considering the horrible
+affair of Luce Abinger's devils.</p>
+
+<p>"It is bad enough for me to have to live with them&mdash;what
+must it be for him!" was her thought. She had
+seen his torment coming upon him as they neared Africa.
+Day by day he had grown more saturnine and unsociable.
+At last he spoke to no one; only Poppy, as a privileged
+person had an occasional snarl thrown in her direction.
+It was plain to her that returning to Africa meant to him<span class="pagenum">[64]</span>
+returning to purgatory; especially since he did not intend
+to go back to seclusion, but to take up his residence in
+this house in Durban, where he had often lived in past
+years. Poppy had gathered from Kykie that before he
+"got his mark," as she curiously expressed it, and went
+to live at the old white farm, Abinger had kept house in
+Johannesburg and Durban; had lived for a part of the
+year in each house, and was well known in both places.
+So that coming back would cause him all the torture of
+meeting old friends who had known him before his disfigurement.
+He would have to run the gauntlet of familiar
+eyes grown curious and questioning.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should he have chosen to come back at all to
+the place of his torment?" Poppy wondered. "It would
+surely have been simpler and easier to have settled in
+Italy or somewhere where he knew no one, and would
+not be noticed so much. It can only be that Africa has
+her talons in <i>his</i> heart, too; she has clawed him back to
+her brown old bosom&mdash;he <i>had</i> to come."</p>
+
+<p>As Poppy sat in the verandah thinking of these things,
+she heard the <i>boys</i> in the room behind her clearing the
+luncheon-table, and talking to each other in their own
+language. Either they had forgotten her or they thought
+she could not hear.</p>
+
+<p>"Where has <i>Shlalaimbona</i> gone?" asked Umzibu; and
+Babiyaan answered without hesitation:</p>
+
+<p>"He has gone to the <i>Ker-lub</i> to make a meeting with
+<i>Intandugaza</i> and <i>Umkoomata</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Few things are more amazing than your Kaffir servants'
+intimate knowledge of your affairs, except it be their
+absolute loyalty and secrecy in these matters outside
+your own walls. Abroad from home their eyes and ears
+and tongue know nothing. They are as stocks and stones.
+They might be fishes for all the information they can give
+concerning you and yours.<span class="pagenum">[65]</span></p>
+
+<p>Also, whether they love or hate or are indifferent to
+him they serve, they will infallibly supply him with a
+native name that will fit him like his own skin. Sometimes
+the name is a mere mentioning of a physical characteristic
+but usually it is a thing more subtle&mdash;some peculiarity
+of manner or expression, some idiosyncrasy of speech&mdash;a
+man's secret sin has been known to be blazoned forth
+in one terse Zulu word.</p>
+
+<p>It must not be supposed, however, that South African
+natives are as deep in mysterious lore as the Chinese, or
+as subtle as Egyptians. The fact is merely, that like all
+uncivilised peoples they have a fine set of instincts; an
+intuition leads them to nearly the same conclusions about
+people as would a trained reasoning power. Only that
+the native conclusion has a corner of the alluring misty
+veil of romance thrown over it, while the trained reason
+might only supply a cold, hard, and perhaps uninteresting
+fact.</p>
+
+<p>Instances are, where the meaning of a native nickname
+is too subtle for the nominee himself&mdash;though any Zulu
+who runs may read and understand. If Luce Abinger
+had asked his servants why they called him <i>Shlalaimbona</i>,
+they would have shrugged shoulders and hung their heads,
+with a gentle, deprecating gesture. Being questioned,
+they would look blank; being told to get out and go to
+the devil, they would look modest. Afterwards they
+would exchange swift dark glances, and smiling, repeat
+among themselves with a gesture of stabbing: "<i>Shlalaimbona!</i>"
+Literally this word means&mdash;<i>stab when you see
+him</i>. What they meant by applying this name to Abinger,
+God and themselves knew best. Poppy had often pondered
+the reason, but she had never made any inquiries
+for fear it might have something to do with Abinger's
+scar. For another thing, Abinger desired her never to
+talk to the <i>boys</i>.<span class="pagenum">[66]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Keep them at a distance: they will be all the better
+servants," was his command; and in this, as in most things,
+Poppy found it wiser to obey him.</p>
+
+<p>Babiyaan continued to give interesting information to
+Umzibu.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as <i>Shlalaimbona</i> was going to get into the carriage,
+<i>Umkoomata</i> came to the docks and fell upon him with
+great friendliness. Afterwards they went to an hotel to
+drink. Then <i>Umkoomata</i> made a plan for meeting at the
+<i>Ker-luk</i> when <i>Intandugaza</i> would be there and others&mdash;<i>Baas
+Brookifield</i>, he with the curled hair and the white
+teeth; and that other one, <i>Caperone</i>, whose wife is like a
+star with light around it; and <i>Port-tal</i>, who is always gay
+with an angry face."</p>
+
+<p>At this juncture Umzibu missed Poppy's coffee-cup,
+and coming into the verandah to seek it, the presence of
+Poppy was revealed to him. He immediately communicated
+the fact by sign to Babiyaan, and a silence fell.
+Thereafter no more confidences; Poppy was left to speculate
+upon the identity of the person who wore so fascinating
+a title as <i>Intandugaza</i>, which name she translated to herself
+as <i>Beloved of women</i>. The word <i>Umkoomata</i>, too, had
+a charm of its own.</p>
+
+<p>"That means someone who is very reliable, literally
+<i>Sturdy One</i>. I should like to know that man," she thought.</p>
+
+<p>At about this time it occurred to her that she was tired
+and would go to rest in her room a while. She had risen at
+five that morning to watch the African coast and revel
+in the thought that she would soon have her foot on her
+own land again. The excitement of the day had tired
+her more than she knew. When she looked in her glass
+to rake the little gold combs through her hair, she saw that
+she was pale. The only colour about her was her scarlet
+ardent mouth and the flower at her breast.</p>
+
+<p>She flung off her gown and plunged her arms and face<span class="pagenum">[67]</span>
+into cold water, then let down her hair with a rush and
+pulling her chair opposite her mirror, she sat down in company
+she had never so far found uninteresting&mdash;the
+company of her own reflection.</p>
+
+<p>She did not put on a wrapper. For one thing the day
+was warm, for another she found great pleasure in seeing
+her bare pale arms and shoulders, and the tall pale throat
+above them, so slim and young. Indeed, there are few
+more beautiful things in the world than a young throat&mdash;be
+it girl's or boy's, bird's or beast's.</p>
+
+<p>The scarlet flower she had plucked at the door she wore
+now between her breasts. She looked at the girl in the
+glass a long, long time, and the girl looked back at her.
+But it was not the look of the woman who counts and
+examines her weapons, for Poppy Destin was heart-whole;
+she had never yet looked into her glass to see how she
+was reflected in some man's eyes. Always she looked
+to wonder. The transformation of herself from what
+she had been only six years ago to what she was now at
+eighteen, never ceased to fascinate and amaze her. When
+she thought of the tormented, tragic features she had
+feared to catch a glimpse of, and looked now into that
+narrow scarlet-lipped, lilac-eyed subtle face, crowned with
+fronds of black, black hair, she believed she must be witnessing
+a miracle. When she remembered her aching, thin,
+childish body, beaten, emaciated, lank, and beheld herself
+now, long-limbed, apple-breasted, with the slim strong
+grace and beauty of a Greek boy, she could have shouted
+for joy and amazement at the wonder of it all.</p>
+
+<p>Yet in the old white farmhouse where she had found
+refuge and a remarkable education, she had been able
+to watch with her own eyes the change of the famished,
+wretched little two-leaved seedling into a beautiful
+flowering plant.</p>
+
+<p>She had often thought of herself as one set alone in an<span class="pagenum">[68]</span>
+arid waste to travel where and how she could, with no help
+from anyone, and who, in her terrible travelling had found
+hidden gifts by the wayside, and little pools of consolation
+to lave her wounds and her weary heart, little patches of
+flowers to refresh her senses&mdash;all left there for her by the
+loving forethought of those who had travelled that way
+before her; her beauty, her voice, the grace of her body,
+her clear understanding, grace of tongue, had come upon
+her as she travelled to womanhood&mdash;all so unexpectedly;
+all wonderful gifts hidden deeply away until she came
+suddenly upon them, one by one.</p>
+
+<p>At last, through long thinking and piecing together of
+many broken ends of memory and disjointed scraps of
+information concerning her family history, she had come
+very close to realising the truth&mdash;that she owed much of
+what she was to the sweet simple Irish-women who had
+been her maternal ancestors. If your grandmother has
+worn a shawl over her head and walked barefoot on the
+bitter coast of Clare with a smile on her lips and a melody
+in her heart, she had something better to bequeath to you
+than money or possessions: her song and her smile will
+come down through the years and make magic in your
+eyes; her spirit will trample your troubles underfoot.
+If your mother has laid her heart in a man's hands, and
+her neck under a man's feet, and died for want of his
+kisses on her mouth, she, too, will have had something
+to bequeath: a cheek curved for caresses, lips amorously
+shaped, and sweet warm blood in the veins.</p>
+
+<p>And there was more that Poppy Destin did not know.
+She was only eighteen and could not know all her gifts
+yet&mdash;some women never know them at all until they are
+too old to use them! She had unwittingly left uncounted
+her biggest asset, though it was signed and sealed upon
+her face&mdash;the sign and seal of Ireland. Ireland was in
+the frank, sweet eyes of her; in the cheek-bones pitched<span class="pagenum">[69]</span>
+high in her face; in her branching black hair; in her soft
+sad voice, and her subtly curved lips. Though she had
+never seen that sad, lovely land, she was one of its fair
+daughters: there lay her beauty; that was her magic.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she left her glass and going to the load of
+trunks which had been piled up inside the door, she took
+her dressing-case from the summit of the pile, and unlocking
+it, extracted a little white vellum-covered note-book.
+Sitting down before her writing-table she opened the book
+at random and kissed its pages with a rush of tears and
+a passion that always surged in her when she touched it.
+For it contained the story of her childhood, sung in little
+broken, wretched songs. Her blurred eyes looked from
+one heading to another:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:16em">
+<p>"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea!"<br />
+"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf!"<br />
+"The woman with the crooked breast."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>This was the title of old Sara's story made into a little
+song.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy Destin dreamed of being a great writer some
+day; but she knew, with the sure instinct of the artist,
+that even if her dream came true she could never surpass
+these little studies in misery; these cries of wretchedness
+wrung from a child's heart by the cruel hands of Life.</p>
+
+<p>Nothing had ever yet been able to wipe from her mind
+the remembrance of those days. For six years she had
+lived a life in which fresh events and interests were of
+daily occurrence; and like a blighted seedling transplanted
+to a warm, kind climate, she had blossomed and bloomed
+in mind and body. But the memory of those days that
+had known no gleam of hope or gladness hung like a dark
+veil over her youth, and still had power to drive her into
+torments of hatred and misery. Her soul was still a
+shrivelled leaf, and her heart as cold as a stone in the sea.
+She was very sure that this should not be so; she knew<span class="pagenum">[70]</span>
+that she was incomplete. The instincts of her artist
+nature told her that somewhere in the world there must
+be someone or something that would wipe this curse of
+hatred from her; but she had never been able to find it,
+and she knew not where to seek it. Art failed her when
+she applied it to this wound of hers that bled inwardly.
+Despairingly she sometimes wondered whether it was
+religion she needed; but religion in the house of Luce
+Abinger was a door to which she found no key.</p>
+
+<p>Often, abroad, she had stolen away and knelt in quiet
+churches, and burnt candles in simple wayside chapels,
+trying, praying, to throw off the heavy, weary armour
+that cased her in, to get light into her, to feel her heart
+opening, like a flower, and the dew of God falling upon it.
+She had searched the face of the Madonna in many lands
+for some symbol that would point the way to a far-off
+reflection in herself of</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:16em">
+<p>"The peace and grace of Mary's face."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>She had knelt in dim cathedrals, racking her ears to
+catch some note in gorgeous organ strains or some word
+from the lips of a priest that would let loose a flood of
+light in her and transform her life. But always, when the
+ecstasy and exaltation had passed off, and the scent of
+incense no longer wrapped her round, she could feel again
+the cold of the stone and the rustle of the leaf in her breast.
+She could hear without annoyance the bitter fleers of
+Abinger at religion and priests and churches, and though
+they offended her taste, could listen serene-eyed. She
+understood very well what ailed Luce Abinger, for she
+was touched with the blight that lay thick upon him.
+His nature was warped, his vision darkened by hatred
+and evil memories. His soul was maimed and twisted
+in the same cruel fashion that his face had been scarred
+and seamed, and he terribly hated God. Poppy often<span class="pagenum">[71]</span>
+thought of it as an ironical trick of fate, that she and Luce
+Abinger&mdash;just the two people in all South Africa, perhaps,
+who could do least for each other's peace and healing&mdash;should
+be thrown together to live under the same roof
+for many years. In some ways they had served each
+other well. He had made his house a refuge for her from
+persecution, and had been the means of educating and
+bringing her to fine womanhood. She, on the other hand,
+had come into his life at a time when he was on the verge
+of madness and when it meant everything to him to have
+some interest that would tear his thoughts from himself and
+his disgust of life.</p>
+
+<p>The solitude of the quiet old farm, chosen for its isolated
+position, was lightened by the presence of the young
+girl. Abinger had been diverted to watch the change and
+development in the small, shipwrecked vagabond. Afterwards
+it had first amused, then interested him, to feed
+her eager appetite for learning. For three years he had
+taught her himself, in strange desultory fashion it is true, but
+it happened to be the fashion best suited to her needs and
+temperament. He imported from England huge weekly
+packages of books of both modern and classical literature,
+together with every variety of journal and magazine.
+He allowed Poppy the free run of all; only, always she
+must recount to him afterwards what she had read. A
+sort of discussion ensued, so dominated by his mordant
+cynicism and biting wit that she certainly ran no danger
+of developing any <i>mawkish</i> views of life. This for two or
+three hours daily. The rest of time was hers to read in
+or wander for hours in the lovely silent country, knowing
+a peace and tranquillity she had never dreamed of in her
+early wretched years. The part of the Transvaal they
+were in was but thinly populated&mdash;a few scattered Boer
+farms, and a native mission-house with a chapel and school
+instituted by a brotherhood of French priests of the Jesuit<span class="pagenum">[72]</span>
+order. These were their only neighbours, and they not
+close ones.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger had chosen his retreat well.</p>
+
+<p>After three years it had occurred to him to leave the
+farm and go back to the world. He had tired of seclusion,
+and longed, even while he feared, to be amongst his fellows
+again. He was not yet prepared, however, to go back to
+the African haunts that had known him in the past, but
+made for the big open world beyond the seas; and Poppy
+went with him as his sister. Wherever they went he never
+allowed her to make any friends; only when they reached
+any city or place where he cared to stay for any length
+of time, he at once engaged masters and mistresses for
+her, to continue the education that he had by now tired
+of superintending, but which, for reasons of his own, he
+wished to perfect.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[73]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">AT five o'clock Kykie appeared with a tea-tray. She
+had assumed an air of calm, and her afternoon dress,
+which afforded a fine display of roses trellised on a bright
+blue background, and gave her the appearance of a large
+and comfortable ottoman. She cast an outraged look
+about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Haven't you unpacked yet, for gracious' sake, Poppy?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I haven't. Bring the tea over here, Kykie."</p>
+
+<p>She was lying on her bed, which was long and narrow
+as the path to heaven, and yet seemed to have grown too
+short for her, since she was obliged to perch her feet upon
+the brass bar across the end.</p>
+
+<p>"Then what have you been doing, in the name of goodness
+me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing ... just thinking ... pour it out and
+come and sit by me here.... I haven't had a word
+with you yet."</p>
+
+<p>Kykie poured out the tea, and put some little toasted
+cakes on a plate, using her fat, yellow hands with extraordinary
+delicacy. Afterwards she sat in a chair with the
+things in her lap, waiting until Poppy should be ready.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it like here in Durban, Kykie?... How
+long have you been here?"</p>
+
+<p>Kykie became very important, waggling her shoulders
+and rolling her eyeballs.</p>
+
+<p>"More than six months getting this house ready for
+habitation ... men working in the garden day and<span class="pagenum">[74]</span>
+night, for it was a wilderness and the poor old place all
+gone to pot, dearest me."</p>
+
+<p>"It looks all right now; I should think Luce was
+pleased?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never so much as a thank you extremingly."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well, you know his ways ... but I am sure he
+appreciates all you do. He has often said to me while we
+were away that he wished you were with us."</p>
+
+<p>Kykie looked well pleased at this, but having passed
+the tea, she waved her hands deprecatingly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're just buttering me up to heaven, Poppy!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not. And he will eat again now he has you to
+cook for him. Abroad he used to eat frightfully little,
+but to-day I noticed he made an excellent lunch."</p>
+
+<p>Smiles wreathed Kykie's wide and dropsical face, and
+every tooth in her head was revealed.</p>
+
+<p>"Dearest me, now Poppy, really? Well! but then I
+don't suppose they know how to cook very well abroad
+in London, do they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not so well as you, of course," said Poppy smiling and
+munching toast.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Kykie's face became dolorous.</p>
+
+<p>"Did they look at his mark much, for heavenly goodness?"
+she inquired in a dismal whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so much. You know, Kykie, the world is full
+of all sorts of strange-looking people&mdash;especially France
+and Italy. In Naples, now, they didn't take the slightest
+notice of him."</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness' sake there must be some sights there!"</p>
+
+<p>"More tea. It is lovely to be home again and have
+you waiting on me."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I expect you liked it best abroad in that London,
+now Poppy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. I <i>thought</i> I should, but I had forgotten that
+my roots were planted out here. As soon as I got out of<span class="pagenum">[75]</span>
+sight of Africa they began to pull and hurt ... you've
+no idea of the feeling, Kykie ... it is terrible ...
+and it always came upon me worst in cities. I used to be
+sick with longing for a glimpse of the big open spaces
+with nothing in view but land and sky ... for the smell
+of the veldt, <i>you</i> know, when it is baking hot and the
+rain comes fizzling down on it; and the early morning
+wind, when it has blown across a thousand miles of sun-burnt
+grass and little stalky, stripy, veldt-flowers and
+stubby bushes, and smells of the big black patches on
+the hill-sides where the fires have been, and of the <i>dorn
+bloems</i> on the banks of the rivers ... and the oozy,
+muddy, reeking, rushing rivers! Oh Kykie, when I thought
+of Africa, in some prim blue-and-gold continental hotel,
+I felt like a caged tiger-cat, raging at the bars of the
+cage!... In Paris and London I couldn't bear to go
+to the big open parks for fear the sickness would come
+upon me.... It was like being a wild ass of the desert,
+knee-haltered in a walled-in garden."</p>
+
+<p>Kykie might have been an amazingly-arrayed copper
+idol representing Africa, so benign and gratified was her
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me some more, Poppy. Where else did you think
+of Africa?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, Palermo nearly drove me wild. It has the same
+hot moist air as Natal, and the flowers have the same
+subtle scents. The big spotted mosquitoes bit like terriers
+and followed us as high as we could go; but I couldn't
+even hate <i>them</i>, Kykie, they were so like the wretches
+we have out here&mdash;there's been one biting my instep
+all the afternoon." She pulled up her foot, and began
+to rub the spot gently through her stocking.</p>
+
+<p>"I think Norway was the worst of all. The men there
+have beards and the same calm eyes as the Boers, and
+the people are all simple and kind, just as they were on<span class="pagenum">[76]</span>
+the farms in the Transvaal ... and sometimes on the
+top of a steep still hill I could close my eyes and pretend
+that I was on a wild mountain krantz and the hush of the
+waterfalls all round one was the hush of the tall veldt
+grasses waving in the wind.... But when I looked,
+and saw only the still green waters of the fjords and afar
+off a glacier thrust out between two hills like the claw
+of some great white monster ... oh Kykie, I could
+have torn the heart out of my breast and thrown it into
+the waters below."</p>
+
+<p>"Heavenly me! And were there coloured people there
+too?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not in Norway; but America is full of them, and
+I hate them for cheats and frauds ... for I was always
+listening and waiting to hear some Kaffir or Dutch word
+from their lips ... and they never spoke anything
+but mincing, drawling American, through their noses, like
+this, Kykie:</p>
+
+<p>"'Oh say, would <i>you</i> tell <i>me</i> what time this <i>kyar</i> is
+due to start?'</p>
+
+<p>"Once I saw a boy in an elevated-railway car, who,
+though he was magnificently dressed in navy blue serge
+and wore a brimmer hat, looked so <i>exactly</i> like Jim Basuto
+who ran away from the farm, that I said to him in Kaffir:</p>
+
+<p>"'You had better make haste and come back to the
+farm, Jim, and mind the sheep!'</p>
+
+<p>"He simply stared at me, and said to another <i>boy</i>, who
+might have been a Zulu chief except for his clothes:</p>
+
+<p>"'Say, this one looks to me as if she is dippy. I think
+she is the new star at Hammerstein's that <i>ky-ant</i> speak
+anything but French.'</p>
+
+<p>"Luce was so furious, he used fearful language at the
+Kaffir, and made me leave the train at the next station,
+and wouldn't speak to me for a week."</p>
+
+<p>Having finished her tea and eaten all the bread-and-<span class="pagenum">[77]</span>butter
+and cakes, the girl lay back on her pillow and closed
+her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"For gracious' sake, and so you have seen the world!"
+said Kykie. "And now you have come back to the old
+quiet life?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all, Kykie. I'm going to persuade Luce to go
+about here, and meet people, and let me do the same."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll never do it," said Kykie vehemently. "I can
+see that he is worse than ever about his mark."</p>
+
+<p>"But he knows a lot of people here. I don't see how
+he can keep them from coming to the house; and I heard
+the <i>boys</i> saying that he had gone to the Club this afternoon.
+Surely that is a sign that he is not going to shut himself
+up again?"</p>
+
+<p>"He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come
+here. He has given me strict orders that no one is to
+come in the front gates; they are to be locked and he will
+keep the key. Everything is to come by the back entrance
+and that, too, is to be locked."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's face clouded.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old
+farm with the free veldt all round us; but to be shut up
+in a house and garden&mdash;(and with Luce's devils," she
+added to herself),&mdash;"even if it <i>is</i> a lovely garden!"</p>
+
+<p>Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she
+held out no hope.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before,
+with your music, and your reading, and writing, and be a
+good child," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how
+I've grown up?"</p>
+
+<p>"I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus
+to rub on your breasts any more," said Kykie,
+eyeing her with the calm candour of the native.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw<span class="pagenum">[78]</span>
+a corner of the quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.</p>
+
+<p>"For the sake of grace you needn't mind me," remarked
+Kykie. "Haven't I watched you many a
+moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the old
+<i>spruit</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little
+side glance at the old woman.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>did</i> so want to be beautiful. I would have dived
+to the bottom of the filthiest hole in that old <i>spruit</i> a
+dozen times a day to make myself the tiniest atom less
+ugly than I was. Do you remember that deep part where
+the water was so clear and we could see hundreds of crabs
+pulling pieces of flesh off the leg of the dead horse?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh <i>sis</i> yes! I wondered how you could go and look
+at the stinking thing day after day."</p>
+
+<p>"I used to be pretending to myself that it was my aunt
+they were eating. Oh Kykie! I have some dark caves
+in my soul!"</p>
+
+<p>"And no wonder, surely to goodness. Never will I
+forget the night we opened the door and you fell into the
+house, all blood and mud, and your eyes like a <i>mal-meit's</i><a name="FNanchor_3_3" id="FNanchor_3_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_3_3" class="fnanchor">[3]</a>
+flaring and flickering like the sulphur on a match."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_3_3" id="Footnote_3_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_3_3"><span class="label">[3]</span></a> Mad-maid.</p></div>
+
+<p>Poppy covered her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't talk about it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>At this time a telephone bell began to ring somewhere
+in the house, and Kykie on her feet in an instant, flew from
+the room at top speed. She came back later to say that
+Luce Abinger had called up to tell her he would not be
+home to dinner. Poppy was delighted.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Kykie! that means that he is dining with old
+friends; and it will do him <i>so</i> much good, and he'll want
+to be cheerful and sociable with all the world again, and
+we shan't be locked up any more," she cried all in one
+breath. "And now you needn't bother about dinner,<span class="pagenum">[79]</span>
+but come and help me unpack, and I'll show you all my
+clothes and the nice things I've brought back for you."</p>
+
+<p>"For me, gracious saints!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, for you, you wicked old thing; silks and satins
+of every shade of the rainbow. You need never dress in
+anything else any more."</p>
+
+<p>They spent an engrossed hour unpacking, and afterwards
+Poppy dined alone, and betook herself to the garden.
+She knew that she had the whole place and the whole
+long evening to herself, without disturbance, for it was a
+peculiarity of Kykie's that she could not keep her eyes
+open after nine o'clock at night. As for the <i>boys</i>, after
+they had performed their duties in the kitchen and stables,
+their time was their own, and they made the most of it
+elsewhere than within reach or sight of their employers.</p>
+
+<p>It was early still, and though the darkness had fallen,
+the moon was at the full, and showed to advantage the
+solemn splendour of the trees, the long soft stretches of
+sward, and the festooned jungle-like arbours and arcades.
+In many a winding path she lost her way (for the place was
+of enormous extent), and had difficulty in locating once
+more the house or the gate or any point she was acquainted
+with. Coming to the gate once she tried it, and finding it
+securely locked she shook it with the sudden fury of a
+wild thing that finds itself caged. Then she stood still,
+and presently two great tears rolled down her face; but
+afterwards her wanderings became curiously systematised.
+Taking the gate as her starting-post she commenced a
+<i>d&eacute;tour</i> of the wilderness, keeping to its outskirts and examining
+as she travelled every inch of the enclosing walls.
+The part which gave on to the main road she found to
+be hopelessly impregnable; it had first a high stone wall
+with a cresting of particularly sharp and jagged bottle-glass;
+and further, was backed by a species of laurel that
+grew both tall and bushy, and rattled aggressively if<span class="pagenum">[80]</span>
+anyone so much as looked at it. Then came a long
+side-stretch of thick-set green bushes of what she judged&mdash;after
+pinching the leaf and smelling it&mdash;to be quince,
+with an undergrowth of pink pepper. After penetrating
+this, in a weak spot, and discovering that the outside
+rampart consisted of galvanised iron, standing lengthways
+and painted dark green, she did not feel so confident,
+but she went bravely on, until at last she came to a gate;
+it also was made of iron and painted green, but though
+it was unlocked, Poppy did not go through it, for she saw
+beyond, the stables and iron houses that were evidently
+the quarters of the black servants. She could hear their
+voices and the sound of a concertina. Plainly this was the
+back compound, through which all trades-people must
+make their way to the house. No doubt there was an
+entrance at the other side&mdash;but it was not for Poppy!
+She proceeded. The wall continued of the same quality,
+monotonously familiar; then occurred an impassable jungle
+that it would have taken a herd of buffalo to make any
+impression upon. After beating round this for some
+time, to the detriment of her trailing white gown, Poppy
+pursued her way with a frowning brow and a quivering
+under-lip. Next came a hedge of prickly-pear; she turned
+her head away from this in disgust. Farmers plant
+prickly-pears round their gardens to keep out cattle.
+It is the most perfect barrier in the world. Certainly, a
+human being <i>might</i> cut his way through it; but he would
+spend the rest of his life picking from his festering flesh
+tiny invisible white thorns. On and on she marched; it
+seemed to her that the large pale hands of the pear-hedge
+flapped mockingly at her. Sometimes she was obliged
+to make a wide <i>d&eacute;tour</i> to avoid a clump of trees, or a
+rockery, or a summer-house with a pergola leading to it,
+smothered with vines and passion-flowers and roses. It
+seemed that she walked miles and miles. Suddenly she<span class="pagenum">[81]</span>
+saw light glimmering through a trellised opening, and ran
+forward. Her hands touched cold wrought-iron. It was
+the front gate! This time, when she shook it, she did not
+cry. Her gown was torn, her hair was loosened, there was
+a scratch on her cheek and blood on her hands, but she
+laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my <i>very</i> dear Luce Abinger," she said, "we shall
+see if you can keep a creature of the veldt behind a
+padlock."</p>
+
+<p>Immediately she recommenced a fresh tour of the garden,
+and though the long hot day and all its incidents
+must have told upon her strength, she seemed to have
+suddenly acquired fresh life and buoyancy. She had
+that within which urged her on&mdash;a taste for liberty. At
+that time it seemed to her that the whole world was too
+small a place for a free spirit; and that if this were indeed
+the world, she would somewhere find some desperate
+edge and leap over, even if it should be into the abyss of
+nothingness. On this tour she included the arbours and
+the summer-houses in her itinerary. The third one she
+came to was only a small hut of a place, but it had a long
+spire to its roof, and from thence trailed and hung long
+lines and stalks of the passion plant&mdash;everyone knows it:
+vine-leaved, with great round cream-coloured flowers,
+a purple outer ring divided into ten thousand tiny leaves,
+signifying the crowd that gathered to listen to Christ
+on the Mount; and in the centre, mysteriously arranged,
+like the dishes upon the table of some oracle, the three
+loaves and the five fishes! They call it the grenadilla
+in Africa, and eat its fruit with port wine and cream.
+Poppy dived in under the trailing vinery, and entered the
+hut. All round it had a low seat running, but everything
+was old and damp and rotten she could feel by the touch,
+and in one place the wood crumbled under her fingers, and
+thrusting her arm forward, she was able to feel that it<span class="pagenum">[82]</span>
+was part of the wall itself; there was no further barrier
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>She had found an exit.</p>
+
+<p>For a time she sat still on the cool mossy floor of the
+arbour, trembling a little at the thought of the spiders
+and strange beasts that might be dropping upon her from
+above. At last she nerved herself to the point of pushing
+and urging and disentangling the thick partition of green
+that kept her in. Her idea was to make an opening
+without making a gap; something she could re-arrange
+afterwards, leaving no sign of disturbance.</p>
+
+<p>At length she was through, and behold! she found
+herself in another garden. Was it a maze too, she wondered
+rather drearily? A maze without an opening?
+But no, there was a pleasing openness of view about the
+place. A few bushes and trees, a straggly flower-bed
+or two. Almost immediately she came upon a gravelled
+path; but she did not walk on it, choosing rather to
+follow its direction by way of the grass and soft earth which
+enflanked it. In the natural course of events a house was
+discovered. Quite a simple affair of galvanised iron,
+painted green, with a verandah running all round it and
+heaps of shrubs and bushes and creepers to hide its nakedness.
+Its front verandah was full of pale, heavenly light
+that was certainly not contributed by the moon; nor
+could the words that came floating over the bushes into
+the garden, be, by the wildest and most poetic imagination,
+endowed with a heavenly meaning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it, I'm sick of this rotten typewriter and
+everything else in the world. I wish Brookie would type
+his own beastly law-papers."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy approached with the utmost gentleness, and
+through the screen of a bush covered with tiny pink
+flowers that smelt of musk she surveyed the scene.</p>
+
+<p>The room itself was terrible as an army with banners.<span class="pagenum">[83]</span>
+It contained "gypsy-tables," antimacassars, "what-nots,"
+plush fans upon the walls, indescribable villainies of
+wool and paper, a crewel-worked mantel-border, and every
+atrocity under the moon. In the midst of all was a good
+solid mahogany table, with a typewriting-machine on it,
+and seated before this was a girl. For pity of herself
+Poppy was glad to see another girl; and more especially
+a girl who, like herself, appeared to have reason to be
+bored with her surroundings and the general management
+of the universe. In the enthusiasm engendered by a fellow-feeling,
+she had an inclination to march in and take the
+girl to her heart, but after a further survey she changed
+her mind.</p>
+
+<p>In a large, ripe fashion, the girl was very good-looking
+indeed, with a tall and generous figure of the kind that
+attracts prompt and frank attention from the generality
+of men, but is not deeply admired by other women. Her
+face was of a familiar Colonial type, large-featured but
+well-shaped, with big brown eyes, rather inclined to roll,
+suggestive of what is known as "a dash of colour"; a
+mouth of the kind that expresses nothing at all until the
+twenties, when by the aid of a <i>retrouss&eacute;</i> nose, grown unaccountably
+coarse it suddenly expresses things which should
+be left unexpressed; a round, rather plump chin, and
+masses of dark hair which had been sadly maltreated by
+curling-irons, and had a dusty appearance. On the
+whole a handsome girl, probably good-natured enough for
+the ordinary purposes, and of a personality pleasing enough
+for an ordinary acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly not a girl to be made a friend of, thought
+Poppy, and decided that she would go no further.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wait and see first if Luce is going to let me out
+to meet nice people," she thought. "If he doesn't, this
+girl may help to pass away an idle hour sometimes, and
+she might serve as one of the characters in my novel.<span class="pagenum">[84]</span>
+At any rate she could teach me to use the typewriter, and
+I could teach her not to live in a chamber of horrors."</p>
+
+<p>With these reflections she stole back soft-footed in
+her tracks, and through her little exit-hole, which she
+covered up with the greatest care and skill, for fear that
+in the future it should prove to be her only mode of entrance
+into the world of men and women she longed to know.</p>
+
+<p>For a whole week she refrained from broaching to the
+tyrant of the house the subject which lay uppermost in
+her thoughts. For one thing she thought it would be
+well to allow him to regain some semblance of good
+humour; for another she wished to give him full opportunity
+and time to make daily excursions into the town
+and lunch and dine with his friends, so that she might
+have some grounds for the reproaches she meant to level
+at him when she demanded freedom. In the meantime
+she was absorbed in affairs which included the inspection
+and re-arrangement of every room in the house, excepting
+only Abinger's, which she never ventured near. Touches
+of her personality soon lay upon everything, from the
+chintzes in the drawing-room which she had chosen herself
+at Waring's, and sent out to Kykie for the making, down
+to the curtaining of Kykie's own bedroom windows with
+some cobwebby snowy muslin she had bought in Shanghai.
+She spent several hours every day at the piano, playing
+old Irish melodies, for which she had a passion, and of
+which she had made an enormous collection; but she
+always waited until Luce was out of the house, for he had
+a peculiar aversion to melodies of any kind and more
+especially Irish melodies. He said:</p>
+
+<p>"There may have been something in them when the
+strolling poets played them on their harps, but since that
+fellow Moore made them pretty, I consider them damned
+mawkish."</p>
+
+<p>So Poppy kept her melodies to herself. The rest of<span class="pagenum">[85]</span>
+her time was divided between studying literature, writing,
+dreaming and wandering in the garden, which became
+dearer to her day by day.</p>
+
+<p>At last, one evening, on hearing from Kykie that Abinger
+would be dining at home, she made herself look as charming
+as possible in a pale maize satin gown with a wreath of
+green leaves on her hair, and went down prepared to do
+battle.</p>
+
+<p>Luce Abinger was already in the drawing-room, standing
+at one of the French windows, staring out into the garden&mdash;a
+sombre, solitary figure. She noticed, as often before,
+how tall and well-built he was, and the fine line of his head
+under the smooth, fair hair. He always looked distinguished
+and well-born in evening-dress. At the sound
+of Poppy he turned, and the lights shining on his maimed
+and distorted face, showed her that he was entertaining
+at least seven devils. A mental shiver passed through
+her and hope fell several degrees; but she advanced with
+a serene smile and a gay word. She had long ago learnt
+to control the expressions of her face, so that he might
+not guess the mingled terror, pity, and repulsion he often
+roused in her; and though she knew that in most things
+he had intuition as cruel as the grave, she believed that
+in this, at least, she was able to deceive him.</p>
+
+<p>The second gong had not yet sounded. She sat down
+at the piano and ran her fingers up and down the keys
+by way of bracing up her nerves.</p>
+
+<p>"Luce," she began, "I hope you are in a good temper,
+for I want to talk to you very seriously about something."</p>
+
+<p>He gave a croaking sort of laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh certainly. I am at my very b-best. It is only
+necessary for you to p-play an Irish melody to have me
+p-purring at your feet. <i>Il ne manquerait plus que
+&ccedil;a.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>This was inauspicious, but Poppy refused to be daunted;<span class="pagenum">[86]</span>
+and the gong sounding at this moment, she rose and put
+her hand upon his arm, saying cheerfully:</p>
+
+<p>"That's right, come along then, we'll talk it over in
+the dining-room."</p>
+
+<p>His smile was grim. They sat down to dinner, and
+Babiyaan and Umzibu, arrayed in white, hovered over
+them like guardian angels. Abinger ate little and said
+nothing. Only when the <i>boys</i> were not in the room he
+fixed his eyes on Poppy in a curious way that caused in
+her a sensation of indescribable discomfort and annoyance.
+Once, for some unknown reason, she found herself remembering
+how she had covered herself up with the bed quilt
+from Kykie's eyes, and wishing that she had it round
+her now. She had never felt like that in a low gown before,
+and she could not understand it at all. For a time it
+quite unfitted her for the task she had in hand, but the
+idea occurring to her that this was perhaps what Luce
+intended, she plucked up heart again, and with the fruit
+fired her first shot.</p>
+
+<p>"Luce, what are you going to do about getting me a
+chaperon?"</p>
+
+<p>He gave a little jerk of his fruit-knife, so that she knew
+that he was taken unawares, otherwise he remained undisturbed
+by what she supposed must be something in the
+nature of a bomb-shell going off under his nose. He
+did not, however, proceed with the business of peeling
+his peach, and on giving him a swift side-glance, she found
+that he was smiling at her. Now, his smile was at no
+time an alluring affair, but when it was field day for his
+devils&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>"Am I not a sufficiently p-proper and responsible
+p-person to have the care of your young white s-soul?"
+he inquired blandly.</p>
+
+<p>She knew <i>that</i> mood. Perhaps, after all, it would be
+better to postpone the discussion; but then, sometimes<span class="pagenum">[87]</span>
+these fits of fury and rudeness lasted for months. It was
+impossible to wait all that time.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not particularly concerned about my soul,"
+she answered carelessly, dipping her fingers in the fine
+Venetian bowl before her and drying them delicately.
+One of Abinger's devils betrayed itself by laughing loudly
+and with character, but she did not even wince.</p>
+
+<p>"Your young white b-body, then?" He pushed back
+his chair from the table with a horrible scrench on the
+polished floor.</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like some odious sultan, but you forget that
+I am not a slave," she flashed back at him.</p>
+
+<p>She pushed her chair from the table also, and loosening
+from her wrist a little painted inlaid fan which she had
+bought from a street-seller in Algiers, she essayed to cool
+her flushed face.</p>
+
+<p>"Cigarettes, Babiyaan!" she said. "It is very hot;
+I think I will smoke out in the garden," she finished coldly
+to Abinger.</p>
+
+<p>But he had risen too, and lounged in the doorway leading
+to the verandah.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, p-pray let us finish this interesting discussion."</p>
+
+<p>They stood looking at each other for a moment: she,
+quite collectedly; he, smiling with his eyes and sneering
+with his mouth. Babiyaan, well aware that she was not
+allowed to smoke, knew better than to hand her the cigarettes,
+but placed them on the table and discreetly retired.</p>
+
+<p>"There is no discussion, Luce," she said quietly, though
+her voice contained a tremor. "I simply want you to
+realise that it is impossible for me to go on living like this
+for ever. It isn't fair...." she added petulantly. He
+said nothing, only smiled. She regained her dignity and
+spoke more gently:</p>
+
+<p>"I am a woman now, Luce, and it is only natural that
+I should wish to know other women&mdash;and men too."<span class="pagenum">[88]</span></p>
+
+<p>At that he laughed raspingly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why d-drag in the women?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him scornfully. It was ridiculous of
+him to pretend that men meant more to her than women.</p>
+
+<p>"It is unreasonable of you to expect me to spend my
+youth in secrecy and seclusion, just because you&mdash;" she
+stopped hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Go on!" he said with a devilish gaiety. "'Just because
+<i>you</i> happen to have a face like a mutilated b-baboon'&mdash;was
+that what you were going to say?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Luce, you <i>know</i> it was not! Because ... because
+..." she stood stammering with distress, while he stood
+grinning. "Because <i>you</i> don't happen to care for the
+society of other people&mdash;was what I was going to say....
+Don't think," she went on appealingly, "that I don't
+appreciate all you have done for me. I remember it
+every day and every night.... I shall never forget
+it ... and though I know I can never repay you, I will
+show you all the rest of my life how grateful I am....
+But I don't see what difference it would make to you to
+let me know a few people ... you have so many friends
+... surely you know some nice women who would call
+on me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He broke out in a harsh voice, smiling no longer. "You
+are mistaken; I have no friends. The whole thing is out
+of the question and impossible."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why it should be at all," she pursued
+valiantly; "if you get me some pleasant woman as a
+chaperon."</p>
+
+<p>"In God's name what do you want with women?"
+he burst out. "A g-girl like you will never find a friend
+amongst them. They will hate you for your face, and your
+brains, and your youth.... They are d-devils all&mdash;lock,
+stock and barrel.... They'll rip you open and
+tear the story of your life out of you; if they once find<span class="pagenum">[89]</span>
+out that you are a South African they'll never rest until
+they have nosed out the whole thing, and then they'll fling
+the t-tale to the four winds and the first thing you know
+you'll have your Bloemfontein aunt bearing down on
+you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh Luce! I don't believe they're as bad as all
+that&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Then don't believe it," he retorted, with the utmost
+rudeness. "But understand one thing, I'll have no she-devils
+round this house."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, let them be he-devils," she flung back at
+him. "I am accustomed to those."</p>
+
+<p>At that he stamped away from her towards the other
+door, gesturing with rage, and throwing broken words in
+her direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't my life bad enough already?... Oh Hades!...
+I wouldn't stand it for a minute ... curse all
+women ... don't ever talk to me about this again ...
+I tell you.... It's monstrous ... a lot of thieves and
+blackguards.... You're driving me out of my own
+house ... I shall go to the Rand to-morrow ... why,
+by God, I!..."</p>
+
+<p>The door closed with a crash behind him.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[90]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">AT two o'clock one afternoon Sophie Cornell walked
+into her sitting-room and flung upon the table by
+the side of her typewriter a great roll of MSS. She
+was gorgeously attired in a hat massed with roses of a
+shade that "never was on land or sea," and a furiously
+befrilled gown of sky-blue silk-muslin. But her face was
+flushed and heated, and her eyebrows met in a scowl of
+decided ill-temper. Opening a door that led through a
+long passage to the kitchen, she shouted:</p>
+
+<p>"Zambani! Zambani! <i>Checcha</i> now with my lunch.
+Send Piccanin to lay table. <i>Checcha wena!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She flung her hat into one chair and herself into another,
+and stared at a telegram which she spread out before her.</p>
+
+<p>"'Sorry can't come,'" she read, muttering; "'something
+better turned up; you understand!' Yes, I understand
+well enough! Just like the rotter to study her own
+convenience and throw me over at the last moment. What
+am I to do <i>now</i>, I'd like to know?"</p>
+
+<p>She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black
+<i>boy</i> in a blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his
+knees, who was laying a cloth on one end of the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there any soda in the house, Piccanin?" she demanded;
+and when he signified yes, ordered him to fetch it
+then and be <i>checcha</i>. In the meantime, she rose and
+unlocked from the sideboard a bottle of whiskey.</p>
+
+<p>Lunch was a slovenly meal, consisting of burnt mutton-chops,
+fried potatoes, and a beet-root salad liberally<span class="pagenum">[91]</span>
+decorated with rings of raw onion. Miss Cornell, however,
+ate heartily, and enjoyed a whiskey-and-soda. She then
+proceeded to attack a wobbly blanc-mange beringed with
+strawberry jam. Occasionally she demanded of some
+invisible personage:</p>
+
+<p>"And what am I going to do <i>now</i>, I'd like to know?"
+and the scowl returned to her brows.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly, upon the front door which stood slightly ajar
+fell a soft knock. Miss Cornell's hands slipped to her hair,
+the scowl disappeared from her face, and in a high affected
+voice she called:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in!"</p>
+
+<p>Entered, with a shy and demure air, a girl dressed in the
+simplest kind of dress made of thin black muslin, with a
+white fichu over her shoulders falling in long ends below
+her waist. Her large white-straw hat had round it a
+wreath of lilac, which was of exactly the same colour as her
+eyes. Her lips were amazingly scarlet.</p>
+
+<p>"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft, entrancing voice.
+"I am sorry to disturb you at your lunch&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," said Sophie affably; "I'm just done.
+Do sit down!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl seated herself daintily. Sophie, observing that
+she wore no jewelry of any kind except a ring, in which
+the diamond was so large that it must surely be paste,
+decided that her visitor must be "hard up." She (Sophie)
+had not much of an opinion of that "black rag of a gown"
+either, but she thought she detected the faint murmur
+of a silk lining as her visitor moved. The lilac eyes looked
+at her winningly.</p>
+
+<p>"I heard that you had a typewriting machine," she
+said, "and I wondered if you would be so good as to do a
+little typing for me&mdash;" She indicated a tiny roll of writing
+which she held in her hand. Miss Cornell sat up with an
+air.<span class="pagenum">[92]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't take in work!" she said perkily. "I
+couldn't be bothered with that sort of thing. I'm <i>sekertary</i>
+to a gentleman who has an office down town."</p>
+
+<p>"Lilac Eyes" regarded her calmly and did not seem
+overwhelmed by the importance of this communication.</p>
+
+<p>"What a bother!" said she serenely.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell became languid.</p>
+
+<p>"I get an enormous salary, and I have more work than
+I know how to get through already. Indeed, I am trying
+to get an assistant."</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" said the other girl. "I wonder if I would suit
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"You!" Miss Cornell's face lit up with sudden interest
+and eagerness. She surveyed the other again. <i>Of course</i>,
+she was only a "hard-up" girl looking for work, and that
+air of gentle insolence that Sophie had been conscious of,
+was, after all, only "side" stuck on like the rose in the
+front of the simple black gown to hide poverty. Upon
+these reflections Miss Cornell's air became exceedingly
+patronising.</p>
+
+<p>"You? Well, I don't know, I'm sure. Can you type?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. But I daresay I could soon learn."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh well! I couldn't give you much salary if you are
+only a beginner."</p>
+
+<p>"I shouldn't want any salary," said "Lilac Eyes"; but
+added quickly, as she saw the other's look of amazement:
+"At least, not for some months. If you would allow me
+to use your machine for my own work sometimes I should
+be repaid."</p>
+
+<p>At this Sophie had neither the wit nor the patience to
+conceal her satisfaction. Her haughty air departed and
+she beamed with delight. She had suddenly seen a clear
+way through a very difficult <i>impasse</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"You'll suit me down to the ground," she declared
+joyfully. "When can you move in?"<span class="pagenum">[93]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Move in?" the other gave her a wondering smile.
+"Oh, I couldn't come to live&mdash;only for a few hours every
+day."</p>
+
+<p>Sophie's face clouded again, but in a moment her eyes
+took on the absorbed look of a person who is rapidly
+reviewing a difficult situation. Presently she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps that wouldn't matter so much if you
+wouldn't mind <i>pretending</i> sometimes that you live here."</p>
+
+<p>The other girl looked puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if there's any chance of you're doing as I ask
+you, I'll explain," said Sophie; "but, of course, I don't
+want to talk about my private affairs if it's no good.
+There's nothing in the reason for <i>pretending</i> that you need
+object to," she added boldly. "What is the reason you
+can't come and live? Got a sick mother, or an old aunt,
+or something?"</p>
+
+<p>The other hesitated for a moment, then her lovely lilac
+eyes took on a curious expression.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have an aunt," was her odd answer, but Sophie
+was no acute reader of eyes or odd answers.</p>
+
+<p>"More fool you," said she cheerfully. "I'd like to see
+the old aunt who'd get <i>me</i> to support her. Well, all
+right now, if you think you'll come I'll tell you the whole
+thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I think I'll come. But as I have said, it will only
+be for a few hours daily; sometimes in the mornings, more
+often in the afternoons."</p>
+
+<p>"That'll do all right. Have a whiskey-and-soda and
+we'll talk it over."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care for whiskey, thank you," said "Lilac Eyes";
+"but I am very thirsty, and will have some soda, if I
+may."</p>
+
+<p>Sophie shouted to Piccanin to bring another glass, and
+pushed the soda and lemons across the table.<span class="pagenum">[94]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Make yourself at home," said she affably; "but I
+hope you're not one of those asses who don't drink!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I drink if I want to&mdash;but not spirits."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know&mdash;those old Cape pontacs. Save me from
+them!" Miss Cornell looked piously at the ceiling. The
+other girl, who had never tasted Cape pontac in her life,
+only smiled her subtle smile.</p>
+
+<p>Sophie seated herself in a lounge-chair, opposite her
+visitor, and crossed her legs, incidentally revealing her smart
+French-heeled shoes and a good deal of open-work stocking
+through which to lilac-coloured eyes her legs looked as
+though they were painted red. Piccanin meanwhile removed
+from the room the luncheon d&eacute;bris, his bare feet
+cheeping on the pale native matting and his long black
+eyes taking interested glances at the visitor whenever she
+was not looking his way.</p>
+
+<p>"And now let's get to business," said Miss Cornell.
+"First of all, you haven't told me your name yet."</p>
+
+<p>The lilac eyes were hidden for a moment under white
+lids, and a faint colour swept over the pale skin.</p>
+
+<p>"Rosalind Chard."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall call you Rosalind, of course, and you can
+call me Sophie if you like. Sophie Cornell's my name.
+Rather pretty, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Very," said Miss Chard in her gentle, entrancing voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now I'll tell you: I come from Cradock, in the
+Cape Colony, but I've been living all over the place since
+I left home. First, I went to stay with my sister in Kimberley.
+Have you ever been to Kimberley? <i>Man!</i> I tell
+you it's the most glorious place&mdash;at least, it used to be
+before everybody went to Jo ... you know Jo-burg,
+<i>of course</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chard shook her head.</p>
+
+<p>"Never been to Johannesburg?" Sophie's tone expressed
+the utmost pity and contempt. "Well, but<span class="pagenum">[95]</span>
+you're an English girl, I can see. Not been long out
+here, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only a week or so."</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott! you've got a lot to learn!"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket
+and lit one. She then offered the packet to Miss Chard,
+who did not, however, take one.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't smoke either? Och, what! You're not <i>half</i>
+a good fellow! Well, take off your hat, then. Do be
+sociable."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chard unpinned her floppy white hat and wore it
+on her knee for the rest of the interview. Sophie noticed
+the piled-up crown of black, black hair; also, the peculiar
+branching way in which it grew above the girl's brows.
+("I wonder if she uses bay-rum to make it all dry and
+electriccy like that?" was her inward comment. "And
+I'll bet she wears a switch.")</p>
+
+<p>"Well, to continue my tale&mdash;I had a lovely time in
+<i>darling</i> old Kimberley: dances, theatres, suppers, everything
+you can think of; then my sister's husband must
+needs go off and buy a rotten old farm at the back of nowhere&mdash;Barkly
+East, if you love me! They wanted <i>me</i>
+to come, too, but I said, Dead off! No, <i>thanks</i>! I want
+something more out of life than mountain scenery."</p>
+
+<p>Rosalind Chard looked at her and could well believe it.
+At the moment Sophie reminded her of nothing so much
+as a full-blown cabbage-rose, dying to be plucked.</p>
+
+<p>"And so you came here instead?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, no; first I went to Jo-burg, and I <i>must</i> say I
+had a heavenly time <i>there</i>; but&mdash;well&mdash;it didn't suit my
+health, so I became <i>sekertary</i> to an old snook called Johnson.
+He had been in Rhodesia, poking about in some
+ancient ruins there, and&mdash;oh, my garden flower!&mdash;the
+stuff he used to give me to write and type! And the way
+he used to bully me when I didn't get through it! And<span class="pagenum">[96]</span>
+then complained of my spelling, if you please. I didn't
+stay with <i>him</i> any longer than I could help, you bet, though
+the screw was good. But I <i>must</i> tell you, such fun&mdash;just as
+I was going to leave him I discovered from his correspondence
+that he was going up to Zanzibar to make some
+researches for some rotten old society or other, so I stuck
+to him for another month. I thought I might as well get
+a passage to Durban for nix. So I started with him from
+the Cape, but when the boat touched here, I said, Good-bye,
+Johnnie! Oh crumbs! The row he made when he
+found me trekking!"</p>
+
+<p>The listener's sympathy happened to be with the old
+snook, but Sophie was not asking for an opinion.</p>
+
+<p>"And do you mean to say," demanded the latter unexpectedly,
+"that you would rather live with your old aunt
+than in a sweet little house like this, with me?"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chard did not mean to say anything at all as far
+as her own affairs were concerned.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind about me, Sophie," was her reply. "Tell
+me some more of your interesting adventures, and how you
+came to live in this sweet little house."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell's glance shifted from her new friend. She
+looked out of the window, round the room, at the pictures
+on the wall, at the typewriter&mdash;anywhere but into the two
+clear wells of lilac light opposite her, as she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"I rent it, of course. I told you, didn't I, that I am
+<i>sekertary</i> to a man down town, named Brookfield. He
+thinks the world of me, and gives me a big salary; and then
+I get other work from a man called Bramham. Oh, I have
+more to do than I want, and I really <i>had</i> to get help, so I
+wrote last week to a pal of mine up in Jo-burg, and told her
+to come and join me. She promised, and I expected her
+right up till to-day, when I got a telegram, if you please, to
+say that she'd got something better. Wasn't that a low-down
+trick? And after I had told Brookfield and Bram<span class="pagenum">[97]</span>ham and all!
+Brookie gave me the morning off to go and
+meet her, and I waited for the train and found she wasn't
+in it, and when I got back to the office there was the telegram!
+Fortunately Brookie was gone from the office when I got
+back, so he doesn't know that she hasn't come."</p>
+
+<p>"But why should it matter to him and to the other man
+whether she comes or not?"</p>
+
+<p>Again Miss Cornell's glance took flight.</p>
+
+<p>"Because of the work, of course&mdash;there's such tons
+to do ... and I can't get through it all by myself."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chard watched her narrowly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but why do you wish me to pretend that I live
+here, and am your friend from Johannesburg?"</p>
+
+<p>"You see, it's this way ... Brookie and Mr. Bramham
+take an interest in me.... They don't think that
+I ought to live alone here, and all that sort of rot&mdash;and
+if I could show <i>you</i> to them they'd think it was all right."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Chard looked startled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I couldn't promise to meet strange men! I didn't
+suppose you would want me to do that or&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>An exasperated look came over Miss Cornell's face.</p>
+
+<p>"You're not going to back out now, after me telling you
+everything?" she demanded angrily, but Miss Chard's
+scarlet lips took a firm line.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't wish to meet strange people," she said. To her
+surprise, the other girl at once became propitiatory and
+beseeching.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, but I won't ask you to meet anyone else. I'll
+keep you a deadly secret. And I can assure you that
+Brookie and Bramham don't matter in the least. Brookie
+is&mdash;well, to tell you the truth, he is entirely my property;
+he's crazily in love with me, and he won't bother you at
+all. Neither will Brammie, if it comes to that. He is an
+<i>awfully</i> nice man&mdash;everybody likes him, and he's fearfully
+rich too. He's married, and his wife lives in England for<span class="pagenum">[98]</span>
+her health, they say, but of coarse that must be all rot.
+Anyway, he never goes into society at all&mdash;only has men
+friends."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what does he want here?" asked Miss Chard
+calmly, watching the flushed face before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;nothing at all. It's only a matter of business,
+and a friendly interest in me, and all that&mdash;and, you
+see, as he employs me as well as Brookie, I have to be civil
+and ask him to tea sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>It seemed to Miss Rosalind Chard that there was more
+in this than met the eye, but she was not able to fathom
+it at present. However, after listening to another long
+description of Mr. Bramham's inoffensiveness, she consented
+at last to be at the house one afternoon when he
+called.</p>
+
+<p>"As for Brookie&mdash;&mdash;" began Sophie, ready to open up
+another chronicle of guilelessness.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no! I won't meet Brookie, I absolutely jib at
+Brookie!"</p>
+
+<p>Sophie became lugubrious. "But he knows that you
+were to have arrived to-day&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Miss Chard decidedly. "Tell him that
+I came, but that I am as ugly as a monkey and as old as
+the sea. And now I must go, or my&mdash;aunt will be looking
+for me. I shall try and come in to-morrow and take a
+lesson on the typewriter. What time will be best?"</p>
+
+<p>"You'll have to teach yourself, my dear. I go to the
+office every morning at ten, and I lunch in West Street, and
+don't get back until above five in the afternoon. But I'll
+bring you all the MSS. there is no immediate hurry for&mdash;and
+you can do it one day and I'll take it back the next.
+We shall get along like one o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"That's all settled then; good-bye!" Miss Chard had
+stepped out of the room into the verandah and was gone
+before Sophie could remove her high heels from the bars of<span class="pagenum">[99]</span>
+the chair in front of her, where she had hooked them for
+extra ease and comfort. Inadvertently she listened for
+the click of the gate. But the gate did not click. Miss
+Chard, having got out of view of both house and gate, made
+a dash for the tall green hedge on the right side of the garden.
+Stooping down, she instantly disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>A few moments later Poppy Destin sat in the passion-leaved
+summer-house, delicately smoking a cigarette and
+brushing all traces of dust from her thin black muslin gown.
+Between little puffs of smoke she presently spoke to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly she is a terror ... a common mind,
+terrible clothes, Colonial slang ... I don't know that I
+can put up with her at all ... and those awful Brookies
+and Brammies! ... but it will be useful to be able to go
+through her garden whenever I want to make a little excursion
+into the world ... and, of course, I couldn't be
+there without some right or reason ... besides, it will be
+splendid to learn typewriting, and do all my own writing
+ready to send to the publishers ... but what a room! ... and
+those roses in her hat! Can such things be?...
+I must go and see whether Kykie has my tea ready."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>A few days later it would have been hard to recognise
+the sitting-room of Sophie Cornell's little green bungalow.
+Books had spread themselves about the room, the tawdrinesses
+had been removed, flowers were everywhere,
+and a fine vine in a long glass crept delicately up the side
+of the mirror above the mantel. When Poppy had hinted
+that she would like to change the room a little, Sophie had
+good-naturedly given her <i>carte-blanche</i> to do anything she
+wished, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"It was not <i>my</i> taste either, you know; but the place
+was furnished when I came into it and I haven't bothered
+to do anything since."</p>
+
+<p>The only things Miss Cornell would not allow to be<span class="pagenum">[100]</span>
+banished were the photographs of her numerous admirers,
+which she insisted on ranging along the narrow wooden
+ledge running round the room above the dado. They
+were in all degrees of preservation&mdash;some of them yellow
+with age or exposure, some quite new; all were autographed
+and inscribed. Some of the inscriptions ran thus: "From
+your loving Jack"; "To the best girl I know"; "To one
+of the best from one of the worst," etc. It was to be
+observed that the most ardent <i>mots</i> were merely initialled.
+But Sophie was equally proud of them all, and would exhibit
+them on the smallest provocation, giving a short
+narrative-sketch of each person which included the most
+striking features of his character, together with a thrilling
+account of his passion for her and the reason why she did
+not marry him.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, isn't <i>he</i> good looking? Such a dear boy too ... and
+<i>generous</i>! My dear, that man would have
+given me the boots off his feet ... but there&mdash;he had
+no money; what was the good?... He's in Klondyke
+now ... I do hope he'll have luck, poor boy...."</p>
+
+<p>"This is Captain Halkett. No, I don't know his regiment,
+and he never would give away his photos in uniform,
+though he had some perfectly lovely ones.... Someone
+told me he was a 'cashier' in the Army ... but that
+was silly, of course ... there are no such things as
+cashiers in the Army, <i>are</i> there? ... he simply adored
+me ... he gave me this bangle ... such a darling ... but
+he was married&mdash;or, <i>of course</i>&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>that</i> is Jack Truman, of Kimberley. Everyone
+knows <i>him</i> ... a fearful devil, but most fascinating....
+Isn't he handsome? ... such eyes ... you simply
+couldn't look into them, they made you blush all over.
+The women were all crazy after him, but he told me he
+didn't give a pin for any of them except me.... He
+wanted me to run away with him ... but he had a wife<span class="pagenum">[101]</span>
+in a lunatic asylum ... obliged to allow her forty pounds
+a month, and he was <i>dreadfully</i> in debt ... they tried to
+arrest him at Cape Town, but he got away dressed like a
+woman ... and now he is in the Australian Mounted
+Police, they say.</p>
+
+<p>"And, <i>of course</i>, you know who this is? One of the
+biggest men on the Rand ... with <i>thousands</i>, my dear....
+Och! you should see him in riding kit ... you never
+saw any one look so perfectly <i>noble</i> ... he was <i>madly</i> in
+love with me ... everybody said so ... he told me I
+was the only girl who could ever keep him straight ...
+but he behaved rather badly.... I always believe some
+snake of a woman made mischief ... and when he went
+to England, one of those English girls snapped him up ...
+they live out at Jeppestown now ... and they say she's
+the <i>living image</i> of me ... funny, isn't it?... but I
+think it just proves how he adored me, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>Listeners of defective vision and an over-developed
+sense of credulity might have believed that Helen of Troy
+II had come to town&mdash;unless they had been long enough
+in South Africa to realise that the best way to enjoy a little
+quiet humour is to take a Cape-Colonial girl at her own
+valuation.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy listened to all with tranquil eyes. She was willing
+to believe that it might be true that Sophie was admired
+and adored and desired. But in the type of men who
+formed the army of admirers and adorers and desirers she
+could not pluck up the faintest kind of interest. It seemed
+to her that it was impossible that any man worth knowing
+could forgive the size of Sophie's hands and the shape of
+her feet, the look about her mouth, the paint on her face,
+and the dust in her hair.</p>
+
+<p>She was aware, however, that life in South Africa is
+too busy and too eventful to allow men much time for
+digging into personality&mdash;and that it has to suffice, as a<span class="pagenum">[102]</span>
+rule, if the surface-metal shines pleasantly and looks like
+the real thing. Sophie's surface, no doubt, had an attractive
+glitter, but Poppy felt sure that if anyone with the time
+and inclination for such occupation had ventured to go
+a-quarrying into the nature of Sophie Cornell, the output
+would be found to be surprising, even in a land where surprises
+are every-day fare and the unexpected is the only
+thing that ever happens.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[103]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IN the meantime all went well. Secure in the knowledge
+that Abinger was away for some weeks, that
+Kykie would never search for her except at meal-times,
+every day found Poppy spending four or five hours at her
+new occupation&mdash;typewriting. She had determined that
+she would master this art before she went adventuring
+further into the world that lay beyond Sophie Cornell's
+gate.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she would arrive before ten in the morning,
+in time to see Sophie depart, gloriously arrayed, with the
+air of one due at the same garden-party as royalty.</p>
+
+<p>When she inspected the huge rolls of work which Sophie
+invariably brought back, she would sometimes wonder if
+the latter had indeed been to a garden-party and never
+put in at the office at all, except to fetch the MSS.</p>
+
+<p>The little house in the morning hours was always calm
+and peaceful. Through the trees of the garden Poppy
+could hear the world go buzzing by&mdash;the grating of the
+tram-cars on the lines, the clatter of horses, and the hiss
+of wheels going down hill, and an occasional street cry.
+No one ever came down the little pathway. Only the
+click of the machine, the voices of Zambani and Piccanin,
+busy with the pots and the pans in the kitchen and yard,
+broke the silence; or Poppy's trilling whistle as she corrected
+her proofs. By half-past twelve there would be
+piles of neat manuscript ready for Sophie to take back the
+next day, and Poppy would be speeding home through<span class="pagenum">[104]</span>
+her own garden to luncheon. Sometimes in the afternoon
+she would finish early, and, going out into the kitchen,
+would toast buns and prepare the tea, and Sophie, coming
+home at five o'clock, would find it laid cool and dainty
+among flowers on the long table.</p>
+
+<p>One day, when Poppy had arrived almost directly after
+lunch, with the idea of getting in a long afternoon at her
+own work, she was disagreeably surprised to find Sophie
+stalk in a few moments later, flushed and handsome, and
+bringing with her a large bale of papers and the faint but
+unmistakable odour of good cigars.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's little nose went up and a warmth ran through
+her; the smell of a good cigar unaccountably roused in her
+a vivid interest in life. For a moment she slightly envied
+Sophie, but a glance at the brilliant languid eyes and
+heavy mouth changed her mind, and singularly inspired
+her with the thought that good cigars were probably often
+smoked by hateful men.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like me to order you a cup of tea, Sophie?"
+she asked presently.</p>
+
+<p>"No, thanks!" said Sophie, languidly stretching herself
+in a chair. "I couldn't drink tea. I've had a most
+tiring morning. Brookie brought Nick Capron in, and
+they simply <i>wouldn't</i> let me work."</p>
+
+<p>After which calmly contradictory statement, she closed
+her eyes and fanned herself with a legal-looking document,
+chosen for its stiffness from among the papers she had
+brought, and which were now at sixes and sevens upon
+the floor.</p>
+
+<p>At the name "Nick Capron," Poppy gave a little start.
+How well she remembered the day she had heard that
+name from the lips of a beautiful woman in Bloemfontein!
+Could this Nick Capron possibly be the "most fascinating
+man in Africa" whom the gold-haired heroine was going
+to marry? She must try and discover.<span class="pagenum">[105]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I think a cup of tea would refresh you, Sophie," she
+presently said.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Och ni vat!</i> I can't eat or drink when I get worn out
+like this&mdash;I become a perfect wreck."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy surveyed the healthy, not to say opulent proportions
+stretched before her, and could not forbear to
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you should keep up your strength," she said, with
+irony entirely thrown away.</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing that would be the <i>slightest</i> use to me,
+now," announced Sophie, "is a glass of champagne&mdash;and,
+of course, I can't have that."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy began to pore over her manuscript. She was in
+the mood for work and hated not to take advantage of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I were rich enough to drink champagne whenever
+I am tired," was Miss Cornell's next contribution;
+and Poppy laughed without being amused.</p>
+
+<p>"You'd soon be bored with that."</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" said Miss Cornell fervently; then relapsed
+into languor.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope those papers are not important, Sophie, they
+are blowing all over the room."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, they're <i>very</i> important. They're all about a
+Malay abduction case which a friend of Brookie's is defending
+in the Courts next week. It's the greatest fun,
+Brookie and Capron were shrieking over it this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Mr. Capron a lawyer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;he isn't anything; just a pal of Brookie's.
+He's a Johannesburger, but he has a house here as well,
+and <i>tons</i> of money, and a lovely wife&mdash;a perfect stunner,
+my dear&mdash;Brookie says she is the loveliest woman in
+Africa; but Capron has always got his eye on some other
+woman. By the way, Rosalind, to-day he was describing
+a girl he had seen in a rickshaw, and from the description<span class="pagenum">[106]</span>
+I feel sure it was you. Your particular style of beauty
+appears to have struck him all in a heap."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell made this statement as though she thought
+it humorous, which, indeed, she did, for that anyone should
+admire a girl so unlike her own type, and her own idea of
+beauty which that type represented, seemed to her really
+funny and incredible. Yet she looked intently now, and
+observed, so far as in her lay, "with the seeing eye," and
+for the first time since they had met&mdash;the girl before her.
+Nick Capron's unmistakable enthusiasm had made a great
+impression upon her.</p>
+
+<p>"He said that you were alone in a rickshaw," she told
+Poppy, "and that he and Mrs. Portal were walking together
+and met you. And Mrs. Portal said you looked like a
+Burne-Jones dressed like a Beardsley poster. What rot
+these society women talk! Who can understand a thing
+like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is Mrs. Portal like?" asked Poppy, remembering
+now the well-bred-looking woman who had been talking
+about Burne-Jones to the man with the dissipated eyes
+on the day of her arrival.</p>
+
+<p>But Sophie took no heed of the question. She was
+closely and furtively regarding Poppy, and thinking:
+"Has she any attraction for men, I wonder? She's not a
+bit smart ... and so pale ... and yet, and yet ..."
+Here Sophie's expression of thought gave out. If she
+could have expressed it, she would have added: "She is
+pale, and yet glows as though something within her is
+alight."</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you did not tell him anything about me?"
+asked Poppy suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I did <i>not</i>!" said Miss Cornell emphatically, and
+her annoyed look as she said it brought a ring of laughter
+from Poppy and a lovely mischievous glimmer to her
+eyes.<span class="pagenum">[107]</span></p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Sophie sprang up.</p>
+
+<p>"Great Scott! I <i>quite</i> forgot to tell you&mdash;Brammie is
+coming to tea. That's why I came home so early. Do
+buck up, old girl, and make things look nice. Your papers
+are all over the place. I want the room to look as nice as
+possible for old Brammie."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! blow Brammie," thought Poppy crossly. "I
+was just going to write something extraordinarily fine;
+now it will be lost for ever!"</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she put her papers away with a good
+grace, tidied the room, laid the tea-things&mdash;as only she
+could&mdash;and went out to pluck fresh flowers for the vases.
+Sophie stood in her bedroom door buttoning a plaid silk
+blouse over her richly-endowed bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"That's ripping," she said approvingly. "Och! but
+you <i>can</i> arrange flowers&mdash;I'll say that for you, Rosalind.
+Wouldn't you like to run home and change your dress,
+though?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Poppy, her head slightly on one side as
+she surveyed a great flaming hibiscus-blossom she had just
+put by itself amidst a heap of green on the mantlepiece.
+"Why should I change my gown?" she asked. "This
+is quite all right. And the man's coming to see you,
+Sophie, not me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he really <i>wants</i> to see you, and I think you ought
+to try and look nice. I'll lend you one of my silk blouses,
+if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, thank you," hastily. "It's awfully good of
+you, Sophie, but I think my gown is quite presentable."</p>
+
+<p>She looked absolutely charming in a pale-blue linen,
+perfectly laundered by Kykie; but Sophie considered
+anything less than silk very ordinary wear indeed.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy began to arrange her hair at the mantel-mirror,
+pulling out her little side-combs, running them through
+strands of hair, then plunging them in deeper, so that great<span class="pagenum">[108]</span>
+waves leaned out on either side of her face and delicate
+fronds fell veil-wise just over her eyes. Then she took a
+bunch of green leaves and fastened them under her throat
+with a big, old malachite brooch she had.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, put some colour on your cheeks, or something,"
+said Sophie discontentedly.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy flew into one of the fierce little rages that sometimes
+seized her. "I will <i>not</i>, Sophie! Why on earth
+should you suppose that because <i>you</i> have a violent colour
+no one admires pale women? Do not make the mistake
+of thinking that everyone adores your type because <i>you</i>
+do!"</p>
+
+<p>Sophie, utterly taken aback, was about to make a tart
+rejoinder, when there came a light tap with a crop on the
+front door.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyone at home?"</p>
+
+<p>Sophie flew to her room to complete her toilette, leaving
+Poppy to swallow her rage and open the door. A big,
+grey-eyed man, with a kind smile, was standing in the
+verandah. He was in riding-clothes and carried a crop in
+his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," said Poppy, without enthusiasm; adding:
+"Miss Cornell will not be long."</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Miss Chard?" said he pleasantly, and came
+in.</p>
+
+<p>He looked round in a friendly, boyish way that rather
+charmed her.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! How pretty you've made this place look!
+It's quite different."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I suppose you were here before, when it was a
+chamber of horrors," said Poppy coolly. "I never saw a
+more impossible place in my life."</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her curiously as though greatly surprised.
+Then he said carelessly, and rather curtly she thought:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, I have been here before."<span class="pagenum">[109]</span></p>
+
+<p>He sat down in one of the easy chairs and Poppy began
+to put in order some books that had fallen from the book-case
+on to the floor. When she turned she found him still
+staring at her in that curious fashion, but without his
+smile. She missed it because it was a singularly heart-warming
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"The last people here were rather addicted to antimacassars
+and glass-shades and things," she said, appearing
+not to notice his curious look; "and as it seemed to
+me a pity to let such things spoil a pretty room, I put
+them out."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" was all he vouchsafed. She felt chilled. But
+here Sophie burst into the room, very magnificent and
+highly coloured.</p>
+
+<p>"How <i>sweet</i> of you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand
+up to her hair and the other outstretched, while her body
+performed the Grecian bend.</p>
+
+<p>"Rosalind, <i>do</i> see about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure
+Mr. Bramham must be <i>parched</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Correctly estimating this as a hint to leave them alone,
+Poppy retreated to the kitchen, and did not reappear until
+she followed Piccanin in with the tea-tray. Sophie was
+saying, "<i>Do</i> bring him around, Mr. Bramham. We should
+<i>just love</i> to meet him."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable
+curiosity to know whom she should <i>just love</i> to meet;
+but she made no remark; merely sat down.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I pour out tea, Sophie?"</p>
+
+<p>The latter nodded, but made no other attempt to include
+her in the conversation, continuing to monopolise Mr.
+Bramham entirely.</p>
+
+<p>In a short time Poppy became wearied of this state of
+affairs. After observing "Brammie's" boots, his fingers,
+his tie, the shape of his lips, his hair, the size of his ears,
+and his manner of sitting on a chair (all while she was<span class="pagenum">[110]</span>
+apparently arranging the cups and looking into the teapot
+to see if the tea was drawing properly), the "eternal
+feminine," which is only another name for the dormant
+cat in every woman, awoke in her. She did not exactly
+want "Brammie" for herself, but she decided that he
+was too nice for Sophie.</p>
+
+<p>Immediately afterwards, Bramham began to realise
+that there was a charming personality in the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you take sugar?" blew like a cool little western
+wind into his right ear; while on his left, Sophie Cornell
+was bombarding him with instructions to bring someone
+to call.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy got her answer first, and a sudden glance of
+recognition fell upon the slim, pale hands amongst the
+tea-cups; then:</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, Miss Cornell! I'll ask him to come, but I
+can't promise that he will. He's not much given to
+calling."</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh! I know he goes to the Caprons and the Portals&mdash;I've
+seen him with that horrid Mrs. Portal."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't admire Mrs. Portal?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see anything to admire," said Sophie. "She
+is not a bit smart, and her hats are simply awful!"</p>
+
+<p>"She is considered one of the most delightful women in
+South Africa," said Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, she may be," Sophie's air was unbelieving; "but
+I don't see where it comes in."</p>
+
+<p>She took her tea sulkily from Poppy's hand. Bramham
+looked bored. The little western wind blew again in his
+ear.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps her charm is not to be seen. Perhaps it is
+an essence&mdash;a fragrance&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Sophie scoffed at what she did not understand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you and your old poetry&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"That's just what it is," said Bramham. "There's<span class="pagenum">[111]</span>
+an odour of happiness about her that infects everyone
+who comes near her&mdash;no one cares a hang about what she
+wears or anything like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't like her, anyway," said Sophie, now
+thoroughly ill-tempered, "and I don't see why you do.
+She's covered with freckles."</p>
+
+<p>That should have ended the matter, but Poppy's taste
+for torment was whetted.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Mr. Bramham doesn't know her as well as
+you do, Sophie," she said softly.</p>
+
+<p>Sophie glared. Mr. Bramham looked amused. They
+all knew that Mrs. Portal could never be anything but a
+name to Sophie&mdash;that it was really an impertinence on her
+part to be discussing Mrs. Portal at all.</p>
+
+<p>"Do <i>you</i> know her?" she retorted rudely.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" answered Poppy. "I know no one
+in Durban except you, Sophie&mdash;and now Mr. Bramham,"
+she smiled, a sudden smile of great sweetness at Bramham,
+and at that he gave her his whole attention.</p>
+
+<p>"That's dull for you, surely!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no! I have plenty to do; and books to read;
+and how can one be dull in such a lovely place as Natal?"</p>
+
+<p>The sun came out in Bramham. He was a Natalian
+and proud of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe she gets up in the morning and goes out to
+see if the sun rises!" said Sophie, as if denouncing the
+conclusive symptom of idiotcy.</p>
+
+<p>The cold look with which Bramham had at first surveyed
+Poppy had now quite disappeared, and his grey-eyed
+smile was all for her. He also was a sun-rise
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like books?" he asked. "I can lend you any
+amount. We get all the new ones, and as soon as they're
+read the Lord knows where they go! I'll send you some
+up, if I may."<span class="pagenum">[112]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, that <i>will</i> be good of you," said Poppy
+with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>"Send her up all the old poetry books you can find,"
+jeered Sophie. "Personally, <i>I</i> like a jolly good yellow-back."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Bramham looked extremely bored by this priceless
+piece of information, and more so still when she returned
+immediately to the subject of the men she was anxious
+to meet. Poppy got up and, opening the piano, began
+to play a little gay air to which she whistled softly; she
+never sang.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm just <i>dying</i> to know him," said Sophie ardently.
+"He looks as though he has committed every sin you
+ever heard of. And how <i>did</i> he get that fearful scar right
+across his face? Vitriol?"</p>
+
+<p>The little air at the piano stopped suddenly.</p>
+
+<p>"I really couldn't tell you. He is not communicative
+on the subject," said Bramham drily. "But perhaps he
+will unfold to you&mdash;do go on playing, Miss Chard!"</p>
+
+<p>He adored music, and had an excellent view of an extraordinarily
+pretty pair of ankles under the music-stool.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy complied, but she changed the air to something
+savage that made Bramham think of a Zulu war-chant.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall certainly ask him when I meet him. I
+wonder you haven't been able to find out! He lives with
+you, doesn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"He is staying with me, at present, yes." Bramham's
+tone was full of weariness.</p>
+
+<p>"And that dark, strange Irishman everyone is talking
+about&mdash;Carson&mdash;he is staying with you, too, isn't
+he?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they great friends?"</p>
+
+<p>"We all know each other very well."</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell laughed genially.<span class="pagenum">[113]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I should say you do&mdash;isn't it true that you are called
+the three bad men all over Africa&mdash;come now?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid someone has been filling your head with
+nonsense. Who spreads these stories, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, that's all very well, but you know it's true,
+all the same. You are three dangerous, fascinating men,
+everyone says so, and the Kaffirs have names for you all.
+What is yours, Mr. Bramham?"</p>
+
+<p>"Kaffirs have names for everybody if one had time to
+find out what they were."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know&mdash;<i>Umkoomata</i>&mdash;that's what they call you.
+Now, what wickedness can that mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who tells you these wonderful things, my dear young
+lady? You really have a lot of inside information about
+everything. You should start a newspaper." Bramham
+was slightly exasperated.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I know a lot more besides that," said Miss Cornell,
+shaking her finger at him archly. "About you, and Mr.
+Carson, too. He is going up on a secret expedition into
+Borapota for the English Government, isn't he?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Very</i> secret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How
+the devil do these things leak out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Something or other, yes," he said aloud.</p>
+
+<p>"They say the English Government thinks an <i>awful</i>
+lot of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, he's a clever fellow," said Bramham, casually.
+No one would have supposed him to be speaking of a man
+dearer to him than a brother. Bramham did not wear his
+heart where it could be pecked at by the Sophie Cornells
+of the world.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy got up from the piano, and Bramham got up,
+too, and looked at his watch.</p>
+
+<p>"I must be off," said he, with a great air of business-hurry,
+which left him as soon as he got out of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't forget to bring Mr. Abinger next time,"<span class="pagenum">[114]</span>
+Sophie called after him from the verandah; "and that
+Mr. Carson, too," she added, as an afterthought.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy positively blushed for her.</p>
+
+<p>"Sophie, how can you! It was perfectly plain that he
+did not want to bring the man&mdash;and that he doesn't intend
+to, anyway. Are you really as dense as you pretend to
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Bosh!" said Sophie, retiring to the table and beginning
+to make a fresh onslaught on the bread-and-butter.
+"They'll turn up here in a day or two, you'll see. Isn't
+there any jam, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"I shall not see anything of the kind. I wash my hands
+of you and your men friends. I didn't engage to meet
+anyone but Mr. Bramham, and I've done all I promised."</p>
+
+<p>She had done a little more than she had promised, as she
+very well knew, but observation was not Sophie's strong
+point, as her next remark made plain.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, don't be cross just because he didn't admire
+you. I told you to put on my silk blouse, didn't I?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy laughed her entrancing laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think men care for clothes, Sophie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of <i>course</i> they do! They love to see a well-dressed
+woman&mdash;especially when they don't have to pay for the
+dress. Lots of men won't even be <i>seen</i> with a woman
+unless she's <i>perfectly</i> turned out. Brookie is like that;
+and I'll bet that man Abinger is, too!"</p>
+
+<p>"Is he, indeed! Then remove him far from me. I'm
+afraid you won't suit him, either Sophie," with a touch of
+malice.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not? Don't I pay enough for my clothes? I
+dress far better than Mrs. Portal does, anyway. She
+always has on faded old linens and things, and I've only
+seen her in two hats since I came here&mdash;both of them
+<i>awful</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her."<span class="pagenum">[115]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear. <i>I</i> think
+she is a frump. Capron's wife now <i>is</i> good looking, and
+always dressed mag-<i>nif</i>-icently. But it makes a person
+sick to see the way they freeze on to all the decent men
+and never let them meet anyone else."</p>
+
+<p>"But do the men want to meet anyone else? If one
+woman is witty, and the other pretty, what more is there
+to be desired?"</p>
+
+<p>"You talk like a book with all the pages torn out, and
+the cover lost," said Sophie irritably.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy laughed provokingly, and lay back in her chair,
+thinking&mdash;the whole thing was rather amazing. Abinger
+still here, and moving amongst pretty and witty women,
+whilst he pretended to be up in the Transvaal! His friend
+<i>Umkoomata</i> the <i>Sturdy One</i>, whom she had told herself
+she would like to know, here too, visiting Sophie Cornell,
+whom he plainly didn't like. Nick Capron! How odd
+the world was! She began to ponder about <i>Intandugaza</i>,
+too&mdash;whether he was the mysterious dark Irishman who
+went on secret expeditions&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Man!</i> Rosalind," broke in Sophie suddenly. "That
+fellow Abinger is just crazy to meet me. We ran into
+each other as I was coming out of Brookie's office yesterday,
+and he gave me a look that made me go hot all over. He's
+got those bad eyes that make you feel curly all down your
+spine&mdash;<i>you</i> know!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance
+of certain recent sensations still burning within her, she
+could not say that she did <i>not</i> know; but her mouth
+expressed weariness and disgust.</p>
+
+<p>"It seems to me that you are talking about some kind
+of brute, Sophie," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Brute! Oh, I don't know," said Sophie, and laughed.
+The laugh sent Poppy out of the room with her teeth in
+her lip.<span class="pagenum">[116]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I can't stand Sophie any longer," she said to herself
+in her own garden, looking at the rose-red walls of the
+house and the flaming flowers on the plant before the door.
+As she went indoors her thought changed; she began to
+smile subtly to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"So Luce is in Durban all the time! He simply pretended
+to go away, to avoid discussing that matter of
+going out with me! And Mrs. Nick Capron! If I were
+to go out here, should I meet her? And would she recognise
+in me, I wonder, the little wretched vagabond of six
+years ago?"</p>
+
+<p>She reached her glass, and looked in.</p>
+
+<p>"I think not."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[117]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">BRAMHAM and Carson sat smoking in the verandah
+of Sea House. Before them, not two hundred yards
+away, lay the sea, washing and rippling on the beach
+under the full of the moon. Behind them, through the
+open French windows a number of large woolly moths were
+<i>buzzing</i> in and out, much intrigued by the light that shone
+through a pink silk lamp-shade, which had been made and
+presented to the establishment by Mrs. Brookfield, on
+the occasion of her husband's accession to Bramham's
+mess for six weeks. The electric-lights had been turned
+out to keep the room as clear as possible of insects. It was
+Bramham's house, and they were Bramham's native servants
+who stepped so gently, removing the dinner-things
+deftly without clamour, making no sound but the rustle
+of bare feet on polished boards and an occasional softly-spoken
+Zulu word.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham's household included no woman, but there
+was no better-appointed one in Natal. Having laid
+bare the gleaming oak dining-table, one of the <i>boys</i> solemnly
+spread down its centre a strip of silver embroidery, while
+another placed two silver bowls of roses at each end, and
+removed the lamp with the pink shade to a side table.
+Afterwards the ice-bucket was replenished and fresh
+glasses placed near the spirit-tantalus.</p>
+
+<p>Having performed these duties with the greatest decorum
+and ceremony, they withdrew silently to the back regions
+of the house, where their solemnity slipped from them as<span class="pagenum">[118]</span>
+suddenly as water slips from a Kaffir's skin. They disported
+themselves amongst the pot-washers and dish
+cleaners, the cooks and stable-boys, with many a merry
+snicker and laugh, chattering like magpies, clicking and
+clacking, and crying "Hah!" over the affairs of the <i>Old
+Baas</i> (the master of natives is always <i>Old</i> whatever his age)
+and the various other <i>Baases</i> who sat at Bramham's board
+with regular irregularity.</p>
+
+<p>Ha! ha! where was <i>Shlalaimbona</i> to-night, they inquired
+among themselves. It is true that he would sleep here
+in the house of the <i>Old Baas</i>, as he had now done for many
+nights, but where did he eat to-night? In the house on the
+hill, where a white star was hidden by day and by night?</p>
+
+<p>No; the information was forthcoming that he dined
+to-night at the house of Por-tal&mdash;he who was gay always
+with an angry face and had the wife whose hands could
+smooth away troubles.</p>
+
+<p>And where, the cook particularly desired to know, was
+<i>Bechaan</i>? He whom the world called Brookfield&mdash;who
+had slept in the house of <i>Umkoomata</i> for the matter of six
+weeks now? Where was he to-night? Followed the tale
+of the return of Mrs. <i>Bechaan</i>, with particulars amazing.</p>
+
+<p><i>Vetta</i>, Carson's personal servant, gave an imitation of
+the lady, from which might have been gathered that her
+chief characteristics were a kangaroo-walk and a face which
+in contour and complacency resembled a camel's.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, <i>Umkoomata</i> and <i>Intandugaza</i> smoked
+in the verandah, which was like the deck of a yacht, broad
+and white-planked, and lined with a long row of every
+kind of easy-chair, a Madeira lounge, and a hammock
+with Union-Jack cushions.</p>
+
+<p>Carson, with his head far back in a canvas chair and
+his hands behind it, was smoking a cigar at the mosquitoes,
+sending them in shrieking swarms to roost in the roof.
+Incidentally, he was trying to persuade Bramham that the<span class="pagenum">[119]</span>
+fine weather indicated a three-weeks' trip into Zululand,
+to get some good shooting.</p>
+
+<p>"I have another three weeks to put in, Charlie, and
+what is the good of loafing here, at a loose end?" He
+gave a glance at Bramham seated by him, pipe in mouth,
+hands in pockets, the picture of health and well-being.
+"And you are looking really seedy. A trip would do you
+good."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham immediately began to think himself precariously
+ill.</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said he uneasily; "I feel confoundedly slack.
+I must take a dose of quinine to-night. A trip would be
+just the thing to set me up, damn it!" He stared at the
+moonlit night, his eyes full of a wistfulness that was
+extraordinarily boyish in a man on the wrong side of forty.
+He thought of a lovely spot he knew up on the Tugela,
+where the moon would just be rising over a great Kop, and
+he seemed to smell the wood fires on the night air&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But I can't get away. I've got a big case coming on
+next month, you know." His face changed, the boyishness
+passed and the business-man reappeared. "Those
+fellows in Buenos Ayres are trying to do me up for five
+thousand."</p>
+
+<p>They smoked in silence for a moment or so, then
+Bramham continued:</p>
+
+<p>"My lawyer, of course, wants to see me almost every
+day on some point or another. I really couldn't get away
+at present, Carson. Why not take a run up to the Rand?
+By the time you are back I'll have those fellows on toast,
+and then we'll go off for a few weeks."</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Carson discontentedly, "everything is confoundedly
+dull on the Rand. I was sick of the place when I
+was there last month."</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong with it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It is not the same as it was, Charlie. The old crowd<span class="pagenum">[120]</span>
+has all gone away or gone to bits&mdash;Webb is in the Colony;
+Jack Lowther is mostly engaged (I think) in praying that
+his wife won't be too much for him when she comes out&mdash;she
+is on the water! The Dales are away. Bill Godley
+is up Inyanga way. McLeod's finances are in bits, and
+he's too busy keeping a stiff lip to be sociable. Clewer
+is now Public Prosecutor and has become a saint. Little
+Oppy has gone home. Solomon says he has met the Queen
+of Sheba at last, and expects that to account for his never
+being in evidence anywhere except in the stage box of
+the Standard Theatre."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, damn it! disgusting!" commented Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"And, anyway, the Rand air always chips the edges
+off my nerves, Bram. It's too high. Lord knows, I don't
+feel any too fit now! I believe I have another go of fever
+coming on."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham looked at him critically and affectionately.
+"You <i>do</i> get some doses, but I hope you're not in for
+another, Karri!" he said. "By Jove! When South
+African fever puts her loving arms round a man she
+clings as only fever and a woman can."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham's face was clouded, but there was no real bite
+in his words. He had no quarrel with the clinging arms
+of women, or of fever. But he blamed these things for
+the look of bitter discontent and cynicism that lay across
+the beauty of the fine face beside him. Carson wore in
+his eyes the look, and round the mouth the marks, of one
+who has "wearied of every temple he has built"; or, as
+Bramham's thought expressed itself with no great originality,
+yet not without point&mdash;the look of a man who has
+got to the core of his apple and finds it rotten.</p>
+
+<p>"It's that look," Bramham told himself, "that gives
+women an instinct to comfort him; while if they had only
+let him alone from the first, maybe it wouldn't be there at
+all! And you can't comfort a man for his soul's bitterness,<span class="pagenum">[121]</span>
+as though he has the stomach-ache. Besides which, Karri
+takes to comfort badly; he'd rather get a smack in the
+teeth any day from someone he can hit back!"</p>
+
+<p>Thus Bramham, musing and staring at the sea. In
+spite of its marred beauty, Carson's face seemed to him
+finer than that of any man he had ever known&mdash;and he
+knew most men of any consequence in South Africa.
+Meanwhile Carson, giving him another glance, wondered
+what kept him quiet.</p>
+
+<p>"Thinking of some woman, I suppose!"</p>
+
+<p>Presently Bramham did turn his mind to his own affairs.</p>
+
+<p>"I want your advice about something, Karri."</p>
+
+<p>"Fire away, Bram; let's hear all about her."</p>
+
+<p>At this Bramham, for reasons of his own, became slightly
+annoyed.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be an ass, Carson."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a rake-hell, Bram. You know quite well
+you are always at some apron-string."</p>
+
+<p>Indignation dried up Bramham's eloquence.</p>
+
+<p>Carson mocked him further.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you lay the 'deadly doing' down, before it
+lays you out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Take your own excellent advice, my dear fellow. Or
+give it to Abinger; perhaps he needs it," said Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor old Abinger! I don't think it would be of much
+use to him. He scarcely does much 'roving by the light
+of the moon' these days."</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord, no! the less moon the better in his case!"
+said Bramham grimly. "Where the deuce has he been all
+these years, Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>Carson shrugged.</p>
+
+<p>"Not much doubt about where he has been! He could
+give us some vivid inside information about the slow-fires
+that consume."</p>
+
+<p>They smoked a while in silence. Later, Bramham said:<span class="pagenum">[122]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Whatever Carmen Braganza found to do, she did it
+well! She told me that it had only taken her six months
+to learn to dance as she did&mdash;and <i>you</i> know how she danced!
+And, I suppose, if she had studied her man for a hundred
+years, instead of three months, she could not have got in a
+subtler revenge on Abinger&mdash;laying waste his looks like
+that! It's hard to believe what a magnificent specimen
+he was; and how mad the women were about him! Bah!
+it was a foreign devil's trick!"</p>
+
+<p>"But she <i>was</i> a foreign devil. That was the point
+Abinger lost sight of."</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear who the other woman was, Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never. It was an amazing thing that it never leaked
+out, considering that the whole Rand was nose to trail.
+But the fact was, I suppose, that no one knew who she was
+except Abinger and his old housekeeper."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>And</i> Carmencita herself. She swore to me afterwards
+that she had sprung upon them from behind a curtain in
+Abinger's room and slashed his face open before the other
+woman's eyes. Why she kept silence God only knows!
+More foreign tricks probably."</p>
+
+<p>"The other woman must have felt mighty uncomfortable
+all the months after, while Carmen stayed on dancing,
+and everyone was hot to find Abinger and get to the bottom
+of the mystery. There is no doubt that if he hadn't
+disappeared so neatly afterwards the police would have
+found some ground for rooting out the whole scandal for
+the public benefit, and the other woman's name would have
+been thrown to the beasts!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps that was what Carmen was waiting for!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson got up to get another cigar and the subject
+dropped. When he came back Bramham reverted to his
+own troubles.</p>
+
+<p>"Colonial girls don't interest me at any time," he proclaimed
+aggrievedly; "especially the adventuress brand.<span class="pagenum">[123]</span>
+I didn't think that even I was such an idiot as to get tangled
+up with one."</p>
+
+<p>Carson stared straight before him with a smile at the
+sea.</p>
+
+<p>"This girl is Brookfield's typewriter&mdash;confound him!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson's satirical eyebrows moved, but he said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham continued:</p>
+
+<p>"A tall girl, with a fine figure and a high colour&mdash;but
+what has that got to do with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"What, indeed?" an ironical echo from the canvas chair.</p>
+
+<p>This irritated Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"If you think you're going to hear a tale of love you'll
+be disappointed. Nothing of the sort. It's a matter of
+highway robbery, if it's anything."</p>
+
+<p>Karri began to laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, Bram! This is not like you!"</p>
+
+<p>Neither was it. If Bramham made alms and oblations
+on strange altars, he was the last man to talk about it afterwards,
+or sigh over the stub-end of his cheque-book even
+with his closest friend. At this time, however, he was
+too much taken up with his grievances to defend his
+principles to Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't say the girl isn't good looking," he now interpolated,
+as one who wishes to be quite fair and square;
+"and she <i>may</i> be a good girl, for all I know," he added
+doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>Carson grinned.</p>
+
+<p>"Any way, I'm quite sure the other girl is straight."</p>
+
+<p>"Great God of War! Are there two?"</p>
+
+<p>"What a fellow you are, Carson!" said Bramham
+peevishly. "Of course there are two, but the other one
+is quite different&mdash;English, I think; anyway, she's no
+Colonial. I don't know what to make of it, to tell you the
+truth, Karri. She's a friend of that Cornell girl and <i>that's</i>
+against her; yet she looks good&mdash;&mdash;"<span class="pagenum">[124]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean that she is unlovely?" asked Carson
+with a wry smile.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I don't!" emphatically. "But the odd thing is
+that she didn't strike me at all at first; except as being
+bright and alive-looking&mdash;not like some of the dead ducks
+you see around these parts sometimes&mdash;then suddenly
+right under my eyes she blossomed out. You never saw
+anything like it&mdash;eyes, hair, feet, hands, everything&mdash;perfect;
+and her voice a melody."</p>
+
+<p>This was the most astonishing tale of highway robbery
+Carson had ever heard.</p>
+
+<p>"What next?" asked he.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham beat the bowl of his pipe against the balcony
+rail.</p>
+
+<p>"Cursed if I know what next!" he proclaimed. After
+a pause he added: "I wish you'd come and help me sift
+it out, Karri."</p>
+
+<p>Carson shrugged; his face grew a little weary.</p>
+
+<p>"I am not particularly interested in girls, Bram; I'm
+afraid I couldn't help you much."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham might have made a rude retort, but he didn't.
+He got up and leaned against a pole of the verandah, facing
+Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I should like to have had your opinion, Karri.
+What with that girl with the saint's eyes, and Brookfield's
+slippery ways&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But where does Brookfield come in?"</p>
+
+<p>Bramham did not answer immediately. He appeared
+to be turning it over in his mind as to whether he should
+tell that part of the story at all. Eventually he roused
+himself to a point of indignation when he <i>had</i> to tell.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, now, look here, Karri&mdash;this is the whole thing:
+About a month ago Brookfield came to my office with a
+yarn about his typewriter&mdash;pretty girl&mdash;good girl&mdash;knew
+her business, but fearfully poor, and he hadn't enough<span class="pagenum">[125]</span>
+work to keep her going&mdash;would I give her some of my
+typing? It meant bread-and-butter to her, etc. <i>Of
+course</i>, I said 'Right!' But when it came to finding the
+work for her ... well, Milligan, my head man, put it
+to me that it meant taking away the typewriting from
+our own man, who can't do anything else, and has a wife
+and family ... and when I thought it over, anyway, I
+kicked at having a woman about the office. However,
+as I'd promised Brookfield to do something, I went round
+to see him about it and met the girl&mdash;Miss Cornell. I
+didn't take to her much; but she's poor, you know, and
+something had to be done to help her out."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see what business it was of yours at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Karri, it's everybody's business when a woman's down
+on her luck&mdash;even if she has the shifty eye of Miss Sophie
+Cornell. All the same, I didn't contemplate having to tip
+up three hundred pounds, and I feel deuced sore about it."</p>
+
+<p>"Three hundred <i>what</i>?" cried Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, look here, what was I to do?" said Bram sullenly.
+"Brookie badgered me into promising to do something;
+then the girl said she had a friend who wanted to come and
+join her, and if they could only get a little hole of their own
+they could set up an agency and take in work. Presently
+Brookie heard that some people called Lumsden were going
+to leave, and wanting to sell up their cottage&mdash;offered to
+sell the whole bag of tricks as it stood for three hundred,
+and Brookie said he would stand in for half if I would for the
+other half. I wasn't prepared to plank down one-fifty
+by any means, but the Cornell girl got hold of me and
+pitched me a long story about her friend, an English girl,
+who had got left in Kimberley by some people she was
+governessing for ... also, she was so full of gratitude
+about all our plans for them, that before I knew where I
+was I had promised. Well, Brookie asked me to arrange
+the thing quietly and take the house over from the Lumsdens<span class="pagenum">[126]</span>
+in my name, as he didn't want to appear in the matter,
+because Mrs. Lumsden's sister at the Cape is a great friend
+of his wife's and he was afraid it might get to her ears.
+So I paid Lumsden one-fifty down on the nail, and the
+rest was to be paid in a month, and Miss Cornell settled
+in and the other girl turned up from Kimberley, and
+they've made the place all snug and seem as happy as
+sandboys. In fact, everything was going all right until
+this afternoon, when Brookie looms up with a face as
+long as a horse's, and says he's not prepared to pay the
+other one-fifty."</p>
+
+<p>"The little blackguard!"</p>
+
+<p>"Exactly. Just what I said to him. He said: 'Not
+at all!' Declared he hadn't let me in for anything.... I
+could get three hundred pounds any day of the week for
+Lumsden's place.... Just as if I could, or would, turn
+those two poor girls out now they're so happy! So, of
+course, I've just got to tip up the rest of the money and
+look pleasant ... and, after all, you know, Karri, why
+should I?... They're nice little women, and all that,
+and I'd gladly have done something, but three hundred!...
+I've troubles of my own, by Jove!... My
+wife doesn't live on Quaker Oats and barley water, by
+any means."</p>
+
+<p>"And then there's the pleasure of knowing you've been
+rooked. I never heard of such a piece of barefaced roguery
+in my life."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, what could I do? He said his wife was coming
+back unexpectedly and he couldn't raise the money."</p>
+
+<p>"You're three hundred different kinds of fool, Bram, if
+you let him rook you like that."</p>
+
+<p>"He's been too clever for me," grumbled Bramham,
+and shut his mouth on his pipe.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm! Mind the girl's not too clever for you
+too."<span class="pagenum">[127]</span></p>
+
+<p>A plaintive expression came into Bramham's face,
+mingled with irritation; he took his pipe out again.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear Karri, don't I tell you that I have nothing
+to do with the girl, or she with me? I was sorry for her
+and helped her out of a hole, and there the matter ends.
+I don't really regret the money&mdash;because of that other
+girl&mdash;but as you know, I am not a millionaire, and three
+hundred <i>is</i> three hundred. What annoys me is that I
+should have been such a fool&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Why did you pay? I should have refused."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, you wouldn't, because the women would have
+had to get out. No, that would never have done."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Carson, getting up and walking down the
+long verandah. "It's just as well that Mrs. Brookfield
+has come back. I wouldn't live in the house with Brookfield
+after this." He went indoors and began to negotiate
+a whiskey-and-soda.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, come, I say, Karri!" Bramham got up and came
+and leaned in the doorway, one leg in the room and one in
+the verandah. "This isn't your affair, you know. Don't
+you get your back up about it. I've really no right to
+have told you; but you understand that I've been a good
+deal annoyed, and it's been a relief to speak of it. Of
+course, if Brookie had been here I should have gone into his
+room and blazed away at him after dinner and got rid of it
+that way. As it is, I feel better and there's no harm done.
+By Jove! what a glorious moon! Let's go for a tramp
+before we turn in."</p>
+
+<p>"Right!"</p>
+
+<p>They fortified. Later, without hats, they tramped off
+along the shining sands silvered by the light of a shimmering
+moon gazing at herself in the sea.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Brookfield's wife having returned, he came no more<span class="pagenum">[128]</span>
+to Sea House. But he hailed Carson blithely at the Club
+next day.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you say to a drink, Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't want a drink," said Carson shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me why not. I don't want one, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>"O God! look here! Now, damn it, why not?"</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield was as easily infuriated as Carson.</p>
+
+<p>On this occasion Carson stayed cool.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't like you&mdash;if you must have it."</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield at once became calm; he prepared to argue
+out the matter.</p>
+
+<p>"Karri," he began plaintively, "I want to tell you one
+thing. I like you and Charlie Bramham better than anyone
+in this rotten country, but there's no one who can annoy
+me more than you can&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Carson yawned, got up, and walked out of the room.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[129]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IT was a moonless night, but the stars were out in their
+legions, and the garden was full of a warm, silvery silence&mdash;the
+silence composed of the thousand tiny sounds
+and scents that make the charm and wonder of an African
+night. The moon-flowers were tolling their heavy, white
+bells, and some big flowering-bush, with pale, subtle
+blossoms, seemed to have all the fragrance of a beautiful
+woman's hair.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy walked in the gracious dimness, her bare, pale
+feet picking their way delicately amongst bright things
+lying like fallen stars in the grass. A green, clinging plant,
+waving long tendrils, clutched at her gown as she passed,
+and she broke it off, and, twining it into a crown, put it
+on her hair. It had tiny flowers dotted amongst its leaves.
+The trees shut her in from all the world, and it was as
+though she walked in some great, dim, green well.</p>
+
+<p>She had been all through the garden and was tired. At
+last she threw herself down and lay at full-length on the
+soft, short grass, in which there was no dampness, for a
+terrible pall of heat had lain all day upon Natal, and through
+the thin nainsook of her gown Poppy could feel the warmth
+still in the earth. She stared into the solemn velvet sky
+where Orion, in gleaming belt and sword, leaned above
+her, and the Milky Way was a high-road to Heaven, paved
+with powdered silver. Far away, in the town below, a
+church clock flung out eleven clear strokes upon the night
+air. Poppy turned on her side and lay with her cheek to the
+earth.<span class="pagenum">[130]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Old Mother Africa! What have you hidden in your
+bosom for me?" she whispered.... "I believe that if
+I sleep on your breast to-night I will dream my destiny.
+I love you, and you love me.... I am your child ... a
+poppy growing in your old brown bosom. You are the
+only mother I have ever known.... Whatsoever you
+give unto me, I will take and say it is good. I feel predestined
+to-night.... If I lay my ear to you, will I
+hear the foot-falls of my fate approaching?... What
+is there for me? Fame? Love? Those are the only two
+things in the world! ... but no one can have them both
+it is said.... Which have you for me, Mother? Will
+you tell me in a dream?... I will sleep here to-night,"
+she said at last; and shutting her eyes she lay
+still.</p>
+
+<p>A man, coming very softly and wonderingly across the
+grass lawns, thought he saw a slim beam of moonlight
+lying there, and gave a startled exclamation when it sprang
+up and flickered into a cluster of tall shrubs.</p>
+
+<p>"That was an odd thing!" he said to himself. "I'll
+swear I saw.... And yet there is no moon to-night!"</p>
+
+<p>He stood long, looking into the darkness of the bushes
+until at last he imagined that he saw a moonbeam, shaped
+graciously like a woman's face, looking back at him. But
+when he approached it retreated. He stepped back again
+and it returned.</p>
+
+<p>"H'm!" he remarked; "I must have a bad attack when
+I see moonbeam faces on a moonless night!"</p>
+
+<p>The wedge of moonlight in the bushes seemed to him
+to give out two little gleams at that.</p>
+
+<p>"This is a fool's game," said the man aloud. "I must
+go behind these bushes and see where this thing begins
+and ends."</p>
+
+<p>Instantly the moonbeam disappeared altogether.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought so," he muttered. "Then it <i>is</i> a woman,<span class="pagenum">[131]</span>
+and I'm not delirious yet, though by the Lord my head
+feels.... I wonder if she will come back if I behave
+myself very nicely.... I'd like to see that face a little
+closer ... it looked.... Is it possible that I've made
+a mistake and this is not Portal's place at all? Perhaps
+I've found my way into Brookfield's zenana! It was
+<i>something</i> like the gate Bram pointed out to me yesterday....
+But what am I doing <i>here</i>, by the way?... I
+wish someone would tell me ... perhaps she will ...
+how can I get her to come back? ... it might be a good
+idea to light a cigar and let her see my guileless features....
+I think I'll sit down too ... it's odd how queer I feel!"
+He sat down in the grass among the fallen stars, a tall,
+powerful figure in a light-grey lounge suit, and taking out
+a cigar he carefully lighted it, making as long a process of
+the lighting as possible. Then he threw away the remains
+of the match and looked up at the bushes, but his dazzled
+eyes could see no wedge of moonlight in the Egyptian darkness.
+It was there, however. And by the time the match
+had burnt his fingers, Poppy had been able to take a long
+absorbing look at what seemed to her the most wonderful
+face she had ever seen. She believed that in that short
+time she had read all that should, and should not, be
+written on the face of a man&mdash;strength, weakness, tenderness,
+tyranny, gentleness, bitterness, cynicism, gaiety,
+melancholy, courage, despair. But how came he here?
+How had he found his way through a locked gate? Was
+it possible that he had come through the <i>boys'</i> compound? ...
+or by way of her secret hole in the summer-house? ...
+but he had not come from either of these directions.
+What did he want?</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the man was holding his cigar between
+his knees and gazing in her direction.</p>
+
+<p>"O moon of my desire that knows no wane," he gently
+misquoted, "come out and talk to me!"<span class="pagenum">[132]</span></p>
+
+<p>His voice had a rustle in it of leaves before the wind.
+No woman could listen to it cold-hearted.</p>
+
+<p>"But what are you doing in my garden?" she said in her
+own entrancing tones.</p>
+
+<p>The man's veins thrilled in turn.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Is</i> it your garden? I was looking for the house of a
+friend. I'll go if you tell me to, but I'd much rather sit
+here and listen to your voice. I can't see you very well&mdash;"
+he finished with an air of complaint.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get in?" asked Poppy. "Isn't the
+gate locked?"</p>
+
+<p>"My <i>boys</i> have a name for me of which one translation
+runs&mdash;all gates open to him."</p>
+
+<p>"But it <i>must</i> be locked."</p>
+
+<p>"It is not, I assure you. Though if this were my garden,
+it should always be&mdash;with me inside."</p>
+
+<p>"You talk very oddly," said she, trying to speak coldly;
+"nearly as oddly as old Khayyam himself ... I trust
+not for the same reason!"</p>
+
+<p>"You wrong me bitterly," he said. "I am trying to
+speak and behave with unusual decorum. It is the poetry
+of the night which affects me in spite of myself. You
+suspect some more occult reason, I see, but I can assure
+you on my honour that I dined quietly at the Club and
+drank no more than one whiskey-and-soda with my dinner."</p>
+
+<p>A silence prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>At last he said: "I think it would be a gentle and kind
+thing to do, to come and sit near me on the grass. I would
+like to look at you closely and see if you are a moonbeam
+I used to know long ago in Rhodesia."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never been in Rhodesia."</p>
+
+<p>"No? Then perhaps it was in my own land. The
+women there have voices like you.</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:17em">
+<p>"There be none of beauty's daughters<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; With a magic like thee,<br />
+<span class="pagenum">[133]</span>And like music on the waters<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; Is thy sweet voice to me&mdash;"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Poppy heard the rustle of leaves again through Byron's
+beautiful words, and a little shiver of happiness flew
+through her. She hoped he would sit there for ever,
+beguiling her with his sweet Irish tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me that you came from Ireland and I'll believe
+you with all my heart," said he next.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I was born out here."</p>
+
+<p>"In this bad, mad land?" His voice had a note of
+disappointment in it; he added: "I wish <i>you</i> were mad
+and bad&mdash;but that is too much to expect, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you wish it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Because then you would come and sit by me on the
+grass and talk to me. I am a very bad man, and I want
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"But," said Poppy softly, "<i>Il n'est jamais de mal en
+bonne compagnie.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Voltaire in an African garden! O Lord! I <i>must</i> be
+delirious," he muttered to himself. "I suppose you
+haven't such a thing as a pinch of quinine about
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy having very little about her at that time, began
+to laugh. Her laugh was rather like the first note of a
+bird's song, and she understood very well when he said:</p>
+
+<p>"O thrush, sing again!"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you must really be a little bit mad&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If you would only be a little bit bad&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I am&mdash;I often am&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Where will you sit? On my right there is a patch of
+lesser darkness that smells passing sweet, and might be
+mignonette; on my left&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No; I can't come over there; don't ask me."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was tremulous now, for in her blood there was
+the strangest, wildest urging to come at his call. She<span class="pagenum">[134]</span>
+wondered how long she could hold out against it&mdash;if he
+did not go soon.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you want me to?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Because I want to know whether you are
+real ... or only a wraith, a streak of moonlight, a phantom
+of my brain. I want to be sure that the world is still going
+round, and that I am still in it. All I can see is a faint
+wedge-shaped gleam of white, crowned with strange stars.
+Have you tiny white stars in the darkness of your hair?
+Is your hair as black as the raven's wing, as night&mdash;as hell?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it is."</p>
+
+<p>"And are your eyes long cameos of carved moonlight?"</p>
+
+<p>"They are indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>"Then Carissima&mdash;Adorissima ... come and sit on
+the grass."</p>
+
+<p>All the magic sweetness and sadness of Ireland was in
+his words. But he did not expect the slightest result
+from this impassioned entreaty, for he had long ago made
+up his mind that this strange witch of the night, who
+could throw the thrush's note into her voice, and quote
+Voltaire, and daintily but cynically suggest that he was
+drunk, was no simple maid to be beguiled by the tongue.
+This was a woman who knew her world and all the moves
+in the great game, and as a man who had played that same
+game often and well, and could appreciate a clever opponent,
+he awaited her next move, secure in the thought that it
+would not fail to be an interesting one.</p>
+
+<p>What he was wholly unprepared for was a glimmering
+fragrant presence beside him on the grass. The breath of
+her mouth was so close that he could feel it in little waves
+across his face. In the purple darkness he descried her
+white gown, and down each shoulder of it a long, long
+rope of blackness. The thought of a woman's hair had
+always some sorcery for him. He could never look at
+beautiful hair, even in the most conventional surround<span class="pagenum">[135]</span>ings,
+without turmoil of flesh and spirit, inward curses at
+his own base nature, and revilings of all things feminine
+formed to lure the brain and bind the soul of man.</p>
+
+<p>At this moment every instinct of his being, every desire
+of his nature, fought with his self-control, desiring, inciting,
+almost compelling him to stretch out his hands to this
+witch-woman's hair and draw her nearer. Little beads
+broke out on his forehead; he dug his hands into the earth
+beside him. He could hear her breathing. A perfumed
+warmth came out of her and stole to him. He desired
+greatly that she should speak; but she did not; only sat
+there giving out perfume and weaving God knew what
+Ephesian spells to bind him. At about this time it seemed
+to him that this was a very fine dream and that a fine thing
+to do would be to get up and go hence before the dream
+could break. But that mood was soon inconstant. Silence
+enfolded them&mdash;a silence that was mutable and disquieting.
+At last he leaned towards her and spoke, dry-throated:</p>
+
+<p>"You win!" His voice was very low, and jarred like
+a fine instrument that has been struck.</p>
+
+<p>"Victory is to you! Tell me to go&mdash;or stay!"</p>
+
+<p>The girl, glowing and swaying beside him, could not
+speak; but her hands made some little motion to him that
+he interpreted as he wished. He grasped them in his,
+which were broad and powerful, but had eyes in the fingers:
+hands with the gift of discovery by touch. In that moment
+his heart and his purpose changed. At the greatest of all
+games he was no novice; but he had always played honestly
+as far as in him lay. It was his principle not to gamble
+unless the chances were equal for both players. As if
+they ever can be between a man and a woman! But,
+strangely enough, all honest men honestly believe it possible.
+By the feel of those soft hands quivering and burning in his,
+he had reason to believe that he had made a mistake&mdash;with
+regard to his opponent, at least.<span class="pagenum">[136]</span></p>
+
+<p>His head was far from clear that night in any case, and
+sitting there, with those hands in his, that fragrance ...
+those ensnaring plaits of hair ... was not conducive
+to coolness and sanity. It should be written down to him
+that he made an enormous effort to fight the sweet fumes
+that pressed upon him to cloud his brain and slacken his
+moral muscles.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me something about yourself, Carissima," he
+said softly. "Tell me that you are married, and that your
+husband is a brute!"</p>
+
+<p>She drew her hands away swiftly. This was a jarring
+note that broke <i>her</i> dream at least. What could he mean?
+How strange he was! Was it possible that he was mad?
+Was it at the bidding of a madman that the little cold stone
+in her breast was turning into something living&mdash;something
+that felt like a sweet red rose bursting into blossom?</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I am not married!" she said slowly and
+clearly. "I am only a girl of eighteen ... I do not
+understand why you say such things."</p>
+
+<p>He made a sound which might have been a groan.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear little girl, you must forgive me.... I believe
+I am ill to-night.... <i>Of course</i> you are only a girl ... a
+good girl!... gates and girls! ... gates!..." Suddenly
+he leaned closer to her and peered into her face,
+striving to distinguish the features he instinctively knew
+were lovely. "Who are you? What are you?" he strangely
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a poppy ... a poppy growing in Africa," said
+she, smiling subtly to herself, but trembling&mdash;trembling.</p>
+
+<p>"A poppy!... then that is why your hair has that
+mystic odour!... 'Give me of poppy and mandragora.'...
+Poppies give sleep ... I believe that is what I
+want ... I am a sick man ... like Peter's wife's mother,
+I am sick of a fever ... and you are&mdash;a girl ... O Lord
+God!"<span class="pagenum">[137]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you really are ill!" she cried "Let me go to
+the house and get you something&mdash;some brandy. Rest
+here a while&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Rest here, by St. Anthony!... No, no, nothing,
+it's nothing ... I'll go." He sprang up and stood at
+his full height above her. She, too, rose on her feet. She
+put out her hands to him, but he did not take them.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Carissima ... I'll go home ... be
+good.... Girls should always be good ... and gates
+... I must find the gate&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Strangely he went, striding away as silently as he had
+come through the darkness, and leaving her standing there
+on the grass. Later, she flung herself down and burst into
+bitter crying.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what a brute!... how I hate him!... how
+my heart hurts!... O God! what shall I do?... where
+has he gone?... I shall never see him again ... I
+wish to die! I wish to die!... Does he love some other
+woman?... Oh, I cannot live any longer ... he
+despises me because I am a girl.... How my heart hurts!...
+There is a knife in it.... If I could only hear him
+speak again!... I shall never see him again!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she sprang up and ran swiftly across the grass,
+in the direction he had gone&mdash;the direction of the gate.
+But the gate was a long way off, and the way was dim.
+She ran into trees, and hurt her feet on stones and thorns,
+and presently, as she ran, she stumbled and fell over something
+or someone lying prone on the grass. In horror and
+fear she sprang away, but the figure did not move, only
+breathed heavily. She stole closer and peered down.
+It was he. She recognised the tall figure, the pale-grey
+clothes, the faint aroma she had recently known.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, what has happened to you?" she tearfully cried,
+leaning over him. "Are you dead; are you dead?" Using
+her utmost strength she lifted his head and leaned it against<span class="pagenum">[138]</span>
+herself as she half kneeled, half sat upon the grass. He was
+leaden-limbed as the dead, but his loud breathing reassured
+her; peering into his face she could see that his
+eyes were closed. She considered swiftly what thing she
+could do that would be best, presently resolving to run to
+the house and get brandy and restore him; and quinine, too,
+as he had asked for it&mdash;she knew that Abinger always kept
+a supply in his room. But first she would try and prop
+him against this tree-trunk. She dragged and strained at
+his arms, trying to move him, but he was a dead-weight.
+Tears of terror and distress streamed down her face and
+fell hot on his.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "What is it with
+you?" Just as she made to let his head gently to the
+ground again, he stirred, and his breathing changed to that
+of a conscious, wakened man. In a moment he had
+dragged himself up into a sitting pose, with the tree-trunk
+at his back. She still remained kneeling by him&mdash;breathless,
+glad, afraid, and he leaned his handsome head against
+the laces of her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you better?" she whispered tremulously, joyously.
+"I am going to fetch you some restorative if you will let me
+leave you an instant."</p>
+
+<p>"You must never leave me again, dearest of all women,"
+he said, and flung his arm about her. "I love you! Give
+me your lips." He slewed his head round suddenly and his
+mouth was hard on hers, dragging terrible kisses from it&mdash;kisses
+that shook her through and through as with some
+strange ague. He felt the trembling of her and laughed
+with his hand on her heart to still its loud beating.</p>
+
+<p>"'Your mouth is as sweet as bracket,'" he said, quoting
+some old song that sang in his brain, and kissed her again;
+then took her hair in his hand and wound it round his
+throat, holding the long plaits across his face and smelling
+them as though they were wonderful flowers.<span class="pagenum">[139]</span></p>
+
+<p>"And I never knew that your hair had this mystic
+fragrance!... What is it? It is not only sweet, it has
+some other essence, some fragrance that has a touch of
+earth in it, and pet, by God! it breathes of Heaven, too!...
+I think it is a flower that grows upon the eternal
+hills ... those strange red flowers.... Ah! poppies
+smell so, I think!... yes, poppies! poppies!... Dearest,
+if I were stricken blind and deaf in this hour, from ten
+thousand women I could search you out by this sweet scent
+of your hair."</p>
+
+<p>He kissed the soft sprays that fell over her eyes. "Speak
+to me!" he cried down on to her lips. "Speak to me in the
+voice I love!... <i>O! Ci risuoniamo in cristallo</i> ... <i>wine
+in a crystal beaker</i>.... I never knew until to-night
+there was so beautiful a voice in the world!... Speak to
+me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If I could tear the heart out of my breast," she said,
+"I would put it into these two hands. I love you! I
+give you my life."</p>
+
+<p>"God forgive me, I will take it!... I will rob you
+of all your gifts!"</p>
+
+<p>"I give them to you ... I was born for this hour!"
+she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>A wave of the great sea that can submerge all the world
+rushed over them, beat them, drenched them, kissed them,
+crushed them to its breast; lapped them round, blinded
+them&mdash;flung them quivering and broken on the sands;
+left them.</p>
+
+<p>He said: "I cannot see your face, darling ... I will
+never forget this night. There has never been a night
+like it in all my life, and never will be again."</p>
+
+<p>"I love you! I love you!" her voice cried faintly.</p>
+
+<p>"I have loved you for so long," he said gently. "But
+always you have turned your face from me ... though
+I knew you were mine. I saw it in your eyes ... but<span class="pagenum">[140]</span>
+always you denied me even the touch of your hand ...
+and I never knew that your hair smelled so sweet until
+to-night.... <i>Loraine</i>, dearest of all women, kiss me
+again...."</p>
+
+<p>A terrible chill crept through the veins of Poppy Destin.
+Now she lay like one dead against the wild, loud-beating
+heart under the grey coat. Her own had ceased to beat;
+what words were these?</p>
+
+<p>He held her closer. The seeing fingers touched the
+fabric of her gown, and the slim, boyish body beneath.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you're only a girl!" he muttered wonderingly.
+"You have slipped back to girlhood for love of me. God
+forgive me my sins! I am not worthy to touch your little
+bare feet, Loraine."</p>
+
+<p>At that she wrenched herself from his arms, sprang to her
+feet, and ran from him, blindly; she knew not, cared not,
+where. At one time she stumbled into a Christ-thorn bush
+and tore her hands and gown, but she felt no pain nor the
+warm blood running down. She only stopped at last
+because she found herself in the street with a rickshaw boy
+demanding where she wished to go. That recalled her to
+her senses and she stepped back hastily out of the light of
+his lamps, and stood in the shadow of the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a <i>M'rungo</i> in here who is ill. Come and help
+him to your rickshaw," she said, suddenly inspired.</p>
+
+<p>"Where does he want to go?" demanded the boy. "I go
+no more on the Berea to-night&mdash;only townwards."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that will do." She collected her thoughts hastily.
+He would probably not be able to give the boy his address,
+the safest thing would be to send him to the Club, where
+he had dined and was probably well known. She added,
+therefore: "He wishes to go to the Club."</p>
+
+<p>"Ker-lub!" repeated the boy and nodded sagaciously;
+<i>Ker-lub M'rungos</i> always paid well!</p>
+
+<p>Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gates<span class="pagenum">[141]</span>
+and over the soft, dark lawns to the tree where the <i>M'rungo</i>
+was sitting. She spoke in a clear, cold voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Here is a boy with a rickshaw; you had better let him
+help you home. You are certainly ill."</p>
+
+<p>He rose easily, and stood up like a well man, but his
+voice was hoarse and vague.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, thanks, Mrs. Capron&mdash;you are always kind. I
+shall be all right in the morning. Good-night!" He went
+away muttering, followed by the rickshaw boy. Poppy
+stood like a stone woman.</p>
+
+<p>Later, she heard the gates clang and the rickshaw bell
+begin to tinkle down the long hill. Then she broke into
+dry sobbing, clutching at her throat with both hands,
+like one suffocating. At last some wild words burst from
+her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I could kill myself to-night!... but first I will
+kill that woman Loraine!"</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[142]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">A storm shook the house next day when Luce Abinger
+returned. Kykie's shrill crescendo, expostulations
+and denials, were smothered like little frothy waves
+in the breakers of her master's wrath. Once the words
+"key" and "gate" came floating up the staircase and
+reached Poppy where she lay on her pillows, as she had
+lain until dawn, staring at the walls and the ceiling with
+dry eyes, and her pale lips took a wry and bitter curve.
+Later, pandemonium was extended to the yard and stables;
+then, after all these voices there was peace.</p>
+
+<p>Behind her locked door Poppy was vaguely thankful
+for safety from Abinger's fury and tyrannical questioning;
+and not all Kykie's cajoleries and threats could make
+her emerge.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away, Kykie. I'm not well. I want nothing,"
+she repeated monotonously to all demands, until at last
+Kykie, from sheer weariness, obeyed.</p>
+
+<p>The strange emotions and events of the past night had
+left the girl numb. The ecstasy of hatred which had
+possessed her for that other woman, the birth-pains her
+heart had suffered, the anguish of humiliation and defeat
+had all passed. She felt nothing. She thought of nothing.
+Only sometimes as she lay there staring at <i>Monna Lisa</i> on
+the wall, she had the fancy that she was a little wrecked
+boat, lying broken and useless on a beach where of late
+had raged a cruel storm.</p>
+
+<p>In the torrid afternoon hours she slept a while&mdash;dead,<span class="pagenum">[143]</span>
+dreamless sleep, that revived her into at least some mechanical
+resemblance of herself; so that when Kykie once
+more pounded upon her door and demanded admittance
+with a tea-tray, she arose and let the anxious flustered
+creature in.</p>
+
+<p>"For goodness' gracious, and what do you look like,
+Poppy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Kykie, stop asking questions, or go!" was the answer
+given so fiercely that the old woman thought it wiser to
+say no more on the subject. She inveigled Poppy to sit
+down and take some tea and some delicately prepared
+sandwiches; in the meantime, she unfolded the tale of
+her woes to the girl's unhearing ears. Luce had beaten
+her best kitchen <i>boy</i>, and he had run away, so that she had
+been obliged to do all his work as well as her own. Every
+dish at luncheon time had been sent out untasted, and
+nothing eaten but bread and cheese&mdash;a terrible insult to
+poor Kykie!</p>
+
+<p>"And he's been prowling round the house like a lion all
+the afternoon, wanting to know what's the matter with
+you. Promise to come down to dinner, Poppy, or in the
+name of gracious me I don't know what I shall do."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come down, Kykie," said Poppy dully. "What
+is all the trouble about?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just because the front gate was left unlocked all the
+time he was away. Of course, we little knew that it was
+open. But he said that I or the <i>boys</i> ought to have found
+out and looked for the key in his room and locked it. <i>Me!</i>
+Me that is on my weary feet in that kitchen all day thinking
+of his stomach&mdash;heavenly me! Take some more tea, my
+poor child; you look like a spook."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I have had enough, Kykie. Go away now, and
+see about your dinner. I'll be down."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me brush your hair first; you know you always
+like me to when you feel bad." The old woman took up<span class="pagenum">[144]</span>
+Poppy's hair-brushes and approached the long ruffled
+plaits of hair; but the moment she touched them the girl
+sprang away from her like a white flame.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, Kykie; never dare touch my hair again!" she
+cried violently.</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of&mdash;!" Words failed the indignant Kykie.
+She grabbed her tea-tray and floundered from the room.</p>
+
+<p>At dinner-time, white and fateful as a narcissus with a
+broken stalk, the girl faced Abinger's curious eyes across
+the table. But there was more than curiosity in his glance
+as it swept over her. The same peculiar quality was in
+it that had troubled her at their last dining together. Only
+now she did not notice it. If she could have given her
+thoughts to anything at all but weariness and despair, she
+might have wondered to see his very real concern at her
+appearance.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?" he
+said. "You look half dead. Here, drink this wine at
+once." He poured out a glass of champagne for her,
+and would eat nothing himself until she had partaken of
+one of the <i>hors-d'&#339;uvre</i>. And when the soup appeared,
+he waved hers away and ordered an <i>entr&eacute;e</i> to be brought
+at once. The wine flew into Poppy's cheeks and sent a
+little scarlet to her lips. She felt a warmth stealing into
+her being that had been sadly absent since the past midnight.
+Presently she smiled a little wan smile across at
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm all right, Luce! Only I didn't sleep much
+last night ... the heat&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll get out of this infernal place&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no, no!" she cried violently, then pulled herself
+together and added more calmly: "I like the place, Luce&mdash;and
+the garden ... is so lovely ... I should hate to
+go away."</p>
+
+<p>He was curiously amenable.<span class="pagenum">[145]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Very well, we'll stay if you say so. And I've been
+thinking over what you asked the other day, Poppy ...
+we'll change things. You could go out if you want to
+... we must talk about it ... I want to talk ..." he
+halted a little in his speech&mdash;"to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not keen about it any longer, Luce. I don't
+want to know people, after all. I think I'll shut myself
+up and work for ten hours every day. I mean to write.
+I will write a wonderful book. Surely people who work
+hard are happy in a way, aren't they, Luce?" Her voice
+and her eyes were wistful. "One would never want anything
+else&mdash;after a time&mdash;but to go on writing wonderful
+stories of life, would one?"</p>
+
+<p>He smiled grimly. She thought he was going to hurl
+a barb at her, but he only said with the same unusual
+gentleness:</p>
+
+<p>"Work will never fill <i>your</i> life, Poppy. You are the
+kind of girl who will live the wonderful stories that the
+other women write."</p>
+
+<p>The lilac eyes in the <i>troublante</i> face opposite gave a sad
+long look into his; then fell. She shivered a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Some wonderful stories are terrible, Luce," she said
+in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>When she rose from the table, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Come and smoke in the garden with me."</p>
+
+<p>She turned her face away from him, staring vaguely at
+a picture on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about the garden to-night, Luce. The
+drawing-room, if you like&mdash;but I am very tired."</p>
+
+<p>"I shan't keep you long. There is something I want
+to say to you."</p>
+
+<p>He followed the slim, upright figure walking with such
+weary grace and trailing her white chiffons behind her, to
+the drawing-room, where the lights were low, the windows
+open to the night scents, and the big chintz-covered chairs<span class="pagenum">[146]</span>
+and sofas held out rose-clad arms to them. She went
+straight to one she knew well, and dropped into it, laying her
+cheek against the cool, shiny chintz. Close beside her was
+an open window, and Abinger came and stood in it, his face
+in profile to her, staring out into the darkness. His hands
+were clasped behind him tightly gripping a cigar which he
+had taken out but did not light. Poppy closed her eyes
+and the lids burned against them. She had a great longing
+to be alone with her thoughts. But Abinger had begun to
+speak.</p>
+
+<p>"Now&mdash;about your going out, Poppy, and meeting
+people, and all that; my chief reason for being disturbed
+when you mentioned the thing the other day was that I
+was unprepared. I hadn't had time to think out what
+was the best plan for you&mdash;for us. Of course, you know&mdash;it
+was very well for you to travel all over the place as you
+have done as my sister; but the thing is, that it won't do
+here. I can't spring a sister on people who know that I
+haven't got one."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I suppose not," said she vaguely, from the depths
+of her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"You realise that then?" he went on evenly. "Well,
+you see, you rushed me before I had been able to decide
+what was best to do, and of course I got mad. I'm sorry,
+Poppy, I beg your pardon, I'm sure."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, dimly surprised at this unwonted penitence,
+would have murmured something, but he went on quickly:</p>
+
+<p>"Had <i>you</i> any plan? How did you think of accounting
+to people&mdash;women particularly&mdash;for the fact that you were
+living here alone with me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Accounting to them?" she echoed faintly. "Will
+they ask me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, not exactly you, but they'll ask anyone who can
+tell them, and expect a satisfactory answer before they
+take you to their breasts."<span class="pagenum">[147]</span></p>
+
+<p>"But, Luce, you could tell them, or let it be known.
+I shouldn't mind ... <i>not</i> how I first came to you, starving
+and ragged and beaten; I couldn't bear anyone knowing
+that ... but they could know how good you have been
+to me, bringing me up and educating me and being a
+guardian to me."</p>
+
+<p>"And you think that would satisfy them?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why not. Of course, it is unconventional.
+But I believe it is not unheard of for a girl to have a
+guardian ... and guardians are not always old."</p>
+
+<p>"That is so. Unfortunately, my dear girl, there is one
+thing you omit to take into consideration."</p>
+
+<p>"What is that?"</p>
+
+<p>"I happen to be a dog with a bad name."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy made a little weary exclamation. In truth,
+she did not see any use in prolonging the discussion. The
+desire to go out into Durban and meet men and women
+no longer burned within her. In her present state of
+weariness she believed she would never again have any
+taste for human society. Abinger, however, pursued the
+course of his remarks.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very sad, but my reputation is not one that would
+commend me to the good ladies of South Africa as the
+guardian-angel of a young and remarkably pretty girl."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat silent.</p>
+
+<p>"I regret to say that the very notion of my appearance in
+such a <i>r&ocirc;le</i> would be received with ribald shouts of laughter
+by all the men who have the pleasure of my acquaintance,
+and in Durban and Johannesburg it would be considered
+the best joke ever told in the clubs."</p>
+
+<p>At last the girl was moved out of her apathy. She
+shrank back in her chair with her hands before her face.
+She thought of the Durban Club and a man in it listening
+and laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"O God!" she softly cried.<span class="pagenum">[148]</span></p>
+
+<p>"As for the women," continued Abinger calmly, still
+staring out of the window. "Well, generally speaking,
+all the women out here are of the genus crow, and their
+virtue is a matter of whitewash. Of course, there are
+degrees. Some of them have managed to assume four or
+five coats of it, and there's not a speck to be seen anywhere.
+These are saintly far beyond the understanding of
+you and me, my child, but as they mostly live in Johannesburg
+and we don't, we won't worry about them. There
+are others there too, who are only in the grey, or one-coat
+stage, and I've no doubt they would extend a claw of
+welcome to you, if you'd like to go and live up there.
+Durban is another matter altogether. This, I must tell
+you, is a city of the highest moral rectitude. The whitewash
+is within, as well as without. It flows in the women's
+veins. Some of them are solid blocks of it! I'm afraid,
+Poppy, that by the time their husbands have handed the
+highly delectable tale of my guardianship round the morning
+tramcars on the way to office, and discussed it in the evening
+while having their high-teas in carpet slippers, you will not
+stand much chance of being received into the 'white and
+winged throng' which makes up Durban society. You
+will be black-balled."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat up in her chair now, her eyes shining, her
+cheeks aflame.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you say all this?" she demanded haughtily.
+"If it is as you say and through your fault, you must put
+the matter right. I do not wish to know these women, but
+I do not choose that they shall shake their skirts at me,
+because you have a vile reputation. You will have to find
+some way out&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Abinger looked away from the window at last and at
+her. There was a tall lamp to his hand, and he turned
+it up high, and she saw that he was smiling&mdash;a smile none
+the less unlovely because it had in it the same unusual<span class="pagenum">[149]</span>
+quality of gentleness that had distinguished it all the
+evening.</p>
+
+<p>"But, of course, my dear girl!" he said with a note of
+surprise in his voice, "that is what I am coming to. I
+have told you these things simply to show you the impossibility
+of your living any kind of social life here, unless
+you are prepared to let everybody know the real state of
+affairs. When everything is known it will be a simple
+affair for you to take your place, and you will have an
+assured position that no one will be able to cavil at. It is
+for you to say now, whether or not you are ready for the
+truth to be published."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's look was of amazement.</p>
+
+<p>"The truth? But what do you mean, Luce? You have
+been at great pains to tell me why they won't accept the
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking down at her vivid face for a moment.
+There was an expression on his own that she found arresting
+too, and she said no more; only waited till he should speak.
+He turned the lamp down again.</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy," he said in a very low, but clear voice, "do you
+remember the old French Jesuit coming to the White
+Farm?"</p>
+
+<p>She stared at him. Her expression reverted to irritation
+and surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Father Eug&egrave;ne? Of course I do. And I remember
+how furious you were, too. And how you stormed at each
+other in French for about twenty minutes, while Kykie
+and I stood wondering what it was all about."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you remember any other details? I'm not asking
+out of idle curiosity," he added, as she threw herself back
+impatiently in her chair. She wrinkled her brows for a
+moment. Her head really ached very badly, but she wished
+to be reasonable.</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't understand French at that time, but you<span class="pagenum">[150]</span>
+explained the meaning of it all to me. You remember
+you took me into your study and told me how he thought
+you frightfully immoral to have a young girl living in your
+house without her parents, and that he wished you to make
+a solemn set of promises to him to the effect that you would
+be a good friend and guardian to me all your life. You
+said it was a fearful nuisance, but that if you didn't do it,
+he meant to get to work and find my proper guardians and
+make things generally unpleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"You remember that clearly?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly I do, and so do you. What is the use of
+this tiresome repetition? It is quite beside the point."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it is not. Just one more question&mdash;you remember
+going back into the dining-room to the priest and making
+the promises, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; we stood before him and <i>you</i> made the promises.
+I didn't&mdash;though I certainly said '<i>Oui</i>' whenever you told
+me to, and some words after him once. It was then you
+gave me this ring that I always wear. By the way, Luce,
+I'm tired of wearing it. You can have it back."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, my dear girl; but I wouldn't think of
+depriving you of it. It is your wedding-ring."</p>
+
+<p>"My&mdash;? I think you have gone mad, Luce."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. That is your wedding-ring, Poppy. When
+we stood before the priest that day we were being married."</p>
+
+<p>She burst out laughing. "Really, Luce," she said contemptuously,
+"you are developing a new form of humour.
+Does it amuse you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not much," he said drily; "not so much as it does
+you, apparently. I don't see anything funny in a marriage
+ceremony. I remember being exceedingly annoyed
+about it at the time. But I have come round since then."
+As he went on, Poppy ceased to smile contemptuously;
+when he had finished speaking, her mouth was still
+disdainful, but she was appreciably paler.<span class="pagenum">[151]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Of late," said Abinger in a voice that had a meaning,
+"I have begun to find the fact that you are my wife
+wonderfully interesting."</p>
+
+<p>She sprang up from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"This is the most ridiculous nonsense I ever listened
+to!" she cried excitedly. "I don't want to hear any more
+about it. I refuse to listen." She turned to go, but he
+caught her by the wrists and stood holding her and looking
+into her deathly pale face.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I the kind of man who wastes time talking nonsense?
+Kykie was a witness. She knows we were married
+that day."</p>
+
+<p>"Kykie! I'm <i>sure</i> it is not true. She has never spoken
+of it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I forbade her to do so. I told her that she'd go out
+at a moment's notice if she did. Further, as you are so
+very hard to convince, Poppy, I will show you the marriage
+certificate signed by Father Eug&egrave;ne."</p>
+
+<p>He took a paper from his pocket, and held it towards
+her. But she had suddenly sunk back into the big chair
+with her hands over her scared and ashen face.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Luce! Luce!" she cried pitifully. "Say it is not
+true! say it is not true!" and burst into wild weeping.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[152]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">SOPHIE CORNELL sat at her breakfast-table looking
+pasty-faced and unwholesome, without any colour on
+her cheeks, her good looks effectively disguised in hair-wavers
+and a hideously-figured heliotrope dressing-gown.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy stared at her in dull amazement, wondering how
+she could have so little vanity as to allow another girl to
+see her look so unlovely.</p>
+
+<p>"She will probably hate me for it, but that doesn't
+matter," was the thought that came into her mind as she
+encountered Sophie's eyes, sleep-bedimmed, but distinctly
+resentful, taking her in across the table. As a matter of
+fact, Sophie's vanity was so great, that it never occurred
+to her that she could appear unlovely to anyone&mdash;even in
+her unpainted morning hours. Her resentfulness was
+roused entirely by reason of the fact that this was the
+first time she had laid eyes on her assistant typewriter
+for a full three weeks, and that even now the recalcitrant
+only came to say that she didn't feel quite equal to work.</p>
+
+<p>"Och! nonsense!" said Miss Cornell, eyeing her coolly.
+"You look all right. A little pale, but, then, you're always
+as washed out as a <i>fadook</i>."<a name="FNanchor_4_4" id="FNanchor_4_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_4_4" class="fnanchor">[4]</a></p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_4_4" id="Footnote_4_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_4_4"><span class="label">[4]</span></a> Dishcloth.</p></div>
+
+<p>Poppy's lips performed a twisted, dreary smile. She
+was entirely indifferent to Miss Cornell's opinions of her
+looks. To anyone's. As she stood there in the little black
+muslin gown she always wore to come to Sophie's house
+in the morning, she might have posed for a black-and-white
+drawing of Defeat.<span class="pagenum">[153]</span></p>
+
+<p>Sophie saw nothing but the prospect of another two or
+three days' hard work, and she didn't like it.</p>
+
+<p>"You're a fine sort of assistant," she grumbled, her
+mouth half full of toast. "And another thing: Bramham's
+been here several times inquiring for you, and the
+whole place is littered up with parcels of books and magazines
+he has sent you. I couldn't think what excuse to
+make for his not seeing you, for, <i>of course</i>, he thinks you
+live here, so I told him at last that you had a touch of
+dengue fever and wanted quiet. He's stayed away ever
+since, but he's been sending flowers and fruit. You've
+evidently made a mash."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy had no inclination to disguise her feelings from
+Miss Cornell.</p>
+
+<p>"Sophie, you make me sick!" she said and turned away.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, that's all very well; but you made a bargain
+with me, that you would meet Bramham sometimes, and
+if he likes you, so much the better. You don't seem to
+know when you're lucky!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lucky?" Something broke from her lips, that might
+have been only an exclamation, but had the sound of a
+moan.</p>
+
+<p>"Pooh!" said Sophie. "Some fellow's been kidding
+you, I suppose, and you don't like it. Oh! I know all
+about it."</p>
+
+<p>"You know some wonderful things, Sophie!" said Poppy
+at last, in her soft, low voice. "Your mind must be a
+treasure-house of dainty thoughts and memories."</p>
+
+<p>But irony was ever wasted on Sophie. She got up and
+stretched her well-shaped arms above her head until the
+heliotrope sleeves cracked and gaped at the seams.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, all I can say is that you are a donkey not to want
+to meet nice fellows when you get the chance. Don't you
+ever intend to marry?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, who had gone over to smell some flowers, pro<span class="pagenum">[154]</span>bably
+Bramham's, which were clumsily bunched in rows on
+the mantel-shelf, faced her with an air of insolent surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"What can that possibly have to do with you or your
+men visitors?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oho!" said Sophie aggressively. "You won't get
+many chances of marrying without <i>my</i> assistance, my
+dear. Perhaps you don't know it, but men don't come to
+Africa with the idea of entering into the holy state of
+matrimony. When they <i>do</i> marry, it's <i>quite</i> by accident,
+and the girl has to work the accident. You don't know
+much about that business, my child," she added contemptuously.
+"Better take a few lessons from me."</p>
+
+<p>"Why? Have you been very successful?" Poppy's
+tone was one of polite inquiry. The other girl flushed.</p>
+
+<p>"Jolly sight more than <i>you'll</i> ever be, with your white
+face and thin figure," she retorted, adding pleasantly:
+"Your eyes remind me of a snake's."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sauntered carelessly towards the door.</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>you</i> remind me of the man who, when he was
+getting the worst of a discussion on original sin, said to
+the other man: 'If I were you, I would not drink with my
+mouth full.' I am quite willing to believe anything you
+like to tell me about your conquests, Sophie; only please
+don't bother to hunt a husband for me. The good God
+kindly supplied me with the same instincts as other
+women. I can do my own hunting."</p>
+
+<p>She went out and closed the door behind her with a
+gentle, sad movement, as though she was shutting in the
+light of the world and regretted doing it. A little colour
+had come to her face. She felt better.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Abinger had gone away. This time his destination was
+really the Rand, for the <i>boys</i> had taken his luggage to the<span class="pagenum">[155]</span>
+station and seen him leave. He had told Kykie that he
+would be away for six weeks at least.</p>
+
+<p>After that stormy scene in the drawing-room, when he
+had left Poppy wrapped in wild weeping, nothing further
+had passed between them on the subject of their marriage.
+Indeed, she had not seen him again. But he had left a
+letter for her, and enclosed was a copy of the marriage
+certificate, to show her that he had not been inventing.
+He further informed her that Father Eug&egrave;ne was still alive,
+and that by writing to the Jesuit Monastery in the Transvaal
+she could at any time ascertain the simple truth. The rest
+of the letter was written in a strain of casual indifference,
+that Poppy found singularly reassuring. His attitude
+appeared to be that of a man rather bored with the subject
+because it bored her; but, facts being facts, he plainly felt
+it his duty to show her that there were less pleasing and
+many more boring things in life than to be called Mrs.
+Abinger. He told her first of all, not to be a foolish girl
+and make herself ill about nothing; that it would be in
+every way to her advantage to make her <i>d&eacute;but</i> in South
+African society as the wife of a well-known man.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"I have not disguised from you," he wrote, "that I
+have what is called a bad reputation, but that will not
+affect you&mdash;rather redound to your credit in fact, since
+the wives of rakes are always looked upon as possessing
+something unusual in the way of brains and charm. As my
+wife, your lines will be laid in not unpleasant places. You
+may have as many friends as you like, and I will allow you
+five thousand pounds a year to entertain them and yourself
+upon. In making the matter public, no painful details
+need be gone into. All that is necessary is that you give
+me permission to make the truth public. Tell me when
+you are ready to assume the title of Mrs. Abinger&mdash;I'll do
+the rest. In this, dear girl, as in all things, pray please<span class="pagenum">[156]</span>
+yourself. Only, remember that if you don't choose to
+accept the situation, the situation still remains&mdash;<i>we are
+married</i>. And it is only under the conditions stated that I
+can permit you to live any other life than the one you have
+lived so long."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When first she received this letter, Poppy read it and
+flung it from her. But in the calm that came after a week's
+intolerable torment of longing, and despair, she read it
+again. The fierce fires that had consumed her were
+burning low then, and cast but a faint and dreary flicker
+down the pathway of the future. That future looked a
+land all shadows and gloom, whatsoever pathway she
+chose to take towards it. The simplest thing to do seemed
+the most desirable; and surely it was simplest just to
+let things stay as they were! She would tell Luce Abinger
+that her choice was to let things remain as they had always
+been, and then she would live on, drifting through the weary
+days and months and years, working a little every day, until
+work at last would become everything and fill her whole life.
+Perhaps, as she had missed love she would find fame. It
+did not seem to matter very much whether she did or not.</p>
+
+<p>All she asked was to find peace. Knowing very little
+of life she did not realise that in asking for this she asked
+for everything. For no woman finds peace until she has
+tasted of all the poisoned dishes at the banquet of life&mdash;and
+then the peace is either of the dead body or the dead
+mind.</p>
+
+<p>After those seven days of suffering, Poppy sat with
+her broken love-dream, like a pale child with a broken
+toy. She thought because she was numb that all was
+over then, except the dreary living through the dreary
+days. But the young have a great capacity for suffering,
+and she had forgotten how very young and strong she was,
+and how hot the blood ran in her veins. After a day she<span class="pagenum">[157]</span>
+was back again in the trough of the sea. When at last she
+emerged she was a child no longer, but a woman with something
+to hide from the world&mdash;a wound that bled inwardly
+and would always ache.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger had been gone nearly three weeks then, and
+wrote to say that he should probably be away for two
+or three months, as he was selling all the property he owned
+on the Rand, and the final settlements would take him
+quite that time. The thought of the long respite from
+his presence was a great relief to the girl, and by unconsciously
+lifting a little of the strain from her mind helped
+her to come back the sooner to her normal self. Kykie's
+delight was enormous when Poppy was to be seen wandering
+aimlessly through the house once more and into the
+garden; though <i>there</i> she never stayed long now, and there
+were parts of it she did not go near.</p>
+
+<p>From Kykie she learned incidentally, and without
+resentment, that the front gate was locked once more and
+the key safe with Abinger. That reminded her of her
+secret exit, and then she remembered Sophie Cornell,
+whose image had quite faded from her memory. It occurred
+to her that she ought to visit her self-imposed employer,
+and make her excuses and farewells as simply as possible,
+for something in her now strongly repudiated further
+association with the Colonial girl.</p>
+
+<p>The visit and quarrel had braced her in a remarkable
+way. Afterwards she felt that in spite of all she was really
+alive still, and she found herself regretting that through
+Sophie's garden must lie her only way into the world beyond.
+The restrictions of the house began to irk her,
+and she was afraid of the garden. She felt she <i>must</i> go
+out. She determined to visit the sea and explore the
+Berea; choosing such times as would be safest to make
+entries and exits through the little opening in the passion-flower
+house. In the early mornings she knew well that<span class="pagenum">[158]</span>
+wild horses might pass through Sophie's garden without
+her knowing or caring&mdash;and again, under cover of darkness
+it would be simple to slip through unseen. She told Kykie
+that in the future she always desired dinner at six-thirty;
+and Kykie, who had grown curiously meek and obedient of
+late, made no demur. This arrangement gave Poppy a
+long evening to herself, and she had never allowed anyone
+to intrude upon her evening hours. It would be supposed
+that she spent them in the garden, for always she had found
+great pleasure in wandering in the moonlight, and in the
+early morning hours, and the servants were well acquainted
+with her habits.</p>
+
+<p>So she took to going forth. As soon as darkness fell
+she would depart, darkly-cloaked and with her head
+draped mantilla-wise, to see what the forbidden world
+looked like "'twixt gloam and moon." Her favourite
+route was by the Musgrave Road, a long thoroughfare
+that leads to the top of the Berea. Over gates would come
+to her glimpses of charmingly-lighted rooms, and pretty
+women sitting down to dinner, or sauntering with their
+husbands, enjoying the gardens after the heat of the day.
+Past one house and another she would go, catching little
+pictures between the trees, at windows, and through open
+doors&mdash;sometimes an exquisite little vision of a mother
+romping with her children and kissing them good-night;
+or a husband standing back with a critical cock to his head
+to get a better view of his wife's new gown, or the way she
+had done her hair. She never stayed for the kiss that would
+come after the verdict, but flew swiftly on with her eyes
+suddenly hot and teeth set in her lip. Other sights were
+amusing: a face contorted and a head and arm screwed in
+the agony of fixing a collar-stud; a man grooming his head
+before an open window with two brushes, and a drop of
+something golden out of a bottle. Once she saw quite a
+sensible-looking man practising a charming smile on him<span class="pagenum">[159]</span>self
+in the glass, and at that could not restrain a little jeer
+of delight at the "nobler" sex. When she caught children
+at windows in their nightgowns, peering out, she just gave
+a weird "<i>Who! Who!</i>" like the lesser-owl common in Natal,
+and they scuttled like rats.</p>
+
+<p>These things affected her variously. Times she mocked
+the peaceful citizens of Natal for Philistines and flesh-potters.
+Times her heart came into her throat and tears
+scalded her eyes, and she felt like a prowling hungry jackal.
+But most often she flung a bitter laugh to the wind and
+said:</p>
+
+<p>"I have the best of it&mdash;better prowl the veldt lean and
+free, than be caged and full."</p>
+
+<p>Once or twice she had occasion to recall a French saying
+she had come across while her French was in the elementary
+stage. She had studied the phrase for an hour or two, and
+applied the dictionary to it, and eventually it read to the
+effect that if all the roofs in Paris were lifted one night the
+devil might be observed in every house lighting the fires to
+make the pots boil. The remark seemed to have lost some
+of its original point in translation, but it still bore an air of
+significance, and came singularly to hand once or twice,
+startling Poppy to the thought that Paris and Durban are
+both under the same sky, and that fuel of fire is the same all
+the world over. On these occasions it was she who scuttled,
+and she did it with good-will, almost cured of her taste for
+living pictures. But the pastime was fascinating to a lonely
+and lonesome creature, and she returned to it.</p>
+
+<p>Many of the houses she passed stood hidden away in
+thick gardens, with nothing to indicate their presence but
+glimmering lights and voices, or sometimes music, or the
+clank of dinner plates. But if sound attracted her, Poppy
+was not deterred by gates or gravelled paths. With a fleet
+foot, a sweet tongue, and an excellent imagination, there is
+little to fear in forbidden gardens, or anywhere else for that<span class="pagenum">[160]</span>
+matter. The chief thing is to have the bump of adventure
+sufficiently developed!</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes she found that there were others abroad for
+adventure also&mdash;some of these of a sociable temperament
+most inconvenient. Once a magnificent person in evening-dress
+followed her so persistently, that she was driven at
+last to the expedient of walking under the glare of a street
+lamp with her shoulders humped and her skirts held high
+enough to display to all who took an interest in the matter
+a pair of knock-kneed legs and horribly pigeon-toed feet.
+The device worked like magic; she was followed no further.</p>
+
+<p>On another occasion she allowed a youthful Romeo to
+sit beside her on a bench, only to discover that she was
+afflicted with a painful sniffing cold&mdash;about forty sniffs
+to the minute. She was soon left sole occupant of the
+bench.</p>
+
+<p>There were other <i>contretemps</i>. Once her evening out
+cost her sixpence, and she was very much annoyed, for
+her stock of sixpences was low. Abinger paid all bills
+and did not expect her to have any need for money. It
+was her habit, if she saw a native policeman eye her
+suspiciously, to step quietly up to him with a most grand
+air and tell him to send her a rickshaw when he reached
+the main road, as she was in a hurry and could not wait
+for the car. The minute he was out of sight she would scud
+down a side street. But upon this occasion a rickshaw
+was so close at hand that she was obliged to take it and
+boldly direct the boy to Sophie's front gate. Arrived there,
+she ran full into a man coming out. The light from a passing
+car showed her his face, dark and dissipated, but keen.
+He was carrying his hat in his hand, as men do on hot
+nights, and she observed that his hair was parted down the
+centre with a curl on either side.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! What Luce calls a German from Jerusalem!"
+was her comment. Incidentally she smelled a smell she<span class="pagenum">[161]</span>
+was familiar with, from daily contact with Sophie and
+sheets of MSS. This made her certain that it was the
+redoubtable "Brookie" himself whom she had encountered.</p>
+
+<p>Often as she glided like a wraith through Sophie's garden
+the sound of laughter and the flavour of smoke came to her
+through the trees, or Sophie's voice, outraging the gentle
+night by some sentimental ballad.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One late February evening, when all the world was
+steeped in silver light, Poppy's heart seemed to her to be
+lying very still in her breast. As she walked over the
+trembling moonlight shadows a curious feeling of happiness
+stole across her.</p>
+
+<p>"Am I at peace already?" she asked herself wonderingly
+at last. "Has my soul forgotten what I did to it,
+and how I found it only to give it away to a man who called
+me by another woman's name?"</p>
+
+<p>It must have been late, for carriages and cars passed
+her, bearing homewards people who had been to the theatre
+or dining out. She caught scraps of conversation concerning
+the play, and little intimate remarks about people
+were flung freely to her upon the night wind. But her ears
+heeded nothing, for she had a companion who singularly
+engrossed her attention. She believed it was herself she
+walked with&mdash;a new-found, detached, curiously-contented
+self. She did not know that it was Destiny who had her
+by the hand.</p>
+
+<p>At the top of the Berea Hill, not far from her own gate,
+she stopped a moment under the deep shadow of some
+wayside trees. All in black she seemed part of the shadow,
+and she stood very still, for she heard rickshaws coming up
+the hill, and she thought she would let them pass before she
+essayed the glare of a street lamp a few yards ahead. As it
+happened, the first rickshaw stopped at a double white
+gate which was full under the light of the lamp. A man<span class="pagenum">[162]</span>
+descended, turned, and held out his hand, and a woman
+stepped daintily down. She was a thin, slim woman,
+wrapless, in a black satin gown with silvery sleeves. She
+looked as interesting, though not as wicked, as the Notorious
+Mrs. Ebbsmith. In the lamp-light her hair, which was dark
+brown, appeared to have seven red lights in it. Her face
+was neither beautiful nor pretty, but well-bred and harmonious,
+with a sort of glimmering gaiety about the eyes.
+Poppy instantly recognised her as the woman she had seen
+on the day of her first arrival in Durban and had subsequently
+ascertained to be Mrs. Portal. She was carrying
+on a desultory conversation with the man, and they continued
+it as he stood feeling in his pockets for money for
+the <i>boy</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Why don't you flirt with her yourself, Billy&mdash;Bill?"
+said she. "You would be good for her and she wouldn't
+do you any harm!"</p>
+
+<p>He was a heavily-built, sullenly-handsome man, who
+looked as though he had never said a good-tempered thing
+in his life.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was astounded when he blithely answered:</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, when there is only one woman in a man's
+life, he can't convincingly imply to the woman he is with
+that she is the only one in the world&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal fell to laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy, you fraud! You know you always carry along
+on top-ropes when I'm not there."</p>
+
+<p>"Not with Mary," the man asseverated. "Mary would
+want too much of a deuce of a lot of convincing. She
+would smell a rat."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be subtle, Billy," cried Mrs. Portal, laughing
+and going in at the gates.</p>
+
+<p>The other rickshaw drew near, and "Billy" waited to
+receive it. As it passed Poppy, two scraps of conversation
+floated to her.<span class="pagenum">[163]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I've a great mind to persuade Nick to go with you&mdash;and
+to take me too," said the woman, laughing a little.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, why don't you? 'Better a bright companion
+on a weary way, than a horse-litter,' you know. But it
+would be too rough a journey for you, I'm afraid."</p>
+
+<p>The man's voice sent all the blood in Poppy's body
+rustling to her ears. She burnt and glowed at the thought
+of his nearness. <i>Now</i> she knew that it was Destiny who
+had walked with her. Now she knew that peace would
+never be hers so long as this man's feet trod the earth.</p>
+
+<p>The rickshaw appeared to be filled with something
+resembling yellow foam&mdash;billows and billows of it fell
+everywhere, even upon the shafts and the folded hood
+behind. The moment the bearer stood still, the man
+called Billy came forward and put out his hand to the
+woman in the rickshaw, and she regally descended. The
+watching girl, through eyes dim with jealous pain and
+anger, seeking nothing but the dark face that came after,
+still saw that the woman was very beautiful and recognised
+in her the heroine of her childhood's days. It was, indeed,
+Mrs. Nick Capron!</p>
+
+<p>She also was cloakless, with magnificent bare arms and
+shoulders gleaming white above the rippling waves of
+yellow chiffon. Her hair rippled and waved too, and
+shone in masses on her head, and diamonds twinkled in it.
+She seemed almost too bright a vision for the naked eye.</p>
+
+<p>"And what did you think of <i>that</i> for a play?" asked the
+sullen-faced one as he opened the gate.</p>
+
+<p>"Enchanting," said she vivaciously. "So full of introspection
+and retrospection, and all that, and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and mighty little circumspection," was the ready
+answer, and they passed in, laughing.</p>
+
+<p>The last man, moving with casual deliberation, came
+slowly to the side-walk, and stood there speaking to the
+bearer, a powerful Zulu, as he paid him, asking if he had<span class="pagenum">[164]</span>
+found the pull uphill too hard. The <i>boy</i> laughed in response
+and shook his winged arms boastfully, saying:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Icona.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards both rickshaws jingled away. The man
+should have followed the others in, but he stood still. He
+stood still, with a yellow chiffon wrap flung over his arm,
+and distinctly snuffed the air.</p>
+
+<p>"Poppies!" he muttered. "What makes me think of
+poppies?... God! I could almost dream that dream
+again...."</p>
+
+<p>For an instant his brilliant moody eyes stared straight
+into the black shadows where Poppy stood, watching him
+with both hands on her heart. Then the voices of the
+others called, and he turned abruptly and went in.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy fled home to dark, sad dreams.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[165]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">ONE blue-eyed morning, about a month after Abinger's
+departure, Poppy was down on the sea-beach.
+She sat in the loose sand, and ran her hands restlessly in
+and out of it, making little banks about her. She was
+wondering if she would be able to sleep if she came out and
+lay in these cool white sands some night. She was so
+tired of never sleeping.</p>
+
+<p>The sun had not risen, but there was a pale primrose dado
+painted across the East.</p>
+
+<p>Presently the girl became aware of another woman
+sauntering along close to the edge of the sea. She was
+digging a walking-stick in the sand every few yards and
+watching the hole fill with water afterwards. She carried
+the tail of her white-linen skirt under her chin, and her feet
+all wetted by the little incoming waves, had caught the pale
+light and seemed shod with silver as she walked, singing
+a little French song:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:14em">
+<p>"Le monde est m&eacute;chant, ma petite,<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; Avec son sourire moqueur:<br />
+Il dit qu'&agrave; ton c&ocirc;t&eacute; palpite<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; Une montre en place du c&#339;ur."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When she came opposite Poppy she left off singing and
+stood for a minute looking at her. Then came slowly
+sauntering up the beach to where she sat. Poppy recognised
+Mrs. Portal. Mrs. Portal recognised the Burne-Jones
+eyes; but she wondered where the gladness of living
+was all gone.<span class="pagenum">[166]</span></p>
+
+<p>"You look like a pale, sea-eyed mermaid, forsaken by
+your lover," she said. "Why aren't you combing your
+hair with a golden comb?"</p>
+
+<p>"What is the use, if my lover is gone?" said Poppy,
+with a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! if you did it a new way he might come back,"
+laughed Mrs. Portal, and sat down by her side. "I thought
+I was the only sun-worshipper in Durban," she remarked,
+as one continuing an ordinary conversation with an old
+friend. "I have felt rather superior about it, and as lonely
+as a genius."</p>
+
+<p>"I am often down here in the morning," said Poppy,
+"but it must be lovely at night, too. I was thinking that
+I should come and sleep here one night when it is moonlight."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Never</i> sleep under the moon," said Mrs. Portal darkly,
+"or an awful thing will happen to you&mdash;your face will be
+all pulled out of drawing."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy unconsciously put up one hand and felt her face.
+But Mrs. Portal burst out laughing. "You have done it
+already? Well, she must like you, for she hasn't done you
+any harm."</p>
+
+<p>"I like <i>her</i>," said Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"And well you may. She's the only woman who knows
+everything about one and yet doesn't give one away."
+Mrs. Portal plugged her stick deep in the sand and made
+a support for her back. She then clasped herself about
+the knees and continued her remarks:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... she knows too much ... but she keeps
+on smiling. I suppose it's because the old pagan is so
+used to sinners.</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:23em">
+<p>"'There's not a day: the longest&mdash;not the 21st of June&mdash;<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Sees so much mischief in a wicked way</span><br />
+On which three single hours of moonshine smile&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"And yet she looks so modest all the while!" Poppy
+finished.<span class="pagenum">[167]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal reproved her.</p>
+
+<p>"I consider you too young and good looking to read
+Byron."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think he wrote for the old and ugly?" laughed
+Poppy. "And how came you to read him?"</p>
+
+<p>"What! The retort flattering! <i>You're</i> no Durbanite.
+<i>You</i> don't grow in the cabbage garden. Oh&eacute;! I can say
+what I will to you. Ding-Dong!"</p>
+
+<p>Her little, high-bred face was neither too sunny nor too
+sad, but had a dash of both sunshine and sorrow about
+the eyes and lips. She screwed it up in a way she had,
+and began to sing her little French song again:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:16em">
+<p>
+"Le monde est m&eacute;chant, ma petite:<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Il dit que tes yeux vifs sont morts,</span><br />
+Et se meuvent dans leur orbite<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">A temps &eacute;gaux et par ressorts."</span><br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>The odour of happiness which Bramham had spoken
+of began to make itself felt. Little fronds and scents of
+it caught hold of Poppy and enfolded her. Looking at
+the face beside her she saw in it no signs of any mean
+content with life. There were fine cobwebby lines around
+the eyes and mouth, and a deep one between the brows,
+and Poppy wished that they were upon her face, too, for
+they were beautiful. Yet they could only have come
+through suffering, for Mrs. Portal was not old.</p>
+
+<p>"She has had sorrows, too&mdash;but not shameful ones.
+She wears them like jewels," thought the girl.</p>
+
+<p>The woman beside her had indeed greater gifts than
+mere beauty. She had seven red lights in her hair, which
+was always extraordinarily tumbled without being untidy; a
+heart of gold; and a tongue of silver.</p>
+
+<p>Many men loved her, as fine men cannot help loving
+what is lovable and sweet, and gentle, and kind, and
+brave, and gay, and wise.</p>
+
+<p>Even women loved her; and so the worst thing they<span class="pagenum">[168]</span>
+could find to say of her was that she must have been quite
+pretty&mdash;once!</p>
+
+<p>In return, she loved all men, and was kind to all women,
+loving one steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>But now, half in pity, half for some reason she could
+not fathom, she found a place in her heart for Poppy
+Destin, too. She was touched by the girl's beauty, on
+which her seeing eyes saw the shadow of tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Quite</i> a child!" was her thought. "Too young to
+have so much to hide behind those lovely eyes!" A line
+from Pater's monograph on <i>Monna Lisa</i> came into her
+mind:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Hers are the eyes that have looked on all the world; and the eyelids are a little weary."<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She put out her hand to Poppy. If Poppy had eyes
+like <i>Monna Lisa</i>, she herself had the hands of that Mother
+of all saints and sinners&mdash;only a little browner.</p>
+
+<p>"I would like to be your friend," she said quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy flushed, and then became pale. The hand Mrs.
+Portal touched stiffened a little, and the lilac eyes looked
+away at the sea rather than meet the kindness of the
+other's glance&mdash;but they were dim with tears. Mrs.
+Portal's warm, Irish heart felt a chill. She was a little
+sore too, for her friendship was more often sought than
+proffered, and never before had she known a repulse.
+She could not know that the girl before her felt honoured
+as never in her life before, and was filled with gratitude
+and affection. But Clementine Portal was a creature
+full of intuition and understanding. Possibly some of the
+girl's feeling subtly communicated itself to her, for she
+became aware that the rebuff did not come of rudeness
+or indifference&mdash;or coldness of heart; but of some other
+strange feeling.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it possible that she's afraid of me?" she thought
+at last. "Poor child! doesn't she know an enemy from<span class="pagenum">[169]</span>
+a friend? It must be that she has found all women her
+enemies!"</p>
+
+<p>They had been saying little ordinary things to one
+another in the meantime, while they gazed before them to
+where the risen sun was transforming the curved, purple
+waves into a sheet of dazzling copper.</p>
+
+<p>Presently Clementine got up from the sands, very
+reluctantly.</p>
+
+<p>"I must go home to breakfast, or my household will be
+searching for me," she said, with a mournful smile, shaking
+her skirt into shape. "Heaven meant me to roam the
+deserts and run in the woods; but Fate laid upon me the
+burden of respectability and planted me in the cabbage
+garden. I must run and catch a tram-car!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy laughed at her; but her laugh ended on a queer
+note.</p>
+
+<p>"Being a wild ass of the desert has its drawbacks, too!"
+said she, with something of bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>Clementine put out her hand and touched the girl's.
+"Well, don't be a wild ass any more. Come and see me.
+I hold agricultural shows on the first and last Fridays of
+the month, and you will find the best kinds of turnips and
+cabbages in my drawing-room. But if you seek me in
+love and charity as a friend <i>should</i>, come on Sundays.
+You never told me your name, yet, mermaid!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy held the brown, thin hand and answered firmly:</p>
+
+<p>"Rosalind Chard."</p>
+
+<p>But afterwards, when the other had gone a little way,
+she ran after her and caught her up and said:</p>
+
+<p>"But I wish you would call me 'Poppy.'"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Nevertheless, it was not until a month later that she
+visited Mrs. Portal. Strongly attracted by the kind,
+gay ways and looks of that fascinating woman, she yet<span class="pagenum">[170]</span>
+feared to know her better. And she feared, too, that in
+the house of Mrs. Portal she might meet the man whom
+she knew not whether most she loved, or feared, or hated;
+for whose sake she gashed herself with the knives of defeat
+and despair. She knew that he belonged to Mrs. Portal's
+circle of friends, and she had heard from Sophie Cornell
+that the chief of these was Mrs. Capron. <i>Mrs. Capron!</i>
+That was the name in which he had bidden her good=bye,
+speaking in his drunkenness or delirium, she knew
+not which. Mrs. Capron, the splendid, milky creature,
+who had been with him in the rickshaw, and whom Poppy
+had so clearly recognised! Would <i>she</i>, too, recognise
+Poppy? The girl was not so certain now of the improbability
+of such a thing, for of late it seemed to her that
+she had begun to present a singular resemblance to herself
+as she had looked in those unhappy, far-off days. The
+strain of suffering had told upon her terribly, and her
+face was tragically drawn, with a sharp, childish look
+of suffering about her mouth, and soft, though not unlovely
+hollows, in her cheeks. Her eyes looked larger
+and more unreal for the shadows beneath them.</p>
+
+<p>The day she decided to go to Mrs. Portal's found her
+examining herself in her glass with apprehensive eyes,
+keen for every defect. She was a woman now, examining
+her weapons for battle, and her courage misgave her as she
+saw her reflection. She had put on a white gown that
+was all simple lines and soft laces, and she really looked
+very young and girlish, but she hated her appearance
+when she thought of those two charming-looking women
+of the world with their eloquent clothes. What if she
+should meet <i>him</i> there and he should compare her with
+them? What if either the thin, vivacious, sunburnt
+woman, whom she herself could hardly help loving&mdash;or
+the regal-milky-woman of yellow chiffon should be that
+<i>Loraine</i> whom he so loved?<span class="pagenum">[171]</span></p>
+
+<p>"With either of them what chance should I stand?"
+she asked herself, desperate-eyed. "Why have I got these
+vile, purple shadows?&mdash;and holes in my cheeks? I never
+had them before!" She burst into tears, and at this
+juncture Kykie thought fit to make her entrance unannounced
+with her everlasting tea-tray.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Poppy, to goodness! what you ought to do is
+to take off that tight frock and put on a nice cool gown
+and rest," said the beldame importantly.</p>
+
+<p>"You're mad, Kykie&mdash;and I wish you wouldn't come
+into my room without knocking." Poppy made occasion
+to fling a towel over her hat and gloves which lay on the
+bed, and which it was not desirable Kykie should see.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you needn't mind old Kykie, darling," was the
+response; and Poppy, unused to such blandishments,
+stared at the yellow face which continued to waggle archly
+at her.</p>
+
+<p>"What will Luce say when he comes back, if I haven't
+taken care of you?"</p>
+
+<p>The girl suddenly sickened at her tone.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare she speak to me like that!" was her furious
+thought. "As if Luce has any right over me or my
+health!" She could have struck the leering smile from the
+woman's face; she turned away trembling with anger to her
+dressing-table.</p>
+
+<p>"So you knew all the time about Luce and me being
+married?" she said in a toneless voice, when she had
+presently mastered herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavenly me! yes, and I knew it would all work out
+and come right in the end. But I think you ought to wear
+your wedding-ring now, Poppy.... All right, all right,
+you needn't look at me like a <i>mal-meit</i>!... I'm going
+now ... I wouldn't stop with you another minute
+when you look like that ... you and Luce are a nice pair
+for temper ... surely to goodness one would think all<span class="pagenum">[172]</span>
+would be peace and love <i>now</i>&mdash;" The door was closed
+and locked on her and she was obliged to continue her
+soliloquy on the stairs.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>An hour later found Poppy letting herself in at the double
+white gates of Mrs. Portal's garden. It was neither the
+first nor last Friday in the month, nor yet Sunday afternoon;
+but she had not come for society. She came because
+she must; because of her bitter need of some word concerning
+the man she loved.</p>
+
+<p>The house was a big, red-brick villa, with many verandahs
+and no pretentious, except to comfort. An English maid,
+in a French cap and apron, showed her into a drawing-room
+that was full of the scent of flowers, with open windows
+and drawn shades. Almost immediately Mrs. Portal blew
+into the room like a fresh wind, seized her hands, and shook
+them warmly.</p>
+
+<p>"I knew you would come to-day," she said. "I dreamed
+of you last night. Poppy, I have a feeling that you and I
+are going to be mixed up in each other's lives somehow."</p>
+
+<p>A creature of moods and impulses herself, Poppy
+thoroughly understood this greeting, and it warmed her
+sad and lonely spirit gratefully; she let herself be beguiled
+to the fireside of Clementine Portal's friendship. Before
+she realised it, they were seated together in a deep lounge
+just big enough for two people, and a pile of cushions
+with cool, dull-toned surfaces, talking like friends of long
+standing. Mrs. Portal was quite in the dark as to who
+the girl was, but that did not bother her at all, and her
+remarks contained no shadow of a question. It was enough
+that she "had a feeling about her," and had dreamed of
+her and believed in her.</p>
+
+<p>To ordinary persons these might not seem very cogent
+reasons; but Clementine Portal was in no sense ordinary.
+Her judgment concerning things in general, and women in<span class="pagenum">[173]</span>
+particular, was both keen and sound; but she never allowed
+it to interfere with her inspirations, which she considered
+far safer. Apparently intensely practical and conventional,
+she was, in reality, a woman who lived the most important
+part of her life in a hidden world. She had the seeing-eye
+and the hearing-ear for things that went unnoted by the
+every-day man and woman. Being Irish, she was packed
+full of superstition, but, fortunately, a strong vein of common
+sense counterbalanced it. As for her humour, that
+most fatal gift in a woman, it sometimes resembled a fine
+blue flame, that scorched everything in reach; and sometimes,
+to the consternation of the conventional, was the
+rollicking wit of a fat and jolly Irish priest addicted to the
+punch-bowl. She had a wonderful way of attracting
+confidences from people about the things they most cared
+for in life. In a little while Poppy had told her what she
+had never told to a living soul before&mdash;about her little book
+of songs&mdash;and her great ambitions as a writer. For some
+unknown reason the girl felt these ambitions very much
+alive in her that afternoon. Clementine Portal sat like a
+creature entranced, with her lips slightly apart. When
+Poppy had given her, upon urgent requesting&mdash;a halting,
+eloquent outline of her novel, Clem said:</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>know</i> it will be good.... I can feel that it will
+have big bits of open space like the veldt in it, with new
+sorts of trees growing by the wayside as one passes along....
+I hate the modern woman's book, because it always
+makes me gasp for air. It is too full of the fire that burns
+up all there is in life."</p>
+
+<p>"You would write far better than I, probably," said
+the girl. "I know so little of life&mdash;only what I feel. You
+know everything&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Dear girl, you are better as you are. When you know
+everything, you will have discovered that the world is full
+of sawdust, and the people stuffed with shavings, and no<span class="pagenum">[174]</span>
+one worth writing about&mdash;then, where will your fine books
+be?"</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever thought of writing?"</p>
+
+<p>"Often," she began to laugh. "And when I discover
+a real good man in the world I shall burst into glory in a
+novel. But no such man exists. He died when the
+sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Here
+is tea. We'll drown my pessimism in the cream-bowl,
+shall we?"</p>
+
+<p>She went to the tea-table. The maid drew up the
+window-shades, letting the lovely rose-lights of late afternoon
+into the room. It was a real woman's room, full of
+flowers and photographs, and cushions, and piles of magazines
+and weeklies everywhere. There were no wonderful
+pictures on the walls, or valuable china in cases. Only
+a few well-arranged native curios, a good piano, and the
+kind of things people from home gather about them when
+they are sojourning in a foreign land. As Poppy followed
+to the tea-table, her eye caught a full-length photograph on
+the wall over the writing-desk, and she stayed a moment to
+look. It was a woman in her presentation gown&mdash;two long,
+lovely eyes smiled contentedly on the world. Underneath,
+in a woman's writing, were the words: "To Clem, from
+Mary."</p>
+
+<p>It was the regal-milky-woman&mdash;Mrs. Capron. Mrs.
+Portal turned round from her tea-cups.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! everyone looks at that photograph! She is very
+beautiful. The remarkable thing is that she is good, too.
+That <i>is</i> remarkable, isn't it? I'm sure if I had a face
+like that I should go to my own head and be a perfect
+divil."</p>
+
+<p>"Who is she?" asked Poppy, still before the smiling
+picture.</p>
+
+<p>"My friend, Mrs. Capron."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that her name written there?"<span class="pagenum">[175]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes, hers and mine. She is my dearest friend, and
+so she is allowed to call me Clem; you may, too, if you
+like."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy came, thanking her, and sat by the tea-table.
+She felt suddenly happier, for now she could follow the
+dictates of her heart and love this woman&mdash;whose name
+was <i>Clem</i>.</p>
+
+<p>As they took tea the door opened gently and a little
+figure stole into the room straight to her mother's knee.</p>
+
+<p>"I like you, and love you," said she solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>"Hyacinth, what have you been doing?" Mrs. Portal
+asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>It was easy to see that they were mother and child, for
+they had the same golden-brown eyes, full of dots and
+dashes and shadows, and the same grave-gay mouths.
+There, however, all resemblance ceased. The child's
+physique consisted of a head covered with long, streaky
+brown hair, and a pair of copper-coloured legs which
+apparently began under her chin.</p>
+
+<p>"I love and like you," she repeated glibly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then I know you have been doing something very
+wicked, Cinthie. You always have when you like and
+love me."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pas!</i>" said Cinthie, now gazing calmly at Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall go and find out," said Mrs. Portal. "I have
+to go, anyway, to speak to cook about dinner; do forgive
+me for five minutes, dear; Cinthie will look after you.
+Cinthie, I hope I can trust you to be good with Miss Chard
+for five minutes."</p>
+
+<p>The moment she was gone Cinthie made a boastful
+statement.</p>
+
+<p>"My face is bigger than yours!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy put up her hand and felt her face carefully; then
+looked at Cinthie's with the air of one measuring with the
+eye.<span class="pagenum">[176]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Well, perhaps it is!" she acceded.</p>
+
+<p>"It's bigger'n anyone's," continued Cinthie, even more
+bragfully. "Who are you married to?"</p>
+
+<p>This was an awkward and surprising question, but Poppy
+countered.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should you think I am married, Cinthie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Everybody's married," was the swift response. "<i>I'm</i>
+married to Mammie, and Mammie's married to Daddie,
+and Daddie's married to the moon, and the moon's married
+to the sun, and the sun's married to the sea, and the sea's
+married to the stars, and the stars are married to the
+stripes&mdash;Daddie says so. Let me sit on your lap, I'm as
+tired as a bed."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy lifted her up, and Cinthie, lolling against the
+white, lacy dress, gazed for a space into the lilac eyes.
+She then carefully selected a long streak of her own hair
+and put it into her mouth, thoughtfully sucking it as she
+continued her remarks:</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better marry Karri," she said. "I
+like Karri better'n anyone, except Daddie. His face is
+bigger than anybody's."</p>
+
+<p>"Is Karri a man, then?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; but he's got two women's names, isn't that
+funny? One's Karri and the other's Eve. I'll show you
+his photo."</p>
+
+<p>She ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a frame
+from a table, and brought it back triumphantly.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" she cried, and dumped it into Poppy's lap.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy stared down into the pictured face of the man
+she loved.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cinthie, I've heard all about it from Sarah, and
+I'm very angry with you. I knew you had been doing
+something specially wicked. You're a <i>petite m&eacute;chante</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pas!</i>" said Cinthie stoutly.<span class="pagenum">[177]</span></p>
+
+<p>"You are. Go away, now, to the nursery. I'm very
+angry with you."</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie retreated, bitterly reasseverating:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Pas! pas! Pas petite m&eacute;chante! Pas!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Clem observed the photograph in Poppy's lap.</p>
+
+<p>"She has been showing you her hero&mdash;the hero of us
+all. Everyone in this house genuflects before Eve Carson."</p>
+
+<p>And so at last Poppy knew the name of the idol before
+which she, too, worshipped!</p>
+
+<p>"By the way, did Cinthie mention that his face is bigger
+than anyone's? That is the final point of beauty with
+Cinthie&mdash;to have a big face. Well, Evelyn Carson's face
+is not so big, but his ways are, and his ideas, and those
+things make for bigness of soul&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy said nothing: only she prayed with all her soul
+that Clem would continue to talk upon this subject; and
+Clem, looking dreamily at the girl, but obviously not
+thinking of her, responded to the prayer.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a wonderful person, and we all adore him, even
+though our judgment sometimes asks us why, and our ears
+sometimes hear the untoward things that are not compatible
+with reverence," she was smiling. "I daresay you
+have heard of him."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Poppy, in an even voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Most people have, by now&mdash;he's been one of the foremost
+figures in South African life for years, one of the
+many Irishmen who have left their native land, burning with
+the sense of England's tyranny, only to go and strive for
+England's fame and glory in some other part of the world.
+We met him first on the Rand, where all the interesting
+blackguards forgather at some time or another; but he
+was always in trouble there, for, you know, Oom Paul
+doesn't approve of Imperialistic Irishmen, and invariably
+contrives to make anyone of the kind exceedingly uncomfortable.
+Karri Carson has been a marked man,<span class="pagenum">[178]</span>
+watched by the Secret Service, and his every action and
+every word reported, with the result, of course, that he
+has said and done many daringly foolish things, and nearly
+been deported over the border once or twice. Fortunately,
+there are more interesting places than the Rand, and there
+is always a rumpus going on in <i>some</i> quarter of Africa, and
+he has been in all the rumpuses of the last fifteen years&mdash;Uganda&mdash;Matabelel
+and&mdash;anywhere where there was anything
+in the wind and where <i>real men</i> were wanted. He's
+earned the V.C. a dozen times, though he's only got the
+D.S.O. But it is not love of honours that is his moving
+spirit&mdash;just an Irishman's lust for being in the "redmost
+hell of the fight." Between intervals of active service he
+has gone off into the wild deeps of Africa, where no one
+has ever been before&mdash;discovered a new quadruped and a
+new tribe of natives. The Royal Institute is <i>dying</i> to trim
+him up with blue ribbons and exhibit him in London,
+but Africa has kissed him on the mouth, and he will not
+leave her." Clem drew a long breath. "I can't think
+what we shall all do now that he is gone," she finished
+sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"Gone!" Poppy wondered what kept her voice so calm
+while her soul cried out within her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, gone away to Borapota: a little red-hot spot
+in the red-hot heart of Africa. It is very conveniently
+situated for us&mdash;not too far from our lovely Mombassa
+harbour&mdash;and it is very rich and fertile, and in every way
+desirable, and the Imperial Unionists think we ought to
+own it, and the Liberal Little Englanders think we ought
+to get it&mdash;without spilling a drop of blood or saying a single
+bad word to anybody. And Evelyn Carson has gone to
+get it for us <i>sans</i> Maxims and <i>sans</i> men and <i>sans</i> anything
+much besides a high heart and a squad of <i>boys</i> who have
+been everywhere with him. He has gone on a <i>peaceful
+expedition</i> into the midst of one of the fiercest tribes in<span class="pagenum">[179]</span>
+Africa to barter or bargain for Concessions that will eventually
+extend the Empire by sixty thousand square miles,
+and add a country crammed with coal and iron and ivory
+and a dozen other lovely things to the pink part of the map.
+And he has gone without even <i>official</i> permission, so that if
+he succeeds&mdash;why, hurrah! for the Union Jack and everything
+under it! And if he fails&mdash;only another reputation
+buried in an African grave! No one will care a rap, and
+everyone will forget him except the people who love him.
+The only thing I care to think of in the matter is, that the
+Borapotans are said to be extremely intelligent and reasonable
+men, who will make splendid soldiers&mdash;and then everyone
+knows what a way Evelyn Carson has with all natives!
+The Zulus and the Basutos, and all the war-loving tribes,
+simply adore him! Still, there's no denying the fact that
+he's gone with his life in his hand. Even if the natives
+prove to be sweet and reasonable, there are half a dozen
+other deaths lurking in every mile of the Interior."</p>
+
+<p>"Has no other white man gone with him?" Poppy
+heard herself asking.</p>
+
+<p>"No one except his <i>boys</i> will go with him once he starts
+on the unbeaten track&mdash;but our friends the Caprons have
+sailed with him as far as Mombassa, and Mrs. Capron declares
+they will accompany him inland, too, until he drives
+them back. Of course, he's sure to do that before
+they reach the danger zone&mdash;but isn't it intrepid of
+her?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy did not know what she answered. Darkness
+engulfed her spirit, almost her senses.</p>
+
+<p>"They started about a month ago, and I am terribly
+lonely without them all. Mrs. Capron and her husband
+will be back within three months, I expect, but we feel&mdash;<i>everybody</i>
+who knows&mdash;very anxious about Eve Carson,
+more especially because he is very susceptible to malarial
+fever. He had a frightful attack about six weeks before<span class="pagenum">[180]</span>
+he left; he was found raving in a rickshaw one night, and
+for nearly a fortnight afterwards was practically delirious.
+However, no sooner was he out of danger than he took up
+his preparations again, and in spite of the doctors, he sailed
+on the date he had originally fixed."... Mrs. Portal
+looked extremely mournful, but presently she added:
+"We are so thankful to think that Mrs. Capron will be with
+him for a while, because her husband has often had fever,
+and she thoroughly understands it."</p>
+
+<p>"I must go home," said Poppy suddenly; and Clementine,
+roused from her reverie by the strangely sounding voice,
+stared at the girl.</p>
+
+<p>"You look quite ill, dear," she said gently. "I am so
+sorry; I have been wandering on, about all the things
+that interest <i>me</i>!... Will you lie down a little while?
+or shall I ring for some wine?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no, I must go home ... it is nothing ... I
+feel odd sometimes ..." she spoke vaguely, but she stood
+up, arranging her veil and pulling on her gloves. Clem
+came with her through the garden, and they stood for a
+moment with the low double gate between them, bidding
+each other good-bye. Mrs. Portal kissed her and told her
+to come again soon, but the girl answered nothing. Suddenly
+a visionary look passed like a veil across Clementine
+Portal's face.</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy," she said in a dreamy, yet intent way; "there
+will be deep waters around you soon! ... you will need
+courage, resolution, <i>and</i> silence ... those are a woman's
+greatest friends in this world ... but, in so far as one
+human being can count on another&mdash;count on me, too, for
+a friend."</p>
+
+<p>Already the swirl of the waters was in Poppy's ears, but
+the kind, brave message came to her like a friendly oar
+in the dark sea of trouble. For a moment she clung to
+the older woman's hand like a child afraid; then they<span class="pagenum">[181]</span>
+parted. Poppy walked away through the vapoury, delicate
+light shed by a slender fragment of moon, and Clem Portal
+stayed staring abstractedly over the gate. It was three
+years before they met again.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[182]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">POPPY lay upon her bed like a drowned woman.
+She had come in almost fainting, and Kykie,
+meeting her on the stairs and seeing her face, had flown
+after her to her bedroom with water and brandy. The
+old woman had taken the girl in her arms bodily, and
+placing her on the bed, proceeded to drench her face and
+hair with ice-cold water and eau-de-Cologne, and to force
+doses of brandy between the white lips.</p>
+
+<p>At last, reviving somewhat under this vigorous treatment,
+Poppy found breath and sense to remonstrate:</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Kykie? Do you want to choke
+me? Stop that ... I'm nearly drowned."</p>
+
+<p>"You were drownded enough before you came in,"
+responded Kykie with asperity; "your dress is soaking.
+Where have you been?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy had been lying in the dew-drenched grass of the
+garden for some two hours or more after her return from
+Mrs. Portal's, but she was not conscious of the fact.</p>
+
+<p>"... And, Luce coming home without warning, and
+you not in to dinner, and everything in the world to aggravate
+a gracious Christian woman!" continued Kykie,
+panting like a stout sheep.</p>
+
+<p>"Luce? Dinner?" said Poppy vaguely. "What is the
+time, Kykie?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think you're going cracked," said Kykie with fresh
+ire, "not to know the time! Half-past nine it is, indeed,
+and me not in bed yet, when you <i>know</i> what I suffer if<span class="pagenum">[183]</span>
+I don't get my night's rest. You and Luce simply
+haven't the consideration of a <i>cow</i> for me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, go to bed!" said Poppy wearily.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do nothing of the sort, thank you, extremingly. I
+will not go to my bed until you have eaten some dinner.
+Do you think I want all the trouble of a funeral in the
+house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Poppy, not
+taking any care of yourself, knowing what you do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>The old woman paused with some significant intention,
+but Poppy only waved a pale hand in her direction.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away and hold your peace, Kykie, for the love of
+Heaven!"</p>
+
+<p>"I'll only go away to get you some food ... and
+you're to eat it, Poppy dear," she began to coax. "I'll
+bring you some nice hot soup, lovey, and a little chicken
+mayonnaise, and you <i>will</i> try and eat it, won't you? and
+a little glass of champagne."</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't Kykie ... only leave me alone...."</p>
+
+<p>The old woman promptly seated herself upon the side of
+the bed with the air of an immovable rock.</p>
+
+<p>"Well.... Oh, all right, then ... <i>anything</i> ... why
+can't you leave me alone?"</p>
+
+<p>Kykie did; but she took the precaution of removing
+the bedroom door-key and taking it with her, for she knew
+her mistress's ways well. In a few moments she was back
+again, with half a pint of champagne and a little pile of
+caviare sandwiches, which she warranted to put life into
+a corpse if she could only force them down its throat.
+She almost proceeded to this extreme measure with Poppy,
+threatening, cajoling, and complaining all the while.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually she took her departure with an empty plate
+and glass, and as she went she threw back a last menacing
+remark to the bed.</p>
+
+<p>"And <i>I shall stay up to speak to Luce</i> when he returns
+from the Club." What she could mean by this Poppy<span class="pagenum">[184]</span>
+neither knew nor cared. Revived a little by the wine and
+food, but with a body and mind demanding rest, she closed
+her eyes and fell into dead slumber.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When the candles which Kykie had lighted in the tall
+silver sticks on the dressing-table had burnt far down
+from their scarlet shades, Poppy awakened to the fact
+that someone was moving about her bedroom. She opened
+her eyes, but did not stir or make a sound.</p>
+
+<p>A man was standing by her writing-table humming
+softly to himself while he took up each little ornament
+and article upon it, and gently broke it between his hands.
+There were several paper-knives of wood and silver and
+tortoise-shell; quaint pens, and two gold-set rose-glasses.
+He broke them all gently between his hands, and the snapping
+of them was like the snapping of little bones. He then
+tore up some photographs, and a black-and-white etching
+of the Bay of Naples, and piled the pieces into two little
+heaps. As he walked away from the writing-table towards
+the lighted dressing-table, the candles gleamed on his
+profile, and Poppy saw that it was, as she supposed, the
+profile of Luce Abinger. He was humming between his
+teeth, a little tune&mdash;an odd noise resembling much the sort
+of monotonous hum made by black fighting ants when
+they go out seeking battle with other ant tribes.</p>
+
+<p>Something resembling panic stole over the girl as she
+listened, and once she saw his distorted mouth smiling
+terribly, and could have cried aloud, but she controlled
+herself and continued to lie still with half-closed eyes,
+watching his strange proceedings. From the dressing-table
+he took up her two beautiful ivory brushes with her name
+written in silver across their backs, and bending them in
+his hands, snapped off their handles, laying the broken bits
+down. Then carefully and methodically he broke every<span class="pagenum">[185]</span>
+one of the silver articles on the table. The sound of them
+snapping seemed to give him acute pleasure. Even two
+tall vases of silver and cut-glass were not too strong for
+his skilful hands; nor was a little porcelain trinket-tray,
+with a scene from the <i>Tokaido</i> inlaid upon it (for which
+he had paid thirty pounds at Yokohama), spared.</p>
+
+<p>A handful of rings and bracelets, which Kykie had removed
+from her fainting mistress and placed in a little
+heap upon the table, he dropped upon the floor and ground
+his heel upon.</p>
+
+<p>With no look towards the bed where Poppy lay, he
+left the table then, and sauntered to the walls, from which
+he stripped the wonderful chalk drawings and flung them
+in ribbons to the floor. His eye caught the silver and
+ivory crucifix.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, Christ! I had forgotten you," said he, speaking
+for the first time, in a soft and pleased tone, and picking
+up a boot-tree left carelessly by a chair he approached,
+and struck a ringing blow upon the beautiful ivory face,
+shattering it. Again and again he struck until it lay in a
+hundred tiny splinters on the ground. Poppy's eye had
+sought the door and found it closed; the lock gleamed
+and there was no key to be seen. She came to the conclusion
+that she was locked in with a man who had gone
+mad. The house was absolutely silent.</p>
+
+<p>"If he chooses to kill me, he can; no one will hear my
+calls," she thought, and she continued to lie very still.</p>
+
+<p>In smashing the crucifix Abinger had for the first time
+made a noise louder than the gentle cracking and crunching
+of bones; but he had now awakened to the charm of
+breaking things with a crash. He beat the boot-tree full
+into the smiling face of <i>Monna Lisa</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop smiling, you leaden-jawed Jewess," he said
+softly.</p>
+
+<p>The glass flew in jingling showers in every direction,<span class="pagenum">[186]</span>
+but the strong, quiet face remained on the wall in its frame;
+and though the mouth was full of splintered glass, the
+eyes smiled gravely on&mdash;the eyes of a woman who had
+seen many such violent scenes come and go.</p>
+
+<p>There was a tiny bronze bust of Daniel O'Connell,
+standing on a little cedar-wood shelf, which Abinger caught
+up and flung with a calm, sure aim at the long gilt-edged
+mirror, making a great white radiating asterisk full in the
+centre of it.</p>
+
+<p>All vases and flower-bowls he took from their places and
+dropped upon the floor. The sound of their breaking was
+not unmusical.</p>
+
+<p>He still continued to hum. At last there was nothing
+left to destroy except the books arranged in their shelves
+round the room. A few he pulled from their cases and
+tore them across, but the sound of their tearing was tame
+and had no charm for him after so much exciting noise.
+Leisurely he left them at last and came to the foot of the
+bed and stood looking down upon the girl lying there.
+She met his eyes with a calm and quiet glance, though
+the soul within her was apprehensive enough.</p>
+
+<p>The smile on his mouth was like the carved smile on the
+mouth of some hideous Japanese mask, and his eyes resembled
+the eyes of a gargoyle. He was in full evening-dress
+and very immaculate, and his fair hair lay as smooth
+and sleek upon his head as a sleeping child's.</p>
+
+<p>"Awake?" he asked, with continual and unfailing
+pleasantness.</p>
+
+<p>"You hardly expected me to have remained asleep?"
+asked Poppy equably. She saw very well now that he
+had not lost his reason. His eyes were not an insane man's
+eyes, though they were lit by some frightful emotion, and
+he was plainly in the grip of one of his extraordinary
+rages: the worst she had ever witnessed. It did not occur
+to her that she could in any way be the cause of his anger,<span class="pagenum">[187]</span>
+and she felt wearily indignant that it should be obtruded
+upon her at this time. She did not mind much about all
+her beautiful things with which he had made such holocaust,
+though her possessions had always had for her that pathetic
+value and meaning which the lonely attach to inanimate
+things. But her whole life was <i>boulevers&eacute;</i> now, and she
+understood that such things mattered little.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger was looking at her with a tinge of something
+that might have been expectancy in his fury. Was he
+waiting for her to demand what he meant by this unprecedented
+outrage on her privacy? Ill and careless of life
+as she felt, she still had strength to rebel against this new
+form of tyranny, and to meet it with courage and disdain.
+It seemed to her that it would be more insolent not to ask
+him what he meant, but to simply take such vile and
+brutal conduct as a matter of course. So she stared back
+calmly at him from her pillows, not knowing what a strange
+picture she presented, lying there. Her arms wide from
+her, revealing the long, curved line of her boyish young
+form; her subtle face, pale, with strong ivory tints in it
+against the whiteness of the pillows, the blue scornful light
+of her eyes, and her drowned black hair lying like gorgon
+ropes about her. Passion-racked and pale as Magdalene,
+she was a sight to kindle the fires of pity and chivalry in
+any good man; but the lust of Luce Abinger's eyes was for
+the grace and bloom and beauty of her, that even misery
+and fatigue could not rub out, and these things kindled his
+blood to such a fury of savagery and desire that he scarce
+knew what he did. With one quick movement he had left
+the foot of the bed and was sitting beside her with an iron
+hand on each of hers. So she lay there, like a pinioned bird,
+with his tormented face above her.</p>
+
+<p>"Harlot!" he whispered, still smiling; and the word
+leapt from his lips like a shrivelling flame and scorched
+across her face.<span class="pagenum">[188]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Harlot!" he repeated softly. "Tell me the name of
+your lover!"</p>
+
+<p>That bleached her. Disdain departed from her looks
+and she lay there quivering under his hands; her dry lips
+parted, but her tongue was stiff in her mouth. The blow
+was so utterly and profoundly unexpected. What did he
+mean? What could he mean? How could he know of
+that secret idol in that secret grove of her heart, before
+whose altar she had slain her girlhood&mdash;and his honour?
+How could he know of that sweet shameful secret that
+she shared with a mad or drunken man&mdash;but mad or drunk,
+the man she loved? Had she not buried the secret deep
+and sworn that no one should ever drag it from the depths
+of her? Was it possible that she had not buried it deep
+enough? Was it written across her face for all the world
+to see? She searched the scorching eyes above her and
+then at last she was afraid; her own fell and the lids
+closed over them.</p>
+
+<p>Vile epithets fell again and again from his lips, and
+under each her face blenched and shrank as though little
+flickering flames or drops of corrosive acid had touched it;
+but her eyes were sealed and her lips gave forth no word.</p>
+
+<p>At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly
+to overcome Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's
+hands, his tense features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly
+and vaguely, made his way from the room.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the
+door and locked it soundlessly.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor.
+"Well," said he. "Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am.<span class="pagenum">[189]</span>
+As soon as she feels well enough, I shall send up my carriage,
+and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh air."</p>
+
+<p>"Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some
+time yet," was Miss Cornell's answer. "She is very
+dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised if she croaked."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham gave her a searching look.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in.
+I'll ask Ferrand to call. He's my doctor, and the best
+I know&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've
+called a doctor in already, you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Who have you got?"</p>
+
+<p>"I must go&mdash;I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly.
+"Good-night."</p>
+
+<p>Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and
+Bramham was left to pick his way through the dark garden
+as best he might.</p>
+
+<p>After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole
+from among the trees to the verandah, softly opened the
+front door and walked in upon Miss Cornell, who was
+in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda. The drink
+spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart.</p>
+
+<p>"My God, Rosalind! What a <i>shrik</i><a name="FNanchor_5_5" id="FNanchor_5_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_5_5" class="fnanchor">[5]</a> you gave me!
+<i>Man!</i> What's the matter with you?" At the end of
+her question her voice fell into a whisper. She stared
+with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before her:
+Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched
+hair, a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_5_5" id="Footnote_5_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_5_5"><span class="label">[5]</span></a> Start (fright).</p></div>
+
+<p>"<i>Gott!</i> Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has
+someone been trying to murder you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here
+for safety. Will you take me in, Sophie?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet&mdash;or
+has your old aunt gone up the tree?"<span class="pagenum">[190]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if
+I have to talk. Only, hide me and never let anyone know
+I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The girl fell exhausted
+into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a long face.
+It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind
+Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However,
+she saw that this was no time to argue the point,
+and that her present pressing business was to get the
+exhausted girl to bed.</p>
+
+<p>This she proceeded to do.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[191]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">THE person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy
+back to health and a remote interest in life was
+Charles Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and
+asked him to come and call.</p>
+
+<p>"I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she
+looks like a dying duck, and I believe she <i>will</i> die if someone
+doesn't buck her up. It would be a <i>real</i> charity if you
+would come and talk to her."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted
+the invitation with vivacity, for he was much <i>intrigu&eacute;</i> on
+the subject of Miss Chard, and, further, he had not forgotten
+the romantic and piquant sensations she had inspired
+in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now,
+piquant and romantic sensations are very valuable in
+South Africa, and should always be followed up in case
+of life becoming too monotonously saltless and savourless.
+Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived
+one afternoon in Sophie's absence.</p>
+
+<p>He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl.
+He came upon her suddenly, sitting in the verandah with
+her hands laced round her knees and her eyes staring
+straight in front of her with a look in them that was not
+good to see.</p>
+
+<p>"Why! <i>you</i> ought to be away up in the country somewhere,
+out of this sweltering heat," was his first remark
+after ordinary conventionalities. She observed him coldly<span class="pagenum">[192]</span>
+and assured him that she was perfectly well. Her invitation
+to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite,
+but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt
+Charles Bramham when he was looking for sensations.
+Besides which, he felt a genuine and chivalrous interest in
+this desperate-eyed girl.</p>
+
+<p>"This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he
+said pleasantly. "It's quite unfit for white men in summer&mdash;to
+say nothing of a delicate English girl unaccustomed
+to it."</p>
+
+<p>A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description
+of herself, and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went
+on to tell her about just the ideal spot for her to recover
+her health.</p>
+
+<p>"At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you
+can stand on hills that undulate to the sea five hundred
+feet below, with the whole veldt between brilliant with
+flowers."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face.
+She believed Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had
+such a scrutinising, business-like look about him. But
+to her astonishment he went on to tell her of a valley where
+arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked like miles
+of snowdrifts lying on the grass.</p>
+
+<p>"All along the south coast," he continued, warming to
+his subject, "there are thousands of acres covered with
+flowers&mdash;red and variegated and white. I think the white
+ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of the sea wind
+blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or
+soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added
+wistfully, and the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd
+way.</p>
+
+<p>"But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly.</p>
+
+<p>"No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the
+quail come down," was the artless rejoinder. "Not that<span class="pagenum">[193]</span>
+<i>that</i> will be for a long time yet; September is the time.
+But I like that place."</p>
+
+<p>And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help
+it. She remembered now that she had experienced the
+same pleasure in his frank, kind glances and direct remarks
+the first time she had met him. Certainly there were
+dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain
+too, if one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is
+something attractive about a man who can forget he is
+talking to a woman and remember acres of flowers instead&mdash;and
+get that boyish look into his eyes at the same time!
+She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the
+charm of Charles Bramham. When he had finished
+with Upper Natal, he fell to telling her of a woman, a
+<i>great</i> friend of his, who had once lived in Durban, until
+the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham
+gravely. "She said her temperament did it; but <i>they</i>
+said it was wickedness. So she went away and wrote a book
+about them. She let some of them down on a soft cushion,
+but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging
+there yet&mdash;food for the aasvogels."</p>
+
+<p>"She must be very clever," said Poppy drily.</p>
+
+<p>"She is. She's a <i>bird</i>," said Bramham with enthusiasm.
+"When her book came out everybody here black-guarded
+her, and said it showed what an immoral wretch
+she was to know such things about men and women."
+He gave Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something
+else that was hot on his tongue, but he decided that
+she was too innocent-eyed.</p>
+
+<p>"All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and
+looked at the Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across
+the counter: 'Please send me two copies of <i>Diana Amongst
+the Wesleyans</i> at once; wrap each in the <i>Sunday at Home</i>
+and despatch to my office.'"<span class="pagenum">[194]</span></p>
+
+<p>Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:</p>
+
+<p>"Is she here now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France,
+where, she says, they understand temperament better
+than out here, and I believe it. Last night I went to a
+dinner-party&mdash;a thing I never do, and it served me right&mdash;and
+a woman opposite started tackling me about her;
+said she had seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she
+was older-looking than ever."</p>
+
+<p>"'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love
+with her than ever.' At which she giggled, and they all
+turned up their mirthless eyes at me. That woman is an
+old enemy of mine, and she always trains her guns on me
+whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re,
+and if ever you meet her, beware!"</p>
+
+<p>"'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she
+snippered at me.</p>
+
+<p>"'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but not <i>too</i>
+old. She may be ugly, but not <i>too</i> ugly. She may be
+bad, but not <i>too</i> bad. It is a pity you didn't find someone
+to tell you about this before,' I finished. That gave her
+something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something
+like two hours, and then, having given himself an invitation
+to call again shortly, he left her with laughter on her lips
+and the shadows fled from her eyes. She went indoors
+and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.</p>
+
+<p>"What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly,
+"that I can laugh and be gay, when I know that the future
+is dark with fateful things."</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night,
+while Sophie was away at the theatre and the house was
+quiet, she began and finished with the winged pen of
+inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling with
+tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but also<span class="pagenum">[195]</span>
+fresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the
+shadows. Her personal troubles all forgotten in her work,
+she went to bed wrapped in the ecstasy of one who has
+achieved and knows the achievement good. But not to
+sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back
+and forth through her brain; the metre altered itself to one,
+oddly, daringly original. Phrases like chords of music
+thrilled through her and everything she had already written
+seemed tame and meaningless. Lying there she re-wrote
+the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a swinging, swaying
+metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at
+last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change
+her poem, for she had the artist's gift of selection and
+recognised inspiration when she saw it.</p>
+
+<p>That day found her descended into the pit of desolation
+once more, with the "black butterflies" swarming overhead,
+shutting out the light. What was happening to her
+was that temperament was claiming her. The poet-artist
+in her that had struggled so long for the light was being
+born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance,
+for when the body is sick and the soul torn with
+suffering is temperament's own time.</p>
+
+<p>Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were
+always the black hours afterwards when she forgot that
+she was an artist, and only knew the terror of being a
+woman. Then she suffered.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter.
+She had begun to hate the clicking horror, but
+she felt an obligation to work for Sophie as hard as she
+was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof over her
+head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether
+he sought her. The secret exit in the garden wall she
+had skilfully hidden. Abinger would probably think
+that she had a double key to the front gate and had escaped
+that way, or else through the <i>boys'</i> compound. Certainly<span class="pagenum">[196]</span>
+he would never dream of seeking for her in the house of
+Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter
+to silence as to her presence in the little bungalow, and
+knowing that for some reason it was exceedingly important
+to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that the
+Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many
+men-friends of the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became
+known that a companion and assistant mysteriously
+shared her house, and her work, but the astounding thing
+was that this mysterious person kept to her own quarters
+at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers
+at the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally
+supposed that she was, in the slang of the day, either
+"moth-eaten," or "cracked."</p>
+
+<p>At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's
+tongue also, by telling him frankly that she had an
+enemy she was afraid of and whom she feared would find
+her out.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy
+always welcomed. His visits meant to her a time of ease
+from the torment of her own thoughts, a respite from evil
+dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her a
+strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the
+same feeling for her; but she was sometimes afraid of
+the glances of his grey eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She was not long in discovering that though he was
+essentially a man's man, he had a great fondness for the
+society of women; that, indeed, he was one of those men
+who are lost without a woman as the central figure of
+existence&mdash;to work for and wind dreams around. He told
+her so very often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical
+and symbolical, no doubt, but which were really
+as frank and simple as the man's nature.</p>
+
+<p>"Life out here is saltless and savourless&mdash;just one day's
+march nearer <i>voetsack</i>, unless someone takes an interest<span class="pagenum">[197]</span>
+in you," was the disconsolate remark he made to her one
+day, with a look in his eyes that was even more direct
+than his words.</p>
+
+<p>"But you must have heaps of people who do that,"
+Poppy answered evenly, "and you strike me essentially
+as being one of them yourself. I'm sure you must be, or
+you would not have made a success of your life."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured
+look of a man whose future is secure."</p>
+
+<p>"You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect
+to speak of, money merely expands his interests and makes
+him ever so much more interesting than before. Do you
+think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when
+he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income
+those days?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham,
+grinning.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with
+men who are the equals of Johnson in brain, without being
+hampered by his principles. His endurance and fine
+courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose there
+are many men here who have gone through what he did
+to reach success."</p>
+
+<p>"You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There
+are plenty of men out here who have beaten their way
+through almost insurmountable difficulties, and come out
+top-dog."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy smiled sceptically.</p>
+
+<p>"Difficulties, yes&mdash;but poverty and bitter want?</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty?
+Their minds are often starved, but never their bodies,<span class="pagenum">[198]</span>
+and there is always the sunshine, to clothe and warm.
+Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs filled
+with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and
+be happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this
+place know the real meaning of the word poverty&mdash;you,
+for instance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham
+carelessly. "I am a Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I
+happen to have spent a great part of my youth in London.
+I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I thought it
+pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will
+notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys
+of ten&mdash;there's the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and
+the Bush. Ah, well! I don't suppose you will understand
+what it meant to leave all these things and go and settle
+in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy <i>could</i> understand; but she was so much surprised
+that she said nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"My mother was left a widow with two young sons,"
+continued Bramham in a pleasantly narrative tone. "She
+had no means, but she had the pluck of ten men and a
+heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and
+teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak
+of to be got out of that. We boys had to hustle out and
+find something to do as soon as we left school, which was
+pretty early. There was no hope of a profession for either
+of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth and
+nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was
+the eldest and had to get out when I was twelve, and
+the first place I got was with an undertaker as a sort of
+boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business and
+that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping
+there that was invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a
+billet with a firm of auctioneers, and the experience I
+got <i>there</i> has been mighty useful too. But their place<span class="pagenum">[199]</span>
+of business was a long way from Chelsea, and I couldn't
+afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the mornings
+and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to
+feed myself on during the day. There was a place I used
+to go to for my mid-day meal&mdash;a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,'
+where I used to get a fine hunk of what is known as 'spotted
+dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to that
+every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough
+to live on for the rest of the day. The winter was the
+worst time. My mother was always up to see me off
+in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put heart into me
+for my long walk&mdash;and she would be waiting for me in
+the evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably
+something she had done without for her own dinner.
+During supper she usually had some astonishing tale to
+tell us of great men who, having had to struggle with
+adversity, had won through and come out top. She was
+a brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader&mdash;I
+don't think the life of <i>any</i> famous man had escaped
+her knowledge. It certainly put heart into <i>me</i> to know
+that finer men than I had gone through the same mill, and
+I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound
+to say that the glow had a way of wearing off during the
+daytime. We had a wealthy cousin who could have
+helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his help never went
+any further than writing letters of advice and forwarding
+parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used
+to come my way. I think now, looking back, that the
+worst physical pain I can remember in those London years
+was the feel of that fellow's collars sawing at my gorge.
+He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet him when
+I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off
+those collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and
+sore as my neck used to be."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what the<span class="pagenum">[200]</span>
+worst mental suffering had been, but she had too much
+respect for suffering to ask.</p>
+
+<p>Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.</p>
+
+<p>"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we
+had known out here. My brother, being fairly young,
+didn't feel it so much. My mother and I had our
+memories all to ourselves."</p>
+
+<p>He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was
+sitting with her elbows among the papers on the table
+listening intently.</p>
+
+<p>"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I
+put up a big fight for fortune, and we won out at last;
+but I don't know that we ever should, if my fine old mother
+hadn't been at the back of us all the time."</p>
+
+<p>"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How
+you must have made it up to her afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"She died just when things were beginning to come our
+way," said Bramham.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[201]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">POPPY and Bramham were alone together as they had
+been many times before. The verandah being the
+coolest place, they were sitting there, on a low basket-lounge
+affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and squares
+of light that stretched through the open windows and
+door of the sitting-room, falling across the verandah and
+losing themselves in the massed greenery of the garden.
+The little red glow at the end of Bramham's cigar gave
+enough light at times for him to observe that upon the
+face of his companion the strained, tortured look which
+often haunted it, was getting full play under cover of
+the dimness. She laughed lightly, however, at his sallies
+as they talked&mdash;the disjointed intermittent conversation
+of people who are far from the subject under discussion.</p>
+
+<p>By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were
+seated rather close together; so close, that when Bramham's
+arm, which was lying along the back of the sofa,
+slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her waist.
+Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light
+enough he could not see the troubled look that flashed
+across it. She sat perfectly still, however, and said nothing.
+It <i>might</i> be an accident&mdash;she would wait and see. But
+presently she felt personality and magnetism in the touch
+of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her; and she
+knew that this was not an accident.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless,<span class="pagenum">[202]</span>
+but there was a <i>timbre</i> in her voice that chilled. Bramham
+instantly removed his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" he asked discontentedly.</p>
+
+<p>"Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone
+pleasant and friendly again.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended,
+but he chose to pretend to be. His experience of women
+presently prompted him to make a remark which he had
+discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot
+had missed fire, and, having no other ready at the moment,
+repeated it with as much disagreeableness as he could
+muster&mdash;which was not any very great amount.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be unpleasant to be so cold."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding,
+with a touch of malice: "and there are always plenty
+of fires where one can warm oneself, <i>quelquefois</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"I think that what <i>you</i> need is a bonfire." Bramham
+was feeling distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily
+at this <i>mot</i> that his good-humour was restored. He
+began to smoke again, sitting sideways now, because he
+was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be
+no object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright
+flame."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and
+she desired to keep him friendly; only, there was a thing
+he had to understand clearly. She was learning to make
+use of any twist of the tongue in difficult situations, but
+she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type
+and it seemed indicated that a <i>little</i> of the truth would not
+be out of place at this juncture&mdash;a little only! the real,
+bitter, wonderful truth she would share with no one in the
+world!<span class="pagenum">[203]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said
+at last, very gently. "But I happen to want you for a
+friend, not an enemy."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this.
+However, he declared stoutly that he had never been a
+woman's enemy yet.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you must often have been your own," she retorted,
+with a little glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the
+conversation flagged again. Bramham had missed his
+cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat sullen
+expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had
+lost a lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled
+her with sadness. Only God and she knew how much
+she needed a friend; and she was sure she could find no
+stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man,
+if she could only get him away from these shoals of
+emotion on to the firm ground of friendship.</p>
+
+<p>But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his
+forefinger at the end of his cigar, as though he had no
+further use for it. Obviously, he was thinking of making
+a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand and
+touched his, resting on his knee.</p>
+
+<p>"You are quite right, I <i>am</i> cold," she said softly; "starving
+with cold; and you can never know how charming
+and attractive your fire looks to me, but&mdash;after all, the
+best seat is already taken isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something.
+This was the first time his wife had been mentioned
+between them. She did not falter.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside
+of my very own?" She spoke with the soft bird note in
+her throat, and her smile was a wistful thing to see.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and
+gave it a great grip.</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."<span class="pagenum">[204]</span></p>
+
+<p>A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his
+words. Her eyes filled with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and
+added, on a swift impulse: "The fire I want seems to me
+the most wonderful in the world&mdash;and if I can't be there,
+I'll never sit by any other."</p>
+
+<p>She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking
+at him with a smiling mouth, while the heavy drops
+fell down her cheeks. Bramham thought that, because of
+the smile, he had never seen any woman look so tragic in
+his life.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully.
+"I can't bear to see a woman cry. Do you love someone,
+Rosalind?" he asked, using her name shyly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is
+a knife in my heart." She turned from him now, and
+looked away, that he might not see the despair and
+humiliation in her face.</p>
+
+<p>"I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't
+understand at all. You are altogether a mystery to me; I
+can't understand, for one thing, how a girl like you comes
+to be living with Sophie Cornell&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him.
+"I have always meant to tell you, though I know that for
+some reason Sophie doesn't want you to know. I walked
+into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using a typewriter,
+and I came in and asked her to take me for an
+assistant."</p>
+
+<p>"What! But weren't you a governess to some people
+in Kimberley, and an old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw
+Sophie until I walked in here some three months ago.
+The girl you take me for never came at all, and Sophie was
+glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But, indeed,<span class="pagenum">[205]</span>
+it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful.
+I will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money
+will repay for anything." She added this rather bitterly,
+for, indeed, Sophie never ceased to make her feel her
+obligations, in spite of daily slavery on the typewriter.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, of all the&mdash;!" Bramham began. Later, he
+allowed himself to remark:</p>
+
+<p>"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his
+eulogy on Sophie Cornell.</p>
+
+<p>"But how comes it that a girl like you is&mdash;excuse me&mdash;kicking
+about the world, at a loose end?&mdash;How can any
+fellow that has your love let you suffer!&mdash;The whole
+thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say stands.
+You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If
+I could tell <i>anyone</i>, it would be you&mdash;but I can't. Only&mdash;I
+want a friend, Charlie&mdash;I want help."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll do anything in the world for you&mdash;all you've got
+to say is 'Knife.'"</p>
+
+<p>"I want to get away from Africa to England, and I
+haven't a penny in the world, nor any possessions except
+the things I am wearing now."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But
+have you any friends to go to in England?"</p>
+
+<p>"I have no friends anywhere&mdash;except you.</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:14em">
+<p>"'I have no friend but Resolution<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">... and the briefest end!'</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away
+from Africa, when I love it most&mdash;as <i>you</i> did, Charlie.
+There are things to do and things to go through, and I
+must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean
+to win through and come back and get my own, like you
+did, too."</p>
+
+<p>She jumped up and stood in the light of the window,<span class="pagenum">[206]</span>
+and Bramham could see that her eyes were shining and
+her cheeks flushed. She looked like a beautiful, boastful
+boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking, derisive hand
+at Fate.</p>
+
+<p>"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever
+since I was a child she has done nothing but cheat me
+and smite me on the mouth, and beat me to the earth....
+But I am up again, and I will walk over her yet!...
+Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false
+coin and pass me by on the other side; but I will come
+back and find Love, and it will be <i>my</i> turn to triumph.
+Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly, but gaily,
+bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines
+on my face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I
+have youth, courage, a little beauty, something of wit&mdash;and
+I can write, Charlie. Don't you think that I should
+be able to wrest something for myself from the claws of
+that brute Life&mdash;a little Fame, a little Love&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"I should just say I <i>do</i>," said Bramham heartily.
+"You're true-blue all through, without a streak of yellow
+in the whole of your composition."</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class="pagenum">[207]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">PART III</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 16em">
+<p>Nothing is better I well think<br />
+Than Love: the hidden well water<br />
+Is not so delicate to drink.<br />
+</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[209]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">POPPY sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that
+run direct between Natal and England without
+touching at East London or the Cape.</p>
+
+<p>"If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down
+with diamonds at breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds
+at lunch, and the whole jewel-box for dinner,
+take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And then,
+of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively.
+"Personally I like them; but <i>you</i> look to me like a girl
+who wants rest, and to forget that there is such a place as
+Africa on the map."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats
+before, and thought them excellent places&mdash;for anyone
+who values above all things a little quiet humour. Also,
+persons returning from Africa with little else than a bitterly
+acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting
+their only possession upon the sound basis of contempt
+for riches. For herself, not only was she able to sustain
+life for three weeks without scandals and the elevating
+sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each other
+and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed
+and prayed with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with
+nothing about her but the blue sea and the horizon.</p>
+
+<p>The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and
+to prepare that she must have time and rest. First, there
+must be some bitter days spent in wiping from her mind,
+and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She realised
+that if the greater part of her thought and force was afar<span class="pagenum">[210]</span>
+from her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was
+deep in the heart of Africa, it would be futile to expect
+anything great of the future. Abinger and his soul-searing
+words must be forgotten too; and Clem Portal's fascinating
+friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes and
+generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If
+she admitted thoughts of them into her life, they would
+eat her time, and her strength, which must austerely be
+hoarded for the future.</p>
+
+<p>Courage, resolution, silence&mdash;those were three good
+things, Clem Portal said, to be a woman's friends. And
+those were the things the girl strove to plant firm in her
+soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless eyes,
+the retreating coast of her beloved land.</p>
+
+<p>She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed
+hours of thought and study in some canvas-shaded corner;
+or swinging up and down the decks, drinking in the freshness
+of the wind. Before many days were past, care
+departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her
+face. Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart
+Evelyn Carson had waked to life, sang like a violin in her
+breast. Her feet were on the "Open Road" and she
+loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night,
+brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet
+things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound
+of women's feet upon the Open Road. Its long, level
+stretches are easy to the feet of men, but for women it
+most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and the
+going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the
+pack the journey was commenced with. Youth and Love
+are stout friends with whom to begin the climb, and Poppy
+knew not that she had a pack at all. Certainly she suspected
+nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and her<span class="pagenum">[211]</span>
+own wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still
+she went glad-foot. No one who watched her could have
+believed that she was a girl out in the world alone&mdash;a girl
+breaking away from a past that was a network of sorrows
+and strange happenings, to face a future that lay hidden
+and dark.</p>
+
+<p>The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be
+middle-aged, and not greatly curious about the affairs
+of other people; but they often pondered idly among
+themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed girl with
+the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to
+what had happened to her chaperon at the last moment;
+for they thought it would be ridiculous to suppose that
+she was travelling alone, except by accident.</p>
+
+<p>Only one person thought differently&mdash;the ship's doctor.
+He had seen her eyes the day she came on board, and
+he knew a few things about women's eyes. Indeed, it is
+certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as much
+attention to medical science as he had divided between
+the engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table,
+he would not have been preparing black-draughts
+for able seamen, and treating passengers for <i>mal-de-mer</i>,
+in return for a passage home. He was a good doctor
+gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy,
+ambition&mdash;anything but brains. Ten years of roaming
+through Africa found him at last kicking its dust from his
+feet with his achievements and fortune ably represented
+by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the prospect,
+at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic
+liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven
+face that would soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness&mdash;physical
+and mental; intellect gone to rack and ruin;
+savage boredom with the world in general&mdash;these were the
+things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart
+the few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women,<span class="pagenum">[212]</span>
+and the men who only went to the smoke-room when it
+was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game of whist. And
+always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat
+dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck&mdash;trying to
+place her and read her story. He was sure that she had
+a story. He considered her clothes, and her manners, and
+her walk, distinguished, and in keeping with the general
+theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally travelling
+alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had
+seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the
+conclusion she was facing life on her own responsibility.
+He told himself <i>then</i>, that they were the eyes of a girl who
+had come to a bad bit of the road, and though she had
+wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye,
+blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress
+and storm. Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad
+bits of the road. He had stumbled through muddy and
+broken places himself, and seen others do the same; some
+dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the
+wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct
+for a fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not
+deliberately blunted. Therefore he greatly desired to make
+the acquaintance of "Miss R. Chard," as the passenger-list
+described her. Moreover, he was attracted by her
+unusual beauty.</p>
+
+<p>However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did
+not wish to form acquaintances. When the women made
+pleasant little overtures, she smiled a kind of cold vague
+smile, and let <i>that</i> be her answer. And she simply looked
+through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several
+times on deck and on the companionway, forcing her to
+meet his eyes, but she remained composed and indifferent
+under their bold glance. He had almost despaired of
+ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could
+lay claim to, intervened.<span class="pagenum">[213]</span></p>
+
+<p>On a hot day in the tropics the ship's <i>chef</i> had resort to
+tinned supplies, and amongst other things sent to the
+luncheon-table was an <i>entr&eacute;e</i>, which had the appearance
+of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly wreathed with lettuce and
+cress. Most people attracted by the greenery, partook
+of this dish, and though they immediately discovered
+themselves to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly
+continued the cannibalistic performance, for "bully beef"
+is too old and close a friend to be despised by any South
+African sojourner. However, on this occasion "bully"
+was an enemy&mdash;perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really
+present at last (in portions)&mdash;for before night everyone who
+had partaken of the fascinating bewreathed <i>entr&eacute;e</i> was <i>hors
+de combat</i> with a mild attack of something in the nature
+of ptomaine.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means
+the worst. She was ill enough to require the services of
+Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful for them. He was
+always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than a
+few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her
+health. Soon she was up on deck again; but for a few
+days he continued to professionally superintend her doings.
+Afterwards he fell naturally into the habit of staying to
+talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these things
+are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to
+talk to someone. In the few days spent below she had
+grown weary of herself, and Newnham was an interesting
+interlude&mdash;as interesting as a character on the down-grade
+always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the
+wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But
+efforts that are not natural cannot be kept up long. The
+old Adam soon reasserts himself. Poppy began to get
+prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid
+under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and
+they sickened her. She knew too much about white<span class="pagenum">[214]</span>
+savages, and she much preferred the real thing&mdash;Zulu or
+Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for the
+sake of the curious things he knew about people in different
+parts of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the
+Karoo to the Kalahari, from Boshof to Blantyre, and from
+Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.</p>
+
+<p>Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history
+made, and in the telling of these things he possessed that
+idle eloquence so often found in men of a dissolute type.
+In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the trained
+observation of his student years, was specially striking.</p>
+
+<p>At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence,
+he had been in charge of a native Hospital in one of the
+mine compounds. He said he had cut off enough Kaffirs'
+legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft.</p>
+
+<p>"If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it
+into a reason for cutting his leg off," he said malevolently.
+"I hate the brutes."</p>
+
+<p>"I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled
+lip of disgust. "You know very little of natives, if you
+think they all come under <i>that</i> heading."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart
+that goes with the tender-foot. If you only knew as
+much of them as I do&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it
+at that.</p>
+
+<p>Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa,
+where a man forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through
+fevered swamps, with no companions but his faithful <i>boys</i>,
+upon whose courage and staunch loyalty his life must
+of necessity often depend&mdash;and not depend in vain; for
+"good men" (the expression has nothing to do with
+morals) trust their <i>boys</i>, and are trusted by them to the
+death.</p>
+
+<p>Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts from<span class="pagenum">[215]</span>
+across the sea. That way madness lay! She gave her
+ears once more to Newnham and the Rand.</p>
+
+<p>He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred
+and admiration everyone who has ever lived there feels
+for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of money, and
+tragedy, and suffering.</p>
+
+<p>"It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding:
+"At least, that is what all the old residents say,
+and you can understand the emotion with which they
+say it when you consider that most of them came out
+as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into
+millionaire squires and dames of society."</p>
+
+<p>"But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?"
+smiled Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It
+lures them across the sea. A poignant longing comes to
+them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for the glitter of galvanised-iron
+and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand&mdash;and
+the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do
+precious little for the place that has done so much for
+them," he sneered. "I should say that with the exception
+of the Barnato ward, and an open space for games,
+not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify
+or benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot'
+has always been the watchword. But I suppose it isn't
+in human nature for a debtor to love his creditor!"</p>
+
+<p>Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa.
+The evenings, which were all blue and gold&mdash;sea and
+sky alike thickly sown with stars&mdash;she loved to dream
+away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the
+taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves
+reflected on her face. But when Newnham sought her
+out she would either walk, or have her chair put where
+a big electric-light blazed on the face of her companion.</p>
+
+<p>"Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," was<span class="pagenum">[216]</span>
+a Spanish proverb well known to her, and she had another
+of her own:</p>
+
+<p>"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man
+you distrust."</p>
+
+<p>She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to
+say, but she distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went
+ashore with him at Teneriffe and they wandered about
+the narrow d&eacute;bris-strewn streets, and were stared at by
+the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and
+rouge upon their handsome olive skins and grow stout so
+early in life.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna,
+but Newnham looked lugubrious at the idea&mdash;probably
+his muscles had long been out of gear for climbing or any
+other physical activity&mdash;and hastily suggested that the
+boat would not be making a very long stay. So they
+roamed about the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched
+the barefooted women in the washing pools, and did
+some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her travels to
+have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought,
+quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five
+pounds, the remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed
+Bramham to lend her (she had been obliged to expend
+twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with rapture,
+upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five
+pounds without the turn of an eyelash. It was only
+afterwards that she realised her foolish extravagance.
+As they were returning to the ship followed by two men
+carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham,
+he suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous.</p>
+
+<p>"What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive
+manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a
+sudden thought. "Do you think the woman would take
+that lace back again?"<span class="pagenum">[217]</span></p>
+
+<p>"That five pounds' worth? No&mdash;not for a minute.
+I saw the gleam in her eye when she stowed away your
+fiver. But why&mdash;don't you like it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered
+that I can't afford it."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back.
+But <i>I'll</i> buy it, if you like?"</p>
+
+<p>"You? What for? What would you do with
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but
+she flushed and her manner instantly became cold.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I
+like it and will keep it myself."</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how many times to the minute a woman
+changes her mind!" he jested, but he was secretly much
+amazed.</p>
+
+<p>"She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the
+picture had not presented itself to his mind before, and it
+"gave him to think." He later resolved that he would
+offer to buy the lace from her to give to his sister&mdash;and
+then get her to take it back under the name of a "keepsake"
+when they reached England.</p>
+
+<p>"I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the
+next day she let Newnham see very plainly that she was
+offended. For two more days she kept the atmosphere
+about her so frigid that he did not dare venture into it.
+He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing
+to do but sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that
+he was born, between drinks. On the third evening she
+relented and allowed him to approach her under the blaze
+of electric-light.</p>
+
+<p>"Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded
+almost violently. "What have I done to make you
+angry?"<span class="pagenum">[218]</span></p>
+
+<p>He half expected that she would&mdash;as girls generally
+do&mdash;first feign ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow
+herself to be persuaded that she had never been angry at
+all. But she was not of the same kidney as the girls
+Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten
+years. She spoke at once, and to the point.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give
+me five pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much
+taken aback, could only find tongue to utter:</p>
+
+<p>"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and
+when I remember the way you looked, I wonder that I
+allow myself to speak to you again."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you
+would take it in such a way. It was an ordinary thing
+to do, I thought. Most women or girls in Africa would
+think nothing of taking a little bit of lace."</p>
+
+<p>"I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa,"
+was the cool response. "However, I will say nothing
+further about it, Dr. Newnham. Only please, if you care
+to talk to me, behave yourself&mdash;and don't ever mention
+<i>lace</i> again."</p>
+
+<p>Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by
+a woman since he came to Africa, and he did not take to
+it at all. But he was afraid to show his resentment for
+fear she would carry out her threat and never speak to
+him again. And if she turned her back on him now,
+he believed he should go mad. It had come to <i>that</i> with
+him. He was half-crazed with passion for this girl who
+could look at him so composedly and speak to him so contemptuously.
+But together with his passion was bitter
+rage with himself and with her. He was torn between
+primitive emotions. At one moment he longed with all
+the malignity of a mean weak nature to fling coarse words
+at her that would make her crouch before him; in the<span class="pagenum">[219]</span>
+next he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck,
+his body, his soul to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations,
+breathing hard at her side, she composedly arose and left
+him with a cool good-night.</p>
+
+<p>He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward
+busy for the next two hours; and when at last, by reason
+of the emphatic dimming of the electric lights, he roused
+himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a conclusion
+and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!</p>
+
+<p>All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was
+never far from her, and the look in his eyes stirred her
+to discomfort and foreboding, although it was not comprehensible
+to her. Something in his eyes she understood
+only too well&mdash;she began to expect <i>that</i> in men's eyes now!
+But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression
+mean? She resented it extremely; but her curiosity was
+aroused. In the evening, therefore, she let him pull his
+chair next to hers in the usual corner. Only, the electric
+light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone
+had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while
+to do so, for this was the last night at sea and the ship
+was to dock on the morrow. They were creeping near
+the grey-green English coasts now, and the English weather
+was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and
+the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness
+in the late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar
+of her coat and take shelter under the lee of her chair
+cushion.</p>
+
+<p>Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some
+trace of emotion:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p class="noin">
+"O to be in England<br />
+Now that Spring is there."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>But his emotion was neither for Spring nor England. He<span class="pagenum">[220]</span>
+led the talk to London with the hope of getting her to
+speak of her destination; but she went off at a tangent
+and began to tell him about the wonderful shades of blue
+to be found in the interior of a glacier. He ignored that,
+and made occasion to give her his card with a Kensington
+address written on it, saying in rather strained fashion:</p>
+
+<p>"If ever you want a friend&mdash;doctors are sometimes
+useful people, you know."</p>
+
+<p>She thanked him and took his card, holding it carefully
+in her hand. But she offered no information on the subject
+which so engrossed his thoughts. An uncomfortable
+pause followed. Suddenly in the darkness she felt a hand
+hot on hers.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chard ... Rosalind ..." he had discovered
+her name&mdash;"I will do anything for you."</p>
+
+<p>It was far from being a surprise to her that he should
+make some kind of avowal. But his words seemed to
+her rather odd&mdash;and somehow in keeping with his odd
+looks at her. She very gently drew away her hand from
+under his and put it behind her head. The other was
+quite out of his reach.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you, Dr. Newnham," she said kindly, but with
+no particular fervour.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you understand what I mean?" he said huskily,
+after another pause. "I can help you."</p>
+
+<p>He could not see the expression on her face, but he saw
+that she turned her head to look at him as she answered:</p>
+
+<p>"What can you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you needn't beat about the bush with me," he
+spoke with coarse irritation. "I know what you have
+to face."</p>
+
+<p>"You must be wonderfully clever," she said, with a
+touch of sarcasm; "but I should like to know just what
+you mean."</p>
+
+<p>Irritation now became anger.<span class="pagenum">[221]</span></p>
+
+<p>"You know well enough," he said brutally. "What is
+the good of playing pure with me! It is my business to
+see what isn't plain to other people."</p>
+
+<p>In the darkness she grew pale with anger at his tone,
+but she had fear too, of she knew not what. Her wish
+was to rise and leave him at once; but curiosity chained
+her&mdash;curiosity and creeping, creeping fear. Dimly she
+became conscious of the predestined feeling that once or
+twice before in her life had presaged strange happenings.
+What was she going to hear? She sat very still, waiting.</p>
+
+<p>The man leaned close to her and spoke into her ear.
+His breathing was quick and excited, but he had some
+difficulty with his words; he muttered and his sentences
+were halting and disjointed.</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy heard everything he said. It seemed to
+her that his lowest whisper pierced to the inmost places
+of her being, and reverberated through her like the echoing
+and resounding of bells. Afterwards there was a terrible
+quiet. He could not see her face. She appeared almost
+to be crouching in her chair, all bundled up, but he did
+not venture to touch her&mdash;some instinct kept him from
+that. Pity, mingled with his base passion and scorn.
+He regretted that he had spoken so violently. He feared
+he had been brutal. At last she spoke, in a faint voice,
+that seemed to come from far away.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know what you mean ... I think you must
+be mad."</p>
+
+<p>Newnham laughed&mdash;derisively, devilishly.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll bet that's what you are going home for, all the
+same."</p>
+
+<p>While he was furiously laughing, with his hand flung
+above his head, she flamed up out of her chair, and spoke
+for a moment down at him in a low, vibrating voice:</p>
+
+<p>"You vile man! Never dare speak to me again. You
+are not fit to live!"<span class="pagenum">[222]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then she was gone.</p>
+
+<p>After a time he got up and stumbled towards the smoke-room,
+intending to get drunk; but he changed his mind
+before he reached it, and went to his cabin instead. Having
+closed his door, he sat in the berth and stared at his boots.
+He said at last:</p>
+
+<p>"H&mdash;&mdash;! What a beast I am! But what is worse, I
+am a fool. I am no good any longer. I made a mistake
+in my diagnosis. That girl is straight! Pure as the
+untrodden snow! I had better cut my throat."</p>
+
+<p>However, he did not.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Poppy, lying on her face in her cabin, was tasting shame.
+Bitter-sweet, mysterious, terrifying knowledge was hers
+at last&mdash;and with it was shame. Shame that the knowledge
+should come to her from profane and guilty lips!
+Shame that the child of the king of her heart should be
+unworthily born; that a king's child should be robbed of
+its kingdom; that the mother of her child should be one
+to whom men might throw vile words. Shame that she
+was a transgressor.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[223]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">LONDON was not new to Poppy. She had lived there
+for months at a time, but always at the best hotels
+and under luxurious conditions. Now, she hardly knew
+where to seek a home in accord with her limited means,
+but she had heard of Bloomsbury as being the resort of
+writers and artists and people whose riches are rather to
+be found in their heads and hearts than in their purses;
+so she took her way thither.</p>
+
+<p>She walked the old-fashioned squares the day after her
+arrival and found them all green-tracery, and darts of
+spring sunshine that touched the gloomy houses with the
+gilt of past romance. After much roaming, and knocking,
+and climbing of stairs, and making of awkward adieus
+to angry, disappointed landladies, she eventually discovered
+a tall, white house, whose front windows overlooked
+the pigeons pecking in the straggly grass that grows
+in the courtyard of the British Museum. A room on the
+top floor but one seemed likely to suit her purse and her
+tastes, and she seized upon it eagerly. It was big and
+bare, with no noise overhead, except the footsteps of two
+tired maids, who crept to bed at eleven o'clock with very
+little to say to each other. It seemed to Poppy that she
+could not have found any better place to start hard work
+in, and yet, from the first day there, a dreariness crept over
+her spirit&mdash;a kind of mental numbness she had never
+known before, oppressed her. She supposed it must
+have something to do with her physical condition and
+the shock she had lately received, and that after a few<span class="pagenum">[224]</span>
+days it would pass. Instead, it increased. Her nights
+became indescribably weird and unhappy. Always it
+seemed to her that she heard someone calling somewhere,
+and she used to wake up, thinking that she had been
+urgently roused to fetch something. Sometimes, still
+half asleep, she would get up and begin to dress to go
+out; then, gradually becoming conscious of what she
+was doing, she would light the gas and stare round the
+room, looking for the person who had been speaking to
+her. In the daytime it became impossible to work, though
+she perpetually goaded herself to her writing-table. The
+only time she could get any ease from the intolerable
+restlessness and depression that filled her, was when she
+was half out of her window, leaning above the street,
+watching the intermittent stream of uninteresting-looking
+people who passed up and down the broad, dingy steps
+of the Museum, and listening to the roar of London afar.
+Trying to interpret the street calls was an idle amusement,
+too, wondering why the coal-carters should shout
+<i>Ko-bel</i>, and the cry of the oyster-man be exceeding
+dolorous like the cry of a soul in the depths.</p>
+
+<p><i>Clam ... Clam ... clamavi.</i></p>
+
+<p>In the afternoons, when still haunting sadness obsessed
+her, she would put on her hat and visit a picture-gallery,
+or walk in the park, or roam the streets looking at the
+shop-windows and into the strained, anxious faces of the
+hurrying passers-by. She speculated as to whether she
+would ever get that look, and always she wondered what
+was worth it; then one day, as she walked, she felt what
+seemed tiny fluttering fingers clutching at her heart-strings,
+and she <i>knew</i>! Flying home on swift feet, she
+nailed herself once more to her work-table. She <i>must</i>
+work, she told herself feverishly; and when she could
+not, frenzy seized her, then terror, then despair. Yes,
+those were the things she had seen in the strained, hurry<span class="pagenum">[225]</span>ing
+faces that passed along&mdash;frenzy, terror, despair; not
+for themselves, but for <i>others</i>. <i>She must work!</i></p>
+
+<p>But Inspiration hid Her face; and shadows came out of
+the four corners of the room and closed in upon her.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Breakfast was always brought on a tray by a maid
+called Kate. For the rest of her meals she frequented
+A.B.C. shops, and the like, existing on cups of tea and
+boiled eggs and glasses of milk, after the manner of women
+who live alone and have to economise. But sometimes
+in a wild burst of extravagance she would wend her way
+to Soho and order a little Italian meal all <i>hors-d'&#339;uvres</i> and
+thin Chianti. She loved to hear the French and Italian
+chatter about her, and felt more at home there than anywhere,
+not minding the men's bold, dark glances, for in
+her travels with Abinger she had learnt to know that there
+was really little of harm in them. Of course, she attracted
+much attention and often had uncomfortable adventures
+in her lonely goings and comings; but she did not let these
+ruffle her greatly, telling herself that all such things were
+part and parcel of the fight. She minded nothing, in fact,
+except the tragic atmosphere of her room, which engulfed
+her spirit as soon as she entered. The nights began to
+be even more eerie. She lay awake often until dawn,
+and presently longings and urgings came upon her to
+procure something that would produce sleep. She had
+never known anyone who took drugs or sleeping-draughts,
+and could not imagine what put such an idea into her head&mdash;indeed,
+having read De Quincey's <i>Confessions</i>, she
+had a horror of such things, and so, fought the suggestion
+with all her might. But still it returned. Once when
+she was sitting at her table, with a throbbing head, biting
+her pencil before a blank sheet of paper, she distinctly
+heard someone softly say:<span class="pagenum">[226]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Go and <i>buy</i> some inspiration."</p>
+
+<p>She stared about the empty room.</p>
+
+<p>"What can be the matter with me?" she demanded
+of herself, after a time, and strove with all her strength to
+work and drive such insane thoughts from her. But the
+writer within her was mute, the poet dumb, and her
+woman's body was very weary.</p>
+
+<p>One day, she had been striving with herself for many
+hours, writing down dry, banal words that she almost dug
+out of the paper a moment afterwards. At intervals she
+sat with her head on her arms, wondering what had ever
+caused her to dream that she was born to the pen; brooding
+over the possibilities of her chances as a shop-girl,
+a waitress in a tea-shop, a chorus-girl, a housemaid&mdash;as
+<i>anything</i> but a writer of poems and romantic fiction, at
+which she was obviously a dismal failure.</p>
+
+<p>At last she flung papers and pencils to the four corners
+of the room, and left the house. Out of doors it was
+raining fearsomely. After tramping for an hour or so,
+soaked through, she found herself back near home, in
+Theobald's Row&mdash;a hateful street that smells of fish and
+rank cheese, where men bawl out the price of pork-chops,
+and women come furtively stealing from side-doors,
+wiping their lips. She made haste to get into Southampton
+Row, which has a sweeter savour to the nostrils and a
+staid, respectable air. At a corner she passed a paper
+shop, which had many news-boards exposed, with the
+"sheets" hanging dripping and torn from them. One
+yellow sheet stood out boldly with the words "<i>South
+Africa</i>" in black letters across it. A pang of joy shot
+through her. She could have fallen down before that
+tattered paper and kissed the magic words. The name of
+her own land! The land that had beaten her and bruised
+her and flung her out to seek a living and safety in another
+country&mdash;but her own land! Some words came to her lips:<span class="pagenum">[227]</span></p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:20em">
+<p>"She said: God knows they owe me naught.<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I tossed them to the foaming sea,</span><br />
+I tossed them to the howling waste,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;"><i>Yet still their love comes home to me.</i>"</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>So far she had forbidden herself entirely the luxury
+of journals and magazines, saying that she could not
+afford them; but now she went into the shop and recklessly
+bought up everything that had any connection with
+South-African affairs.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, going home, she saw a flower-girl crouching
+in a doorway with a bale of wet daffodils and narcissi
+in her arms. Flowers, too, were luxuries, concerning
+which she had laid down a law unto herself; but the girl
+made a piteous appeal, and without a thought of dwindling
+funds, Poppy bought up the whole wet fragrant bale.
+Before she reached home she was reproaching herself
+bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"How <i>can</i> I be buying magazines and flowers with
+money I have not earned?... I am becoming degraded! ...
+a parasite!"</p>
+
+<p>Only the smell of the narcissi reassured her, and changed
+the trend of her thoughts, for they reminded her of Charles
+Bramham and his acres of flowers seen from the hilltops.</p>
+
+<p>"He would be glad to think that his money brings this
+rift of blue into my grey sky," she thought; and she
+turned her dreary room into an enchanted spring garden,
+extravagantly ordered a fire and sat before it, tearing the
+news out of the papers with her eyes, searching for the
+name of Evelyn Carson. She had not far to look. In
+every paper she found news of him. His party had
+arrived at Borwezi, a spot in Central Africa, the last
+civilised touching-place before they plunged into the
+savage unknown. He had made a long stay there&mdash;for it
+was on the banks of a "fever river," second only to the<span class="pagenum">[228]</span>
+Pungwe. Carson was reported to have been laid up with
+malarial fever for a week, and a doctor who had joined
+the expedition at Mombassa had been so ill from the
+same cause as to be obliged to abandon his intention and
+to be taken back to civilisation under the care of people
+who had accompanied the expedition as far as Borwezi.
+One paper mentioned the names of Mr. and Mrs. Nick
+Capron as being of the returning party. This was as far
+as the actual news went. Rumours there were in plenty.
+One arresting story, brought into Borwezi by native
+runners, was that the natives of Borapota were departing
+from every part of their country to assemble in the capital,
+where the King would receive Carson and his men&mdash;whether
+in a friendly or hostile spirit was unknown. Several
+papers devoted articles to Carson himself, dealing with his
+achievements in different parts of Africa, his personality,
+his influence with the Zulus and Basutos, and other less-known
+tribes. One journal headed an article with the
+word&mdash;<i>Intandugaza</i>: fortunately the writer did not attempt
+to translate the Zulu word, nor explain how Carson came
+to bear it. (Perhaps that was "one of the untoward
+things about him not compatible with reverence," thought
+Poppy sadly.) After she had drunk in every word of him,
+the papers lay scattered at her feet, and she, lapsing from
+the decree she had made not to think of him, lost herself
+at last in dreams of him. She had lived according to
+the rules of Alice Meynell's <i>Renouncement</i>:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:23em">
+<p>
+"I must not think of thee; and tired yet strong<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I shun the thought that dwells in all delight,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The thought of thee: and in the heaven's blue height:</span><br />
+And in the sweetest passage of a song&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>Now she forgot the fine, firm words, and long, long sat
+dreaming by the fire, with her hands before her face.
+Anyone looking into the room would merely have seen<span class="pagenum">[229]</span>
+a girl lying back in her chair resting, asleep perhaps.
+But only the lesser part of Poppy Destin was there. The
+spirit of her wandered in a moonlit Natal garden, listening
+to a voice with a rustle in it, and from thence ... far, far!</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, she reconstructed all the chapters of her
+life since the magic night that began so wonderfully and
+ended in despair with the uttering of another woman's
+name. Of that woman&mdash;<i>Loraine</i>, she thought little now,
+having fought down and killed the bitter hatred of her,
+as once she had wished to kill the woman. There was no
+room in her awakened heart for hatred&mdash;only Love could
+be there. Love of the man who had awakened it, and to
+whom, whether he loved her or not, she believed herself
+to be secretly linked for ever; and to whom, whether she
+saw him again or not, her hopes, her future, her life were
+dedicated. But she <i>would</i> see him again!&mdash;of that she
+was blindly, fatalistically certain: and he would know
+her for his mate, as she knew him&mdash;or of what use her
+beauty, her wit, her charm, her life at all? All things
+would entangle themselves, she told her heart. As soon
+as she had money enough she meant to free herself from
+the marriage with Luce Abinger that was no marriage
+at all; and from which he knew a Court of Justice would
+free her as an innocent, unwitting victim. As she sat
+thinking, many things that had been dark became clear.
+The meaning of Abinger's fearsome conduct was plain to
+her now&mdash;he <i>knew</i>! Kykie had told him. That was what
+she had stayed up for, supposing herself to be the herald of
+glad tidings.</p>
+
+<p>It made the girl recoil and quiver to think that those
+two had known and spoken of what had been hidden
+from <i>her</i>; of what, even now, she dared hardly consider
+with herself because of its wonder and terror&mdash;something
+that no one in the world should know except just two
+people: so it seemed to her.<span class="pagenum">[230]</span></p>
+
+<p>"But, oh, Mother of God!" she cried aloud and bitterly.
+"Why is this thing so sweet, and yet so terrible to bear?"</p>
+
+<p>Even while she asked she knew, and gave herself the
+answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a Transgressor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At last, far into the night, she undressed and went to
+bed; so tired from emotion that she fell at once into
+dead slumber. But no sooner was she asleep than she
+was dreaming that a woman lay by her side on the bed
+whispering into her ear, pleading, asking for something,
+begging, urgently demanding. With a wrench Poppy
+threw off sleep and sat up staring into the darkness of the
+room. She was only half-awake, but she was certain&mdash;she
+could have <i>sworn</i> that a shadowy figure rose, too,
+from the bed, and slipped into the far shadows.</p>
+
+<p>Beads of fright sat on her forehead.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going mad!" she thought. "There was a woman
+on my bed ... she is still in the room. I am going
+mad!"</p>
+
+<p>She was afraid to lie down again, and afraid to get out
+of bed. She sat there in cold terror until she thought
+herself turned to stone. Then, slowly, reason reasserted
+itself, and courage. She clenched her teeth and nerved
+herself to move, to get from the bed and from the room.
+The whole house was wrapped in darkness. Instinctively
+she made for the room above her, where she knew the
+servants were. Reaching the door she knocked and then
+entered. One of them was awake at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Who's there? What do you want?" said an excited
+voice, ready to scream.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be afraid, Kate ... I am the girl who sleeps
+in the room below ... Miss Chard.... I don't want
+to disturb you&mdash;only&mdash;let me stay here until morning,
+will you?... I'm afraid to be in my own room."<span class="pagenum">[231]</span></p>
+
+<p>Kate was "a good sort." She struck a match and
+stared at the intruder before answering; then she said:
+"Lock the door," and was obeyed with alacrity.</p>
+
+<p>The maid hopped out and soon had a blanket round
+Poppy's trembling form. She made room on the bed, and
+they sat whispering together. The other maid slept on
+like the dead.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you see?" asked Kate.</p>
+
+<p>"See? I don't know ... there was something strange&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"It was <i>'er</i>, sure enough!"</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean, Kate?" Poppy felt her spine
+curling.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm new here," whispered Kate mysteriously; "but
+I got five minutes' talk with the last girl, though the
+missis tried hard to keep us from meeting. Miss&mdash;<i>no one
+ever sleeps in that room long</i>. A lydy cut her throat there!"</p>
+
+<p>"What!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;sure as I'm sitting here. I've been afraid to
+creep up the stairs at night for fear of <i>her</i>. How you
+could a <i>slep</i> there, Heavin knows!" She lowered her voice
+to a whisper: "She used to take them drugs. She was
+a hactress, and she and her 'usbin had that room. She
+was very clever, they said, but she hadn't had no work
+for a long time, and she used to eat away at them drugs
+night and day, and 'er 'usbin never knew. And at last,
+one day he found 'er out, and there was an awful shindy
+and he said as 'e'd leave her if she didn't knock it off.
+And she tried and tried. For a whole three days she did
+without ... walked the room all day and would go
+out and no sooner out than in again ... she told the
+girl it was <i>'ell</i>. Every time anyone came to the door she
+would stand up and just say, ''ell! 'ell! ell!' very quiet
+to herself all the time they was speaking. Then on the
+third night she went out and got <i>it</i>. And the 'usbin<span class="pagenum">[232]</span>
+found out as soon as he came in. She was so gentle and
+sweet-like, and began to 'elp 'im off with his coat. He
+gave her a look ... like <i>hanythink</i>, then 'e put his hat
+and coat on again and walked out. And that very night
+she done for 'erself with one of the razors 'e left behind.
+<i>She done it in the very bed you bin sleeping in.</i> I says
+to cook I says it's a shime of the missis to do it!&mdash;but
+there! she's one of them would sell 'er mother's shroud
+for sixpence. I shan't stay here no more after this, don't
+you believe it, miss&mdash;not for a thousand pound; and nor
+won't you, I reckon."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's reckoning came to much the same sum. When
+she stole down in the morning light, it was to dress herself
+and pack her belongings swiftly for departure. Kate
+stayed by the door until all was done, casting fearsome
+glances about her, ready to fly at a sound. They left
+the flower-decked room then, to the poor, disquieted spirit
+that haunted it, and sought the mistress of the house.
+But she discreetly excused herself from an interview,
+and only sent the cook to demand a week's extra money
+in lieu of the notice that should have been given. Poppy
+expostulated, but it was of no use: she was told that it
+was the rule under which rooms were let and that her
+luggage could be detained. When she had paid, she
+realised that this extra expense would force her to seek
+still cheaper lodgings. That evening found her installed
+in a dingy room in Hunter Street&mdash;another top-floor-but-one.</p>
+
+<p>How she wished at this time, that she had betaken herself
+from the first to Paris, where, she had been told all
+top-floors are white-and-gold rooms, with faded true-lovers'
+knots festooning the ceiling, and wide oak fireplaces
+in which burnt little bright <i>briquette</i> fires. Once,
+wishing to have a picture in the Louvre copied for Luce,
+she had visited a clever but penniless girl-artist in such a<span class="pagenum">[233]</span>
+room, in quite a poor part of the <i>Quartier</i>; and the girl
+had carelessly told her that there were plenty of the same
+kind to be had.</p>
+
+<p>In her new quarters Poppy had barely room to turn
+round: but she was more content. No tragic ghosts kept
+vigil there, it was certain. A healthy scent of Irish stew
+pervaded the atmosphere, and the walls were decorated
+with smiling faces and charming figures. The landlady,
+a stout, breezy woman on the right side of forty-five, had
+once been a chorus girl at the Gaiety, and her circle of
+acquaintances had evidently been large. Little now
+remained to her of beauty, but she had an attractive
+<i>bonhomie</i> and a wide charity for the world of women.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[234]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IN Hunter Street, Poppy put the finishing touches to her
+book of poems&mdash;as far as anything is ever finished until
+it appears in print. For it is certain that a writer will
+always find something new to do to a book as long as
+it is in MS. and within reach. But with Poppy, time
+pressed. She knew that shortly she would be wanting
+money. Moreover, she was horrified to reflect that after
+nearly four months in England she had nothing ready for
+publication but the poems, which had been the work of
+years. The thought came to her that if she could get this
+book accepted and published it would bring courage and
+inspiration back, and so spur her on that she would presently
+come to her own on a full tide. With this hope
+high in her, she sent the poems to a publisher whom she
+had read of in a literary journal as having a reputation
+for encouraging new authors on new subjects. The journal
+in question had omitted to mention that the new authors
+got very little out of the process <i>beyond</i> the encouragement,
+so poor Poppy went home gay of heart from posting
+her precious manuscript and essayed to start work on
+a batch of short stories. She had six of them in a skeleton
+condition; some of them consisting of no more than half
+a dozen startling phrases which were almost stories in
+themselves. These she intended to finish and get into the
+magazines.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, she would complete her book and fire it
+off at the world. She knew she could write. All she<span class="pagenum">[235]</span>
+needed was time&mdash;and peace of mind. Alas! Time
+began to press terribly; and peace of mind was anywhere
+but in a little fourth-floor room in Hunter Street. Inspiration
+appeared to have fled from so commonplace an atmosphere;
+and again the lurking shadows came out of their
+corners, and cast themselves across the pages she could
+not fill.</p>
+
+<p>Her physical condition began to oppress her sorely, too,
+and she no longer <i>wanted</i> to work, for sitting at her desk
+caused headaches and dizziness. She longed for fresh air
+and bracing walks across grass and in the wind: for peaceful
+and beautiful scenes. But London was stifling in the
+grip of summer, and Bloomsbury was the hottest, most
+stifling place in it. The little room was suffocating, and
+out-of-doors the conditions were not much better. The
+streets gave up a white, afflicting dust; the pavements
+burned the feet. The best Poppy could do was to take a
+'bus to some park where she could seek the quiet little
+unfrequented walks. Most of all, she loved the river when
+it swelled serene and full-bosomed from Chelsea onwards to
+Putney and the upper reaches. Along the Embankment
+how often she lingered before the beaten-copper lilies
+on Whistler's door, wishing dreamfully that she might see
+that master of paint and satire come forth, eye-glass
+perched in eye and cane in hand: but he never did&mdash;for
+her. From thence she would go to the statue of grey
+old Carlyle, who sits always in his little green garden
+watching Mother Thames flow by. On, past the Rossetti
+Fountain, and the house where the poet lived; and George
+Eliot's dull and drearsome residence. The Clock House
+charmed her, and she thought that if she <i>could</i> live in
+London she would choose to live there. Always she
+trembled a little when she passed Tite Street, thinking of
+the tragic genius who had made it famous and who was
+eating out his heart in Reading Gaol. She would never<span class="pagenum">[236]</span>
+pass through the street, or look at No. 16, for fear her
+action might seem to savour of the cruel curiosity that
+lifts the cere-cloth from a dead face to seek upon it the
+marks that life has made and death been unable to erase.</p>
+
+<p>At last she would be home again, braced and fresh
+from her long walk and her thoughts&mdash;until she sat to
+her table. Then slowly, but unfailingly, physical weariness
+would steal upon her, and mental depression that
+could not be shaken off.</p>
+
+<p>The facts were to be faced at last that the six stories
+had sped no further ahead than the first few startling
+phrases; and that living with the utmost frugality she was
+down to the bare cold sum of ten pounds. She had long
+ago decided that she could make no further demand on
+Bramham, although he had urged her to do so if she found
+herself in need "before her ship came home" laden with
+the rewards of labour. She had received several kind
+and cheery letters from him, and answered them in the
+same spirit. Afterwards, she had let the correspondence
+lapse, for he wrote of a trip "home" before long, and she
+was afraid that he might seek her out.</p>
+
+<p>She possessed no valuables to realise on, except the piece
+of Spanish lace which had been valued by a pawnbroker
+at thirty shillings. She had nothing, in fact, but her
+literary genius, which had gone back upon her in her hour
+of need. Terrible doubts of her powers assailed her now.
+Could she really write? Or was she merely a scribbling
+woman who <i>might</i> be successful as the editress of a woman's
+dress paper?</p>
+
+<p>No! no! She denied it vehemently. She <i>knew</i> that
+she had the "restless heart and plotting brain" of the
+born writer; the cunning hand for the swift, smiting
+word; the fine eye for the terse or sonorous sentence;
+the tuned ear for the phrase that, like a chord of music,
+caused her exquisite pleasure. And she had knowledge<span class="pagenum">[237]</span>
+of a magic land full of strange people and cruel ghosts and
+dear delights: and an imagination: and a vocabulary.</p>
+
+<p>Of these things she was certain, when she was sane and
+calm; but she was not often sane and calm. No woman
+in her state ever is, even under the kindliest circumstances.
+Terrors, pleasures, fears, hopes&mdash;all are seen through
+the blurred, exaggerating glass of emotion.</p>
+
+<p>The fear began to haunt her that she would not have
+enough money in hand to pay the expenses of her approaching
+illness. Sometimes she threw fear down and trampled
+on it; but other times it overcame her, swept her off her
+feet, engulfed her. Lest she should succumb entirely and
+ignobly she would wrench herself free, and, hastening
+out of doors, spend the remainder of the day wandering,
+resting sometimes in the Abbey, sometimes in the Brompton
+Oratory, seeking always a scene of peace and beauty.</p>
+
+<p>One day her breezy landlady approached her, using all
+the tact and kindness she had command of, yet taking the
+girl cruelly unawares.</p>
+
+<p>"My dear," she said pleasantly, "I hope you have found
+a place to go to when your time comes?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat paling and reddening before her, speechless
+with confusion.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, my dear, you needn't mind me," said Miss Drake
+kindly. "I've lived among 'theatricals' all my days,
+and I know what life is for a lovely girl like you&mdash;and I
+can see you're a good girl, too!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy got up and walked away to the window, so
+unnerved she knew not what to do or say. The kind
+woman's words threw her into a state of misery. She had
+no idea that her secret was shared by others yet.</p>
+
+<p>"What I wanted to say, dear," continued Miss Drake,
+"was, that if you haven't made your arrangements, you
+ought to do so at once: because it would be very inconvenient
+if anything happened here. You can see yourself,<span class="pagenum">[238]</span>
+dear, the kind of house this is, full of quiet business people,
+who wouldn't like things to be upset&mdash;a doctor coming and
+going on the stairs and a nurse and all that fuss, you
+know. So, much as I shall regret losing you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't say anything more, Miss Drake," Poppy
+interposed hastily. "Of course, I shall go&mdash;I am going
+quite soon; I haven't made up my mind <i>where</i>, but I will
+do so at once&mdash;I'll find out as soon as I can&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, yes, of course&mdash;don't worry; don't upset yourself,
+dear&mdash;<i>Butterton's Weekly</i> is a good paper to find a
+nursing home in, if you haven't the address of any woman.
+But there! I expect you will get along all right."</p>
+
+<p>The moment she had gone Poppy flew out to the nearest
+paper-shop, bought a <i>Butterton's Weekly</i>, and brought it
+home for deep study. It is an odious paper. When she
+had read a few of its advertisements, nausea seized her.
+Was she one of the army of these asking for <i>secret</i> and
+<i>confidential</i> homes? And were these homes offered by
+<i>discreet nurses</i> who could <i>get the baby adopted if desired</i>,
+meant for people like her? Again shame flushed her,
+flooded her. She crushed the paper into a ball, hid it, and
+went out for the whole day. But when she came in she
+uncrushed it, and read in it again with dull eyes.</p>
+
+<p>One little shabby advertisement drew her at last. The
+address it gave was a little mean street in Westminster.
+But the advertiser with great subtlety, and doubtless at
+the cost of extra pence, had added the magic words, "<i>Near
+Westminster Abbey.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Those little words redeemed the whole of the wretched
+sordid rag for Poppy. Her soul lifted up its head once
+more. Westminster Abbey! The sight of that beautiful
+place was for all the poor creatures who wanted these
+homes&mdash;it was for her! <i>His</i> son should be born near
+Westminster Abbey!</p>
+
+<p>The next day she sought the address&mdash;No. 10, Old<span class="pagenum">[239]</span>
+Street&mdash;and found it after long wandering. It was, indeed,
+near Westminster Abbey, but the street was terribly
+poor. The minute she got into it, she cried out within
+herself:</p>
+
+<p>"No: it cannot be here: I will not have it here&mdash;."
+But at last she found the number staring at her from a
+dingy door. At that she turned and looked for Westminster
+Abbey&mdash;but there was no sign of it: only tall,
+narrow, sad houses, with frowsily-curtained windows;
+bleak children playing in the gutter and a knife-grinder
+wailing out his chant:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p class="noin">
+"Knives to grind.<br />
+Scissors to grind.<br />
+Pots and tea-<br />
+Kittles to mend."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>"I shall die if I come here," she said desperately, and
+turned to fly, but the door opened suddenly and a woman
+came out and ran an eye over her.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-evening, lady. I see it is me you want," was
+her laconic greeting. "Step inside."</p>
+
+<p>And Poppy found herself doing as she was bidden,
+following the woman into a tawdry sitting-room, which a
+seething gas-jet lighted with a blue and pallid glare. She
+and the woman faced each other over a plum-coloured
+table-cloth that had a border of yellow-floss flowers in
+hideous free-hand design.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you Nurse Selton?" Poppy asked; and Mrs.
+Selton smilingly acknowledged her name. She was a
+little dark villain of a woman, with a hard mouth full of
+assorted teeth, and shrewd, black eyes. Her expression,
+however, was good-tempered, and the nursing costume
+she wore gave her an air of respectability, even refinement.
+She proceeded to inform Poppy that she was
+well known and <i>esteemed</i> in the neighbourhood; that the
+house was quiet and private "in the extreme"; and that,<span class="pagenum">[240]</span>
+as a nurse, she possessed all the necessary diplomas and
+certificates. (Whether this last was true or not her
+listener never discovered.)</p>
+
+<p>"You will be <i>most</i> comfortable," she finished. Poppy
+shuddered.</p>
+
+<p>"What are your terms?" she asked, in a dull voice,
+having entirely made up her mind not to stay with this
+hateful woman in this hateful house. But she wished to
+parley and give herself time to rest, for she felt strangely
+ill. The woman named a sum ridiculously high.</p>
+
+<p>"I could not afford to pay that," she answered; and
+Nurse Selton regarded her coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"That is not much for a lady of your sort&mdash;<i>first</i>, I
+presume? You won't get lower terms anywhere else.
+Won't <i>the gentleman</i> help you?"</p>
+
+<p>When Poppy realised the meaning of this question, the
+best she could do was to bite her lips and avert her eyes
+from the odious woman, who discontentedly continued:</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I'll make it thirty shillings a week <i>until</i>, and
+two pounds a week <i>after</i>. Two guineas <i>for the little affair</i>&mdash;and
+if you want a doctor, a guinea extra."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I care to stay," said the girl in a low
+voice. "You said in your advertisement that your house
+was near Westminster Abbey, but I see that it is nothing
+of the kind."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you make a great mistake," said the nurse
+perkily. "I'll show you a room where you can see the
+Abbey as plain as the nose on my face. Follow me."</p>
+
+<p>And Poppy followed again, through the hall that smelled
+of frying herrings and soapsuds, up a narrow, oil-clothed
+staircase; across two landings; higher and higher, darker
+and darker, stumbling and kicking the narrow steps, to
+the top landing of all. There were three doors upon it,
+and one of them Mrs. Selton opened and drove forward
+to light a gas-jet. It smelled close and dank, but yet was<span class="pagenum">[241]</span>
+inoffensively plain and simple&mdash;the ordinary bedroom
+furniture with no adornments of any kind. Straight
+facing the door was a little casement-window, with a wide
+ledge to lean upon; this the nurse approached and threw
+open.</p>
+
+<p>"There you are," said she stormily; and Poppy looked
+forth, and looked again, and stayed looking, for it was well
+worth having "clomb the deadly stair" to see. There
+was the grey old spired pile, lying lovely against the pale
+evening light.</p>
+
+<p>"I will stay," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>The woman thought her a fool.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything paid in advance," said she in a business-like
+tone. Being satisfied on that point they descended.
+Presently, after answering a few more odiously piercing
+questions, Poppy escaped.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[242]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IN the room overlooking the Abbey were spent many
+dark and ominous hours. By direction of Nurse
+Selton, Poppy presented herself at No. 10 one dreary
+October day, and while she stood knocking at the door
+of the mean house, the grey, sad shadows of Westminster
+fell across her, and were not lifted by day or night.</p>
+
+<p>Each part of London has its own peculiar atmosphere.
+Chelsea is cheerful; Kensington reserved; Bayswater
+extremely refined; Bloomsbury vulgar and pathetic&mdash;and
+a number of other things. Westminster is essentially
+sad&mdash;sad with a noble, stately sadness.</p>
+
+<p>"It cannot grieve as them that have no hope," but its
+high towers and spires, its statues, cloisters, yards, hospitals,
+and ancient walls&mdash;all have an aloof air of haunting
+melancholy. Beautiful but unsmiling, Westminster
+dreams always and sadly of the great, noble past.</p>
+
+<p>So, when Poppy came into it that October day, its
+brooding spirit enfolded her, and all her life after she was
+never quite able to lift from her heart the sad, lovely hand
+of Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>At night, when she could open her little casement-window
+and gaze out at the profile of the Abbey, and
+hear sometimes the bells of "sweet St. Margaret's," life
+went kindly with her. Before leaving Hunter Street, at
+the last moment, a fair thing had happened. The editor
+of <i>The Cornfield</i> had sent her a cheque for eight pounds
+seventeen shillings, in payment for a story which she had<span class="pagenum">[243]</span>
+written in Sophie Cornell's bungalow and discovered of
+late at the bottom of a trunk. It was a story full of sunshine
+and gay, gibing wit, and the editor asked her for
+more work in the same vein. She had none, indeed, to
+send, but the request put her in good heart for the future.
+She essayed to write a little from day to day in the upper
+chamber; but the atmosphere was wrong for the romantic
+sun-bitten tales of her own land that seethed within her,
+and yet evaded her pen when she sought to fasten them
+to paper. Also, though she had but to close her eyes to
+see Africa lying bathed in spring sunshine, and to remember
+every detail of scents and sounds, it broke her heart
+to write of these things in a room dim with fog and full
+of a piercing smell that found its way from the kitchen
+up four flights of stairs and through closed doors&mdash;the
+smell of bloaters.</p>
+
+<p>She brightened her room as much as possible with
+flowers, and taking down Mrs. Selton's tawdry pictures,
+had the walls bare, except for a blue print of Watts's
+<i>Hope</i>&mdash;a statuesque-limbed woman, with blindfolded
+eyes, who sits at the top of the world sounding the last
+string of a broken viol. On a day when hope was bright
+in her, Poppy had bought the picture at a little shop in
+Victoria Street, and now she counted it one of her dearest
+possessions. Always it comforted and cheered her on.</p>
+
+<p>Days came when she needed all the comfort she could
+get. There were other women in the house who were
+apparently in the same case as herself, but they were
+haggard, furtive creatures, holding converse with none,
+shutting doors swiftly at the approach of anyone but
+Nurse Selton, creeping out for air under the cloak of
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes the woman in the adjoining room moaned all
+night, railing at Fate and God that she should have been
+brought to this pass.<span class="pagenum">[244]</span></p>
+
+<p>Once through an open door Poppy heard haggling going
+on about the premium to be paid with a baby that was to
+be "adopted."</p>
+
+<p>The sordidness of life, and the meanness of human
+nature, pressed around her. It was hard to keep ideals in
+such an atmosphere; hard to flaunt the green flag of love
+and hope, when there were so many hands eager to pull
+it down and trample it in the mire. A joyful spirit seemed
+out of place here. To the people she had got among, the
+thing that she thought wonderful and lovely was a curse
+and a bane! The mean house in the back street and
+the common-minded people seemed in a conspiracy to
+make her feel low, and shameful, when she wished only
+to be proud and happy.</p>
+
+<p>"This must be part of the terror that comes of breaking
+the moral law," she whispered to herself. "One's
+act can bring one into contact with sordid people, and
+squalor and vice&mdash;one may become degraded and soiled
+in spite of oneself." She looked around her with hunted
+eyes. "There is nothing fine or noble anywhere here,
+except Watts's picture!" she thought; but when she opened
+her window and saw the grand old Abbey, she could
+think it no longer. There it lay in the gloom, grand
+and silent, standing for great, proud things: the long
+pile with the hunch at one end of it and at the other the
+stately twin pinnacles facing Palace Yard, where Raleigh's
+head fell, and where London goes rolling by to East and
+to West.</p>
+
+<p>Yes: it stood for all high and noble things and thoughts!
+All grand ideals! Nothing squalid there, or shameful!
+Surely it belonged to her&mdash;belonged to everyone who
+loved it, and loved what it meant. But did it? Was she
+cut off from it because&mdash;? She drew in her breath, and
+thought for a long time with closed eyes and clasped
+hands.<span class="pagenum">[245]</span></p>
+
+<p>"... I suppose morality is one of the high things&mdash;and
+I am not moral. I am one of the Magdalenes of
+the earth now!... whoever knows, will call me an
+immoral woman! I think I am only a mistaken one.
+I can see <i>that</i> now, thinking not of myself, but of my son
+to be. I should, if I had no moral instincts, at least have
+thought of consequences to my child! Well-brought-up
+girls are trained to think of these things, I suppose. But
+I was not well brought up&mdash;I was never brought up at all.
+I was a child of Nature. A poppy, blowing and flaming in
+the field&mdash;and plucked. If I had been anything else I
+should not have been in the garden that night at a time
+when well-brought-up girls were in bed! And I should
+have flown at the first sound of danger&mdash;but I didn't.
+Not because I did not recognise danger; but because I
+<i>did</i> recognise something I had been looking for all my
+life&mdash;Love. And I put out both arms and embraced it.
+<i>Now</i> it seems revealed to me that I should not have done
+this ... I should have fenced and fended ... guarded
+myself ... given nothing ... until he had asked for
+me and taken me, before all the world ... and made a
+nest for me somewhere away from the squalor of the
+world where no begriming thoughts could touch me and
+smirch the mother of <i>his</i> son. <i>Then</i> I suppose the Abbey
+would have been for me too!&mdash;--"</p>
+
+<p>She twisted her lips and flung out her fingers.</p>
+
+<p>"And I wouldn't change a thing that is done. Not for
+all the world could give would I forget or have undone
+that radiant hour!... And yet ... and yet ... how
+I should love the nest for my child ... the peace and
+fine honour of a wife's bed to lay <i>his</i> son upon! Oh!
+why does life tear the hearts of women in half like this?"
+She rested her head on her hands and shed passionate tears
+for herself and for all women like her. At last she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, old Abbey! You are <i>mine</i> all the same<span class="pagenum">[246]</span>&mdash;mine
+because, moral or immoral, I love the things you
+stand for. You cannot rob even bad people of the love
+of beauty. And no one can rob me of the peace you have
+put into my heart night after night."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At last illness descended upon her. She had often
+known torment of mind, now she knew torment of body,
+and her mind did not suffer at all; but was possessed of
+a kind of exultation that supported and refreshed her
+through terrible gaps of time.</p>
+
+<p>Nurse Selton came in often, but the girl preferred to be
+alone. Most of the day was spent between <i>Hope</i> over
+the mantelpiece and the casement-window. Often she
+thought of the native women in her own land, who, when
+the time comes to bring forth, go quietly away and make
+a soft green bed in some sheltered place, and there suffer
+in silence and alone; then, after a few hours, return as
+quietly to every-day work and go serenely on with life,
+the new-born child slung behind the shoulders. The
+thought appealed to Poppy. She said:</p>
+
+<p>"That is the way I should have borne my son if I had
+stayed in Africa ... out in the air&mdash;with the sun shining.
+But oh! these terrible walls that shut one in!... and
+without&mdash;cold, fog, mud!"</p>
+
+<p>When evening fell, sickly and grey-green, she opened
+her casement-window and leaned upon its sill. The roar
+of London heard through the fog was like the dull boom
+of the breakers on the Durban back beach. Far away,
+the sky above Trafalgar Square was spasmodically lit
+by electric advertisements.</p>
+
+<p>In the street below, a woman's raucous voice pathetically
+shrieked:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:14em">
+<p>"It's 'ard to give the 'and<br />
+&nbsp; &nbsp; Where the 'eart can <i>Nev</i>-ver be."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[247]</span>But Poppy did not hear. With hidden eyes and hands
+clasped tight upon the pains that racked her, she was
+unravelling the mystery of Life and Love.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Evelyn Carson's son was born in the dawn of a late
+October day: heralded in by Big Ben striking the hour
+of five. Poppy gave one long, ravished glance at the
+little dimpled morsel, with its sleek, black head and features
+like crumpled rose-leaves, then lay back content and at
+peace with all the world.</p>
+
+<p>"How sweet it is to be a woman!" she thought, forgetting
+all past pain and despair, all anguish to come.
+"My heart can never be a stone again, nor my soul a
+shrivelled leaf."</p>
+
+<p>She drowsed happily through the days that followed,
+letting her mind rest with her body; she thought of nothing
+but the sweetness of being a mother; she was intoxicated
+by the cling of the little lips to her breast.</p>
+
+<p>"I am a <i>real</i> woman," she said. "This is what I was
+born for and made beautiful for. Poor, <i>poor</i> old Sara!"</p>
+
+<p>When Nurse Selton came one day and asked if she
+would like to get her child "adopted," she would have
+struck the woman's face if it had been within reach. As
+it was not, she said in a voice that was a drawn sword:</p>
+
+<p>"Go away! I hate you!" And Nurse Selton actually
+understood and went away. She considered Poppy&mdash;taking
+one thing with another&mdash;the craziest patient she
+had ever had.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy talked to her baby afterwards. "I said I would
+be at peace with the world for evermore dear one; but here
+I am, my old self already. And I see that it will always
+be so. I must be at war for <i>your</i> sake now. I must fight
+<i>your</i> enemies&mdash;until you are old enough to fight them for<span class="pagenum">[248]</span>
+yourself. To <i>dare</i> suggest such a thing!" A little while
+after she whispered passionately to the sleek, black
+head:</p>
+
+<p>"She did not know she was speaking of a king's son!"</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[249]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">WHEN the time came for departure from No. 10, Old
+Street, Poppy did not go from Westminster. The
+grip of the place was on her and she did not care to leave
+it. But she sought and found a part of more cheerful
+aspect&mdash;a quiet square with a triangle of green in its centre,
+and the spire of an old church showing above the branches
+of trees in one of its corners. The house where she engaged
+two rooms had an old-fashioned air, though upon the opening
+of the front door was disclosed the depressing interior
+common to most houses of its kind&mdash;the worn linoleum
+in the hall and stairway; the inevitable pretentious hall-chair
+and umbrella-stand; the eternal smell of fish and
+boiling linen. But the two rooms were an artistic find.
+They had been inhabited and furnished by an actress,
+who was married to an artist, and were original without
+being uncomfortable.</p>
+
+<p>The walls were papered with ordinary brown paper to
+a ledge of painted wood, above which rose a smoke-grey
+paper with pale zigzags upon it, making a charming background
+for a number of water-colour sketches and black-and-white
+etchings of all the chief theatrical celebrities,
+from Sir Henry Irving downwards.</p>
+
+<p>There was also a piano&mdash;old and wicked, but still a
+piano, and various odd and quaint bits of furniture. The
+owners of these things had gone to America for a two-years'
+tour, and being anxious to come back to their rooms
+when they returned, had given the landlady instructions<span class="pagenum">[250]</span>
+to "let furnished," and make what she could out of them.
+Poppy seized them with joy, glad to have so pleasant a
+setting for the struggle and fight she knew must ensue.</p>
+
+<p>From the first it was bound to be a handicapped fight,
+for the king's son behaved like one, and a tyrannical despot
+at that. It was plain that work would only be achieved
+by desperate and persistent effort at all sorts of odds and
+ends of time in the day and night.</p>
+
+<p>Probably things would have been more difficult still,
+but for the offices of a kindly soul who lived in the lower
+regions of the house by day, and ascended to somewhere
+near the stars at night, accompanied by her husband and
+two children.</p>
+
+<p>She had opened the door to Poppy on the first visit,
+and having been the medium through which the rooms
+and tenant were brought together, she thereafter looked
+upon the tenant as her special <i>prot&eacute;g&eacute;e</i>. She was a real
+Cockney, born and bred in Horseferry Road&mdash;quite young
+still, but with the hopelessly middle-aged, slack-waisted,
+slip-shod look of the English working man's wife who,
+having achieved a husband and two children, is content
+to consider her fate fulfilled and herself no more a player,
+but merely a <i>pass&eacute;e</i> looker-on at the great game of life.
+However, Mrs. Print did her looking on very good-humouredly.
+Her teeth were decayed, her hair in strings,
+but she carried an air of perpetual cheer and a wide smile.
+Her husband, a spruce, fresh-cheeked young cabman,
+looked, on the contrary, as though all the cares of the universe
+lay across his shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>"'E always puts on that look," smiled Mrs. Print to
+Poppy; "in case I might ask 'im for an hextra sixpence
+for the 'ousekeeping."</p>
+
+<p>She "charred" for Poppy; did various things, such as
+lighting the sitting-room fire and keeping the hearth and
+fire-irons clean. During this last business, which she<span class="pagenum">[251]</span>
+always managed to prolong to the best part of an hour,
+she would give Poppy a brief summary of the morning
+news; an account of what the rest of the people in the
+house had been doing; what her George had said to her
+before he went to work; little bits of information about
+her two children; and advice about the treatment of
+Poppy's baby&mdash;generally sound.</p>
+
+<p>She nearly drove poor Poppy frantic, yet it was impossible
+to be really angry with her: she was so essentially
+well-meaning and so unconsciously humorous. Besides,
+she took the king's son into the garden of the Square for
+a couple of hours every fine afternoon, carrying him
+most carefully up and down whilst she conversed in loud,
+agreeable tones with a dozen and one people who passed
+by, exchanging chaff and banter, roaring with laughter,
+scolding her own children&mdash;Jimmy and Jack&mdash;who were
+left to amuse themselves by staring at the immaculate
+plots of arsenically-green grass and the bare branches of
+the trees. If they did anything else, their mother's tongue
+would wag and her finger threaten.</p>
+
+<p>"Come off there, Jimmy! Jack, if you do that again,
+I'll pay you&mdash;I'll pay you <i>somethink merciful</i>!" Jack, a
+stolid, emotionless boy, looked as though he had been
+badly carved out of a log of wood; but Jimmy was of a
+more vivid appearance, being afflicted with what his
+mother called <i>St. Viper's Dance</i>.</p>
+
+<p>In her window Poppy would sit at her table, her eyes
+occasionally glancing at the figures in the Square, her pen
+flying over the paper before her. She was writing for
+money. Thoughts of Fame had slipped away from her.
+She put her child before Fame now: and wrote no better
+for that.</p>
+
+<p>Day by day she grew paler, and the high cheek-bones
+had shadows beneath them that might easily turn into
+hollows. She had not regained flesh much, and a little<span class="pagenum">[252]</span>
+of her buoyancy was gone. What she needed was to sit
+in the air and sunshine all day playing with her baby's
+dimples. Dank Westminster, built on a swamp, low-lying
+and foggy, when all the rest of London was clear, was
+no place for her or for her baby; but she did not know it,
+and had no time to find out, so wrapt was she in the business
+of making money that would assure home and life
+for her child and herself.</p>
+
+<p>The days were all too short, and soon the midnight-oil
+began to burn. Thereafter, shadows really <i>did</i> change
+gradually into hollows&mdash;very soft hollows, however. Still,
+her eyes were always blue and brave. Mrs. Print used to
+observe her disapprovingly and tell her that she should
+take a leaf out of the book of the <i>lydy</i> upstairs, who lay
+on the sofa all day reading novels.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Never-Sweat&mdash;that's what I calls her!" she
+said, contemptuously dismissing thus an an&aelig;mic blonde
+damsel on the first floor, who mysteriously did nothing
+except take a fat poodle for half an hour's walk every
+day. Mrs. Print's attitude towards this graceful <i>dilettante</i>
+was one of resentful suspicion&mdash;resentful because she
+did nothing: suspicious for the same reason!</p>
+
+<p>"With everybody helse in this 'ouse, including you,
+Mrs. Chard, it is</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p class="noin">
+"'Come day, go day,<br />
+Please, God, send Sunday.'<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>"But all days looks the same to <i>'er</i>," she remarked, as
+she diligently polished the fire-irons in Poppy's sitting-room.
+The latter, intensely bored, knew that it was no
+use trying to divert Mrs. Print from the subject until it
+was exhausted; <i>then</i>, mayhap, she would depart.</p>
+
+<p>"When I went up to do 'er fire this morning, she says
+to me, she says" (here Mrs. Print pitched her voice high
+and fell into a drawl), "'Oh, Mrs. Print, <i>dear</i>, I <i>do</i> feel so<span class="pagenum">[253]</span>
+hill this morning. I've got pains in my 'ead and chest,
+and I can't henjoy my food at all. And my nerves is
+quite <i>rore</i>.' I gives one look at her yeller skin, and I says:
+'Why, you've got the <i>boil</i>, that's what <i>you've</i> got, for want
+of getting about on your two pins. Wot you want to do
+is to go to the chimist's round the corner, and arst him
+for a pennorth of ikery-pikery. When you've took <i>that</i>,
+come back 'ome and turn out these two rooms of yours and
+cook your dinner&mdash;' She give me a look like a mad hyhena,
+and slabbed the door."</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Mrs. Print," said her listener wearily, "do
+make haste and finish that fender. I want to work while
+baby is asleep."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ma'am, I shan't be another minit. I must just
+give the 'earth a brush up, 'a dirty 'earth makes dinner
+late,' and that's what mine'll be to-day, same as breakfast
+was, and Old George gone off in a dandy because he was
+late."</p>
+
+<p>She always spoke of her husband as Old George, her
+children as <i>our</i> Jack and <i>my</i> Jimmy.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As the days went by, writing became more and more
+impossible to Poppy. It had begun to be a weary grinding
+out of words, common-place, and uninspired. She came
+to hate the sight of her writing-table, because of the torment
+of disgust that seized her as she sat at it and read
+over such things as she had been able to write. And her
+longing to be out in the air became almost intolerable.
+She felt like a starved woman&mdash;starved for want of the
+wind and trees and flowers, anything that smelt of open
+free spaces such as she had known all her life until now.</p>
+
+<p>And nothing happened to encourage her. She had no
+news of her <i>Book of Poems</i>, and when she called to see<span class="pagenum">[254]</span>
+the publisher, he was never visible, and when she wrote
+she got no answer except that the reader for the firm had
+not been able to look through the book. Her story had
+not yet appeared in <i>The Cornfield</i>, and the one she had
+followed it up with came back, accompanied by a little
+printed paper, which read to the effect that the editor was
+at present "overstocked." Of course, this was a polite
+way of saying that the story wasn't up to the standard of
+the magazine. She burned with chagrin when she first
+read it. Afterwards, she became hardened to the daily
+sight of intimations of the kind, and to the sickening thud
+of returned manuscripts in the letter-box.</p>
+
+<p>The day when she had no money in the world but the
+thirty shillings realised by the sale of her piece of Spanish
+lace, she left the baby with Mrs. Print and walked all the
+way to Hunter Street, on the forlorn hope that some editor
+might have addressed a letter to her there, enclosing a
+cheque. Miss Drake, the good-natured landlady, was
+alarmed to see her looking so ill.</p>
+
+<p>"You are sitting to your desk too much, dear, and losing
+your beauty&mdash;and you know no girl can afford to do <i>that</i>
+until she has forty thousand in the bank," she said with
+a broad smile. "Why don't you chuck writing over and
+try the stage? A girl of your appearance could get into
+the Gaiety or Daly's any day, especially if you have any
+kind of a voice. The change of life and scene would do
+you a lot of good&mdash;and take it from <i>me</i>, dear, there's
+nothing so comforting in this world as a regular salary."</p>
+
+<p>On top of the 'bus she was obliged from sheer weariness
+to take back to Westminster, Poppy turned the idea over
+in her mind. The stage had never had any attraction
+for her. Unlike most girls, she did not hold the belief
+that she had only to be seen and heard upon the boards to
+become famous. But she could not turn away from the
+thought of the change from sitting at her desk; and the<span class="pagenum">[255]</span>
+regular salary had its potent charm, too&mdash;Miss Drake
+spoke like an oracle there!</p>
+
+<p>However, she put the thought by for another day or
+two. She would give literature another chance, she said,
+with an ironical lip, and she essayed to finish her novel.
+For three days and the better part of three nights she hung
+over it in every moment she could spare from her child;
+at the end of that time she thrust the manuscript into
+the drawer of her table and locked it up.</p>
+
+<p>"Lie there and wait for the inspired hour," she said.
+"I must look for other ways and means to boil the
+pot."</p>
+
+<p>The wrench was to leave the "king's son" at home
+crooning in hired arms beneath the eye of Mrs. Print.</p>
+
+<p>It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of
+theatrical agents and managers. She presented herself
+at the office of one of the best-known agents in London.</p>
+
+<p>The staircase that led to his waiting-room was crowded
+with lounging, clean-shaven men, and the waiting-room
+hummed with the voices of girls and women and more
+men, all gabbling at once. Phrases made themselves heard
+above the din.</p>
+
+<p>"No: I won't go into panto&mdash;not if Frankie goes down
+on his knees to me."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's sure to do <i>that</i>, dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"She says that her figure is her stock-in-trade&mdash;musical
+comedy, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"H'm! more stock than trade, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>A score or so of made-up eyes raked Poppy from under
+heavy <i>complexion</i>-veiling; she became aware of such
+strong scents as <i>frangipani</i> and <i>chypre</i>; many ropes of
+large pearls; heavy fur coats flung open to reveal sparkling
+<i>art</i>-chains slung round bare, well-powdered necks. A
+wry-lipped quotation of Abinger's flitted through her
+memory:<span class="pagenum">[256]</span></p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p class="noin">
+"Diamonds me.<br />
+Sealskins me,<br />
+I'm going on the stage."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>When, after weary waiting, her turn came to be admitted
+to the agent's inner sanctum, she found a clean-looking,
+brown young man, with grey hair and a shrewd eye.
+He shot an enveloping glance over her while she was
+closing the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, dear, what do <i>you</i> want?" he asked briskly, but
+pleasantly&mdash;all theatrical people "dear" each other automatically,
+but Poppy, not knowing this, flushed at the term.
+She explained that she was seeking work on the stage.</p>
+
+<p>"Any experience?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Can you sing?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Dance?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes." (Abinger had allowed her to take lessons in
+Florence.)</p>
+
+<p>"Good legs?"</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her puzzled eyes with impatience.</p>
+
+<p>"Any photographs in tights? I like to know what
+I'm engaging, you know. A lot of you girls come here
+with your spindle-shanks hidden under flounced petticoats
+and flowing skirts; and your bones wrapped up in heavy
+coats and feather boas, and you cut a great dash, and
+when we get you on the stage in tights it's another story
+altogether&mdash;not that I'm saying it about <i>you</i>, dear, for I
+can see&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I am what you require in any case," she
+said as she reached the door. "Good-morning."</p>
+
+<p>She fled through the waiting-room and down the stairs.
+Some of the loungers shared a smile.</p>
+
+<p>"A greenhorn, evidently!" they said. "What has
+Frankie been saying?"<span class="pagenum">[257]</span></p>
+
+<p>The next day she beat her way through wind and rain
+to another office. And the next day to yet another.
+Within a week she did the whole dreary round. All the
+waiting-rooms were crowded, for the spring provincial
+tours were coming on, and engagements were being booked
+briskly; also, there were many vacancies occurring in the
+pantomimes.</p>
+
+<p>Several managers, taken with Poppy's appearance,
+offered her small parts (with a good understudy) in touring
+companies. But she knew that it would be impossible
+to think of travelling with her baby, and she did not for
+a moment contemplate leaving him.</p>
+
+<p>By talking to all the people who talked to her, and
+"theatricals," generally, are a kindly, sociable people,
+she learned that it was of no great use to try the agencies
+for London engagements.</p>
+
+<p>"Go to the theatres themselves," they said; adding
+cheerfully: "not that <i>that's</i> much good either. Every
+stage manager has a gang of pets waiting for an opening
+to occur, and they never let an outsider get in."</p>
+
+<p>One agent, rather more kindly than the rest, suggested
+that she should try the Lyceum Theatre.</p>
+
+<p>"Ravenhill is taking it for a Shakespearian season,"
+he said. "And I should say that class of work would just
+suit you."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy thought so too, and wasted no time about finding
+the Lyceum.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Mr. Ravenhill is seeing small-part ladies and
+walkers-on to-day," the door-keeper informed her confidentially,
+and after a long waiting she was eventually
+shown into the Green-room, where she found the well-known
+Shakespearian actor sitting on a trunk, reading
+his letters, in the midst of piles of scenery and
+robes.</p>
+
+<p>He was a thin, Hamlet-faced man, with a skin of golden<span class="pagenum">[258]</span>
+pallor and romance-lit eyes, and he looked at Poppy with
+kindness and comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you had any experience?" he asked.</p>
+
+<p>"None at all," said Poppy sadly. She was getting
+tired of the question, and felt inclined to vary the answer,
+but the truthful, kind eyes abashed the thought.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there anything you could recite to me?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy thought swiftly. She knew volumes of prose
+and poetry, but at the word everything fled from her
+brain except two things&mdash;Raleigh's "O Eloquent, Just
+and Mighty Death!" which she in somewhat morbid
+mood had been reading the night before, and a poem
+of Henley's that had been dear to her since she had loved
+Carson. In desperation, at last she opened her lips and
+gave forth the sweet, tender words, brokenly, and with
+tears lying on her pale cheeks, but with the voice of a
+bird in the garden:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:23em">
+<p>"When you are old and I am passed away&mdash;<br />
+Passed: and your face, your golden face is grey,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">I think&mdash;what e'er the end, this dream of mine</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Comforting you a friendly star shall shine</span><br />
+Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.<br />
+</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Heart, it shall be so: under the sway<br />
+Of death, the Past's enormous disarray<br />
+Lies hushed and dark. Still tho' there come no sign,<br />
+Live on well pleased; immortal and divine<br />
+Love shall still tend you as God's angels may,<br />
+When you are old."</p>
+</div>
+
+<p>When she had finished she stood, swaying and pale, tears
+falling down. Ravenhill looked at her sadly. He thought:
+"This girl has more than her share of the world's hard
+luck."</p>
+
+<p>"I will take you as a walker-on," he said, "with an
+understudy and with the chance of a small part. You
+have a fine voice, and a temperament&mdash;but I need not
+tell you that. Of course, if you want to get on, you need<span class="pagenum">[259]</span>
+to study and work hard. I can't offer you more than
+thirty shillings a week&mdash;with a difference if you play."</p>
+
+<p>He did not mention that all other walkers-on with
+understudies were only getting a guinea; some of them
+nothing at all. He only looked at her with kindness and
+comradeship.</p>
+
+<p>As for her: she could have fallen at his feet in thankfulness.
+The contract was signed and she went home
+happy.</p>
+
+<p>Thirty shillings a week <i>certain</i>!</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[260]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IT was in bitter February weather that Poppy's engagement
+began, and there had been a week of heavy
+rehearsing before the opening night. She soon felt
+the strain of the unaccustomed work. Ravenhill's was a
+Repertoire-Company, and the bill was changed every
+week, so that while they played one play at night they
+were busy most of the day rehearsing another for the
+coming week. This meant that from ten o'clock in the
+morning until three or four in the afternoon, and again
+from seven until eleven at night, Poppy was parted from
+her baby. She was obliged to permanently employ a
+little nursemaid, and also, to her bitter sorrow, to wean
+her baby.</p>
+
+<p>She comforted herself disconsolately with the thought
+that the change was better for him, because she was not
+so vigorous now as at first. But many a time the silky
+black head was scalded with its mother's tears, for that
+she might no more feel the cling of little lips.</p>
+
+<p>The theatre began to interest her from a literary point
+of view. The writing of plays suggested itself as a fascinating
+medium for the expression of herself; she saw that
+knowledge of stage-craft would be of enormous use to her
+in this direction, and she became absorbed in observing and
+making notes on everything concerning stage technique
+and production.</p>
+
+<p>Her appearance, when "made up," was quite charming,
+and Ravenhill was always glad to put her into a scene, and<span class="pagenum">[261]</span>
+would give her a one-line part whenever it was possible.
+Often she would find herself "on" alone with the "star"
+in a scene&mdash;a court lady, perhaps, lingering by a window
+while the Queen gave forth an impassioned soliloquy; or a
+picturesque figure in the background of a garden-scene;
+but terrible shyness and emotion affected her when she had
+to open her lips on the stage, if only to say "Good-morrow"
+or "Come hither"; and her voice was altogether too
+delicate and canorous for stage use. She preferred to be
+on with the crowd&mdash;a peasant woman in a tattered skirt
+and kerchief, leading a hooting riot in <i>Richard II</i>, or a
+stately lady dancing in the house of the <i>Capulets</i>, or an
+Egyptian girl in the streets of Alexandria carrying a torch
+to light <i>Antony</i> and <i>Cleopatra</i> to bed. Ravenhill was
+disappointed in her that she did not work at her voice,
+nor seem anxious for parts. He did not know that she
+was trying to serve two gods; and that all her incense
+was burnt at the altar of literature, for still she returned
+and returned again to the mistress she loved, but whose
+face was turned from her.</p>
+
+<p>She could not afford to ride to and fro from the theatre,
+for there were four journeys to be made on ordinary days,
+and on <i>matin&eacute;e</i> days six, and tenpence a day made too
+large a hole in a salary needed for many things. So at
+night she took a 'bus to Westminster Bridge at the cost of
+a halfpenny and from thence, in all weathers, she faithfully
+padded-the-hoof for home. The shelter of the long
+stretch of St. Stephen's and the Houses of Parliament
+was always grateful; sometimes, just as she turned the
+corner of the Victoria Tower, the wind from the river
+would sweep and curl around her, nearly rushing her off
+her feet. Then came the long, cutting tramp along the
+Embankment. Often in those midnight walks she thought
+of Charles Bramham. He, too, had known walking in
+the biting cold on tired feet and with a painfully empty<span class="pagenum">[262]</span>
+stomach! The fatigue that got hold of her sometimes was
+terrible. But always for the sake of the silky black head
+of a king's son, she laughed and worked on.</p>
+
+<p>The people at the theatre were kind and pleasant, and
+she made many friends. But they were friends of the
+theatre only, she kept them all rigidly out of her private
+life; and that not without effort, for her personality was
+magnetic and people always wanted to know her. She
+was interesting and mysterious, they thought, and presently
+she became the enigma of the theatre because she
+never lied about her salary, nor bragged of her genius, nor
+repeated fascinating things that "someone in front" had
+said about her voice and her face, nor bored anyone with
+tales of the great future predicted for her.</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, she was at this time striving with a valorous
+heart to live according to Stevenson's creed:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 16em">
+<p class="noin">
+"To be honest: to be kind:<br />
+To earn a little&mdash;and to spend a little less."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>One day when she had got home early from rehearsal,
+and was spending some rapturous moments over the
+adored silken head asleep on its pillow, Mrs. Print came to
+her very much <i>en d&eacute;shabille</i>, her head wrapped in a towel,
+full of excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a gentleman at the front door, knocking," she
+said; "and, oh, ma'am, Mrs. Chard would you be so
+kind as to open it? As sure as I wash my 'ead, it always
+'appens so!"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, good-naturedly, complied, giving a switch of
+her eye at a mirror first, for vanity was far from being
+dead in her yet. She opened the door to&mdash;Charles
+Bramham!</p>
+
+<p>Pale with amazement, she stood glimmering at him
+through her hair.<span class="pagenum">[263]</span></p>
+
+<p>"You!" she cried; then held out her hands in welcome,
+for welcome he truly was, with the smell and burn of Africa
+on him.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; me! I bet you didn't think I'd have the cheek
+to come and find you out. I had a great time digging
+your address out of Miss Drake. But why should you
+hide? Mayn't I come in?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," she said, and led the way; but her manner
+was a little constrained. It had not been on her programme
+at all to let Charles Bramham, or any other man,
+into the secret of her life.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you want?" she asked half crossly, when
+they were in the sitting-room.</p>
+
+<p>"To see you. And you looked mightily glad to see me,
+at first. Don't tell me now, that you are not! But
+what have you been doing to yourself? London is killing
+you. You'd better come back to Africa, or you'll pass
+out. You're so thin I can see through you, and your eyes
+are too big for your face."</p>
+
+<p>He sat down and they talked eagerly. She told him something
+of her disappointments, more of her hopes, and at
+last, of being obliged to take to the theatre as a stop-gap
+"until such time as she began to succeed in literature."</p>
+
+<p>"But why work like this?" he said discontentedly.
+"You'll kill yourself burning two candles at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Not I?" said she gaily. She had no intention of
+letting him know that but for her stage salary she would
+be penniless.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see any sense in it," he muttered. "It can't
+be because you like work. No woman ever yet liked work&mdash;they
+weren't meant to. Anyhow, you can knock off
+for to-day. Put your hat on and come out for a drive and
+to dinner. I'll drive you to your theatre afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid I can't," Poppy faltered. "I never go<span class="pagenum">[264]</span>
+out ... I can't leave my work ... I am tired." She
+stopped lamely. He knew that she was not speaking the
+truth. The fact was, that she had given the little nursemaid
+an hour or two off.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! there's something you don't care to tell me," he
+said with a half-smile; but a shadow crossed his face. At
+that moment they were both transfixed by a sound. The
+king's son began to lament in the next room. Bramham
+would never have guessed, but he happened to see the
+look that leapt into her eyes at the sound; then he stood
+staring at her with a question in his, while the scarlet slowly
+mounted to her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>In truth, she was filled with confusion, and did not know
+what to say. She remembered the time she had accepted
+his offer of money and help; how she had talked to him
+then of her work and aspirations, but had breathed no
+word of <i>this</i>. How could he know that the truth had been
+hidden even from her? What could he think but that
+she had deceived him, made use of him?</p>
+
+<p>The king's son cried again, indignantly, beseechingly.
+Again Bramham saw the mother-look leap to her eyes.
+With no word she flew from the room. When she returned
+she was carrying a little fragrant bundle, and she came
+to Bramham, who was apparently rooted to the spot where
+she had left him. He had heard her crooning to the child
+in the next room, but, like an unbelieving Thomas, he
+wanted still more proof. Her face gave it to him. Confusion
+was gone. Only tender, brooding peace and love
+was there. She held the baby under his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"My son, Charlie!"</p>
+
+<p>He stared down blankly at the little lovely thing, and
+it stared back at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Good God!" said he; "am I dreaming? I could
+swear that was Eve Carson's child!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Poppy softly, and her voice was <i>ci risuo<span class="pagenum">[265]</span>niamo
+in cristallo</i>.
+"It is. But how did you know?"
+she wonderingly asked.</p>
+
+<p>Charles Bramham was dumb. He could only stare.
+Later, he sat down heavily in a chair and used his
+handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p>"Life has held a good many surprises for me, but never
+one like this. <i>Carson!</i> ... and <i>you</i>!... He my dearest
+friend! You, well, you know what I feel about you.
+Yet you two have deceived me! Sprung this amazing
+thing on me. Why! I <i>can't</i> understand it.... Good
+God! I love that fellow! ... <i>he</i> could&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! Charlie, dear friend, you go too fast. Don't
+judge or misjudge. Nothing is as you think. He did not
+deceive you ... nor did I. That night you offered to
+help me and I accepted, I ... <i>I didn't know that this
+wonderful thing was going to happen to me</i> ... and <i>he</i>
+knows nothing. It is <i>my</i> secret."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham digested these things as best he might. Later,
+he said:</p>
+
+<p>"Well he's <i>got</i> to know&mdash;and I shall tell him. Why,
+he's not that sort of fellow at all, Rosalind ... he would
+throw everything to Hades for the sake of a woman he
+loved ... and, of course, he loves you, and would be
+here with you if he knew.... The whole thing is the
+craziest mystery I ever heard of ... <i>of course</i>, he can't
+know ... but I shall tell him, if I have to go up to
+Borapota after him."</p>
+
+<p>"Never, <i>never</i>!" said she. "No one shall ever tell
+him. It is <i>my</i> secret. You dare not interfere. I would
+never forgive you."</p>
+
+<p>He turned away from her, angry, sore, bitterly puzzled.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Charlie," she said wistfully. "Don't be angry.
+This is <i>my</i> life&mdash;my secret.... Leave me to do as seems
+best to me.... Tell me," she said softly, "how did
+you know that my child ... is ... <i>his</i> son?"<span class="pagenum">[266]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Know? Why, anyone would know. He is the dead
+image&mdash;and there are Eve Carson's eyes staring at me. No
+two men in the world have eyes like that."</p>
+
+<p>"Are they not beautiful? And yet so strange!&mdash;one
+blue and one brown! I never&mdash;" she stopped suddenly.
+She had almost told Bramham that she did not know that
+Carson's eyes looked thus, since she had never seen them,
+except in the darkness. But much as she liked Bramham,
+she could not share with him <i>that</i> strange, sweet secret.</p>
+
+<p>Only one more question Bramham asked her.</p>
+
+<p>"Was it Karri you told me of that night, Rosalind?&mdash;the
+man you loved?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," she said. "The only man I have ever loved,
+or will love."</p>
+
+<p>She dined with Bramham, after all, and before they
+parted she had bound him by every oath he honoured
+never to reveal her secret to Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"If you do," she passionately told him, "you may
+precipitate both him and me into terrible misery, and
+neither of us would forgive you. We should probably
+hate you for ever. Leave alone things that you do not
+understand.... How <i>should</i> you understand! You have
+accidentally touched on the fringe of a strange story ...
+something you would never have known except by accident.
+For I don't intend the world to know this when it knows
+<i>me</i> some day, Charlie."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" said he, looking keenly at her. "Are you
+ashamed of your child?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ashamed!" she laughed happily. "Ashamed of the
+greatest joy that ever came to a woman; the son of the
+man she loves!"</p>
+
+<p>A happy look came into his face, too, for the first time
+since he had known the truth.</p>
+
+<p>"That's the spirit! If a woman has the courage to
+take the big jump, she should have the grit to face the<span class="pagenum">[267]</span>
+fences all round the course ... but I don't believe many
+do; and you can't blame them for that either. Rosalind,
+I want to tell you something. I'm a rich man, and I ...
+I have no children." He swallowed an odd sound in his
+throat and averted his eyes for a moment, but went on
+calmly: "I long ago made up my mind to leave every rap,
+when I die, to women who have done what you have done&mdash;and
+had to suffer for it."</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him thoughtfully for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you would be wrong, Charlie. People would
+call it putting a premium on sin, and&mdash;you couldn't really
+help the woman who suffered. Nothing could help her.
+The right kind of woman would value her suffering more
+than your money, believe me." Then, as she saw his
+saddened face, she said, "Help the little love-babies, if
+you like, and bring them up to be as kind and sweet a
+friend as <i>you</i> are to women&mdash;" Impulsively he put his
+hand on hers lying on the dinner-table.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me&mdash;" he began.</p>
+
+<p>"But never offer to help <i>my</i> love-baby," she said warningly,
+"as long as he has a mother to work for him, and
+a king for his father somewhere in the world."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[268]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XIX</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">AT the end of April the season at the Lyceum drew to a
+close, and Ravenhill re-formed his company to tour
+the provinces.</p>
+
+<p>Many of those who had worked with him throughout
+the season were moneyed girls, with such a passion for
+the stage, that they were only too glad to give their services&mdash;"walking-on,"
+dancing, and understudying&mdash;without
+salary, for the sake of the experience in a London
+theatre; and it would have been an easy matter for the
+manager to have composed his touring company largely
+of such people. But he happened to be a man with a big
+heart for the stragglers of the profession; those who were
+in it for the love of their art, too, but incidentally obliged
+to make a living. And so, though he did not disdain to
+employ occasional rich amateurs, he never allowed them
+to usurp the work of legitimate actors and actresses.</p>
+
+<p>In making a selection of people who would be useful
+to him by reason of their looks, or talent, or both, he
+included Poppy on his list, and forthwith she received a
+little notice during the last London week to the effect that
+if she cared to go on tour (with the hope of advancement
+if she studied) the offer was open to her. But the salary
+offered was smaller than she had been receiving, and she
+knew that it was useless to think of travelling with her
+small Pat and supporting herself and him on it. (Ravenhill
+was unaware, of course, that there was any question
+of supporting a child.) She was obliged to refuse the
+offer.<span class="pagenum">[269]</span></p>
+
+<p>With the closing of the theatre the face of the future
+took on a blank and appalling expression. Exercising the
+greatest economy, she had yet not been able to save more
+than three pounds out of her long engagement; and she
+knew not where the next money was to come from. The
+stories she wrote still faithfully returned. The <i>Book
+of Poems</i>, the one brave string in her viol of hope, had
+been lost. The publisher said that it was only mislaid
+and might be found at any moment; but Poppy felt a
+sick certainty that she would never hear of or see her
+darling book again. Most foolishly, she had kept no
+copy of it, and though she believed that by turning up the
+pages of her memory she might re-write it, she could not
+spare the time it would cost to do this. Even if she had
+the necessary leisure, she despaired of ever writing her
+poems again in all their first perfection&mdash;a thought would
+surely be lost here, a line missing there!</p>
+
+<p>Heart-broken, rage seized her when she first received
+the news. She saw a red haze before her eyes as in the
+days when she hated Aunt Lena, and she longed for a
+hammer and the publisher's head on a block. Afterwards
+she achieved calmness that was not resignation, and went
+to interview the publisher and find out what he meant to
+do. Apparently he had not meant to do anything except
+take up the bland and Micawberesque attitude of waiting
+for the book to "turn up." But Poppy's heart was full
+of the rage and fear of a mother-wolf who sees famine
+ahead, and though she successfully hid these primitive
+emotions under a composed manner, there was a feverish
+urgency about her which, strangely convincing, subtly
+communicated itself to the publisher, so that presently,
+quite unintentionally, he found himself promising (in
+the event of the book not being found within three months)
+to pay her a sum to be agreed upon, but not less than
+twenty pounds. In the meantime he engaged, if the book<span class="pagenum">[270]</span>
+should "turn up," to read it and make her a <i>conscientious
+offer</i> for it. He did not forget to add that poems were
+unmarketable ware at the best of times, and that he could
+not hold out hope of any specially high price for hers.</p>
+
+<p>With these conditions Poppy was fain to be content,
+though there was poor comfort in them for her. Three
+months is not long if fame and name wait at the end. But
+it is a long time to wait for twenty pounds. And it is too
+long to starve. In a panic she started out once more on
+the dreary round of agents' offices and theatres. At the
+end of a week's wasted walking, and talking, chill despair
+began to eat its way into her brave heart; in the second
+week the chill was freezing bitter cold that enwrapped,
+and seemed to paralyse her senses, so that she could feel
+nothing but dull fear, not for herself, but for little crowing,
+merry Pat. At that time her thoughts turned to Bramham,
+her friend. But he was gone, and she knew not where to
+find him. He had bidden her good-bye and sailed for
+South America on a prolonged visit. It would be many
+months before he returned to Durban.</p>
+
+<p>In the third week, while she was eking out her last ten
+shillings, still desperately seeking work at the theatres,
+she met in the Strand a girl who had been with her at
+the Lyceum&mdash;one of Ravenhill's moneyed girls, pretty
+and charming, with a host of friends and acquaintances,
+of whom she bitterly complained that they would not
+allow her to fulfill her destiny and become a <i>Sarah Bernhardt</i>.
+She and Poppy had shared the same mirror in a
+Lyceum dressing-room, and become friendly over their
+"make-up" boxes.</p>
+
+<p>By many little marks and signs that women judge on,
+Marion Ashley had concluded that Miss Chard needed every
+penny of the small salary she earned. Her idea was that
+Poppy probably had an invalid mother or sister to support;
+and she had often wished for an opportunity to<span class="pagenum">[271]</span>
+lend a helping-hand to a girl whom she sincerely liked and
+admired. When, in the Strand, she met Poppy, pale
+and harassed, in worn shoes and an unseasonable gown,
+a thought shot through her quick mind and she advanced
+gaily, holding out her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"You are the <i>very</i> girl I wanted to see," she cried.
+"Come into 'Slater's' for tea, and <i>do</i> see if you can help
+me in a <i>great</i> difficulty."</p>
+
+<p>While Poppy took off her gloves Marion Ashley poured
+out the tea and her tale. It transpired that she had a
+cousin who was young and pretty and rich, but with a
+broken back. She had injured herself in the hunting-field
+and would never be able to walk again.</p>
+
+<p>"Ever since, she has become the most awful peevish
+creature in the world, poor thing, and one can't be surprised
+at that! But no one can put up with her temper,
+and no one will stay with her, though she has had companion
+after companion. She insists on their being young
+and pretty, and afterwards she is jealous of them and fires
+them out. Then her mother and her husband come and
+fetch <i>me</i> round, no matter where I am, and really, you know,
+dear, it's a <i>little</i> hard on <i>me</i> to have my <i>career</i> interfered
+with ... it isn't as though I can be of any real use,
+for Frances is jealous of me too, if I am in the house
+much. Well, I'm looking out for someone for her now,
+and&mdash;I thought perhaps you could help me. <i>Do</i> say you
+can?"</p>
+
+<p>She looked appealingly at the pale face opposite her,
+but Poppy gave no sign. She had considered the matter
+rapidly, but&mdash;companionships were badly paid, as a rule,
+and she would have to be separated from her little Pat.
+Marion Ashley's face fell.</p>
+
+<p>"To tell the truth, dear," she said, "I thought you
+might undertake it yourself. Of course, I know you're
+far too good for that sort of thing; but I thought you<span class="pagenum">[272]</span>
+might make a stop-gap of it&mdash;and the salary would be good&mdash;a
+hundred a year Frances pays, and you'd have no
+expenses."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's face changed. A hundred a year! If she <i>must</i>
+part with Pat that would at least ensure him a home in
+the country, and she could save the rest.</p>
+
+<p>"It is very good of you, Miss Ashley.... Will you
+let me think it over?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes&mdash;<i>anything</i>, if you will only take it on. I should
+be <i>so</i> glad. Her husband is always round bothering the
+life out of me to find someone. Oh! I must tell you, dear
+there's <i>one</i> thing besides Frances's temper ... <i>he</i> is
+difficult."</p>
+
+<p>"Bad-tempered, too?" smiled Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Far</i> from it&mdash;altogether too good-tempered and fascinating&mdash;especially
+where a pretty girl is concerned. In
+fact, my dear, he's rapid&mdash;and Frances is jealous; so
+there you have the trouble in a nutshell. Tiresome,
+isn't it? It's just as well to know these things beforehand.
+But I daresay you'll be able to keep him in his
+place."</p>
+
+<p>This information depressed Poppy more than a little.
+She was beginning to realise that whether she liked them
+or not, she attracted men, and she would rather have heard
+of some place where there was no man on the scene. As
+it happened, she was still smarting from an experience of
+the night before. She had, in mistake, opened the door of
+a first-class carriage in the underground station at Victoria.
+She speedily closed it, but the one occupant, a man, had
+had time to observe her, and instantly he whipped the
+door open again and was out on the platform. A minute
+afterwards she found an almost empty "third" and stepped
+into it just as the train started, someone hard on her heels.
+When she looked up there was the first-class passenger
+opposite, smiling at her. For the rest of the journey he<span class="pagenum">[273]</span>
+made ardent love to her with his eyes, and she sat, flaming
+and paling there with anger. The man was serenely
+handsome, a gentleman in appearance at least, but his
+eyes had a look that angered and terrified her; a look that
+now she seemed to know the meaning of.</p>
+
+<p>"It is terrible to have no innocence left! to know the
+meaning of a man like that!" she thought shudderingly,
+and she would not meet his eyes. Only she resolved that
+<i>always</i> she would turn her feet away from the paths
+frequented by men.</p>
+
+<p>"Where does your cousin live?" she asked at last.
+"Perhaps, I'd better go and see her, if I make up my
+mind I can take the engagement."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, <i>do</i>, dear&mdash;Lower Sloane Street&mdash;I'll write the
+number down for you. I must fly now for rehearsal. I'm
+going to be in the new romantic play at The York. Send
+me a line there after you've seen Frances. <i>Do</i> take it
+on, there's a darling&mdash;good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy spent the afternoon crooning and weeping over
+Pat's head. It seemed to her that she died a little death
+every time she thought of parting with him. But&mdash;was
+it not true that the little face had lost some of its pink
+tints of late?&mdash;that the odd eyes were growing larger?
+After she had dried her desperate tears and could trust
+herself to speak equably and reasonably, she called Mrs.
+Print into consultation.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Print had a sister-in-law who lived in a rose-clad
+cottage in Surrey, and adored babies. Poppy had often
+seen and talked to her, and let her take Pat out; for she
+came up to London constantly to try to beguile Mrs.
+Print to part with one of her little boys&mdash;even the
+vivacious Jimmy would have been made welcome.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Print assured Poppy that no <i>Dook's</i> baby would be
+better looked after than a child in Sarah Print's care, and
+that she (Poppy) could go and stay down in the little<span class="pagenum">[274]</span>
+rose-clad cottage whenever she was free, for Sarah had
+lots of room, a lovely garden, and corn-fields all round
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't see nothing but 'ills and corn-fields wheresumever
+you look! It would drive me off my nut to live
+there a week, but Sarah likes it. You tike baby down
+and go and 'ave a look to-morrow, ma'am."</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing but hills and corn-fields!"</p>
+
+<p>The words brought a mist over Poppy's eyes. <i>That</i>
+was what she wanted for her son. She kissed him and
+asked Mrs. Print to mind him for an hour while she went
+to Sloane Street.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>In a bright room, among flowers, the invalid woman lay
+on a couch, with an embroidered coverlet of crimson satin
+drawn up to her chin. Her face was pale and petulant,
+with great brown eyes that roamed restlessly and were full
+of peevish misery. She was of the fickle, impetuous nature
+that indulges in groundless hates and likings, and the
+moment she saw Poppy standing there, she put out her
+hands feverishly, as if for something she had long wanted.
+Poppy, indeed, was sweet and dewy-looking, as always
+when she came from her little love-baby, and now the
+added beauty of courageous renouncement lighted her lilac
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I <i>know</i> you are the girl Marion was talking about,"
+cried the invalid. "You <i>will</i> come, won't you? How
+lovely you are&mdash;I shall just <i>love</i> having you with me!
+Come and sit here where I can see you&mdash;but don't look at
+me; I can't bear to be looked at."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat down by the couch and submitted to being
+stared at, even touched by the pale, restless hands. Mrs.
+Chesney did most of the talking. She only required a
+monosyllable here and there, and her manner varied oddly,<span class="pagenum">[275]</span>
+from a cold hauteur which she vainly tried to make
+indifferent, to entreaty that was almost servile.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you like reading aloud?" she demanded, and before
+Poppy could speak, continued swiftly: "Oh, never
+mind, I don't care if you don't&mdash;<i>of course</i>, everybody <i>hates</i>
+it. Can you play?"</p>
+
+<p>This time she waited for an answer, and Poppy saying
+yes, was waved towards a beautiful Erard that stood in
+a far corner. Taking off her gloves, she went over to it,
+and immediately her fingers fell into a soft and haunting
+melody of Ireland. The woman on the couch closed her
+eyes and lay like one in a trance.</p>
+
+<p>While she played, Poppy resolved to take the opening
+offered her here. It was a living and a well-paid one.
+Little Pat could be sent away to a good home in the country,
+and though the parting must be bitter&mdash;bitter&mdash; Ah! she
+could not think of it! What she <i>must</i> think of was food
+to keep life in his little loved body, health for him in fresh
+sweet air; money to keep herself alive to work for him.</p>
+
+<p>As she rose from the piano there was a prayer of thankfulness
+on her lips for this fresh chance to live. A door
+opened and a man came nonchalantly in.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Harry!" cried the invalid. "This is Miss Chard&mdash;she
+is going to be my new companion. Miss Chard&mdash;my
+husband."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy bowed to the man, meeting the amused cynicism
+of his glance gravely. Not by word or look did she betray
+the fact that she had ever seen him before. But thankfulness
+died away in her, and once more the face of the future
+lowered.</p>
+
+<p>Harry Chesney was the hero of the adventure in the
+underground railway carriage.</p>
+
+<p>While she was putting on her gloves, preparing to go,
+she told Mrs. Chesney that she would call in the morning,
+when the engagement could be finally arranged.<span class="pagenum">[276]</span></p>
+
+<p>It would have been awkward and painful to have told
+the sick woman <i>now</i> that she was not able to accept the
+engagement. Being of so jealous a temperament, the
+invalid would probably suspect that the decision had
+something to do with her husband and would be caused
+misery in this thought.</p>
+
+<p>"It will be simple to write to-night that circumstances
+have occurred which prevent me from coming," was
+Poppy's thought as she said good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>"Touch the bell twice," said Mrs. Chesney.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I'll see Miss Chard down," said Chesney, but
+Poppy had made no delay in touching the bell and a maid
+magically appeared.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The next day she waited at the York Theatre and saw
+Marion Ashley after rehearsal.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted to thank you," she said, "and to tell you
+that after all I couldn't undertake that companionship.
+Something has happened that makes it impossible for me
+to leave home. I wrote to Mrs. Chesney last night."</p>
+
+<p>The brightness of Marion's smile was dashed for an
+instant, but she speedily recovered.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind; a lucky thing has happened here. One
+of the walking-on girls dropped out to-day and they want
+another. Mr. Lingard is a friend of mine, and he's sure
+to have you when he sees you&mdash;you've just the face for
+romantic drama. Come along and see him; he went into
+his office a minute ago&mdash;don't forget to say you've been
+with Ravenhill."</p>
+
+<p>And so through Marion Ashley's kindly offices Poppy
+found herself once more signing a contract to "walk-on-and-understudy"
+at a guinea a week!</p>
+
+<p>But the romantic drama was an unromantic failure.</p>
+
+<p>Long before the end of the first week, the principals<span class="pagenum">[277]</span>
+were looking at each other with blank faces, and holding
+conclaves in each other's dressing-rooms for the purpose
+of exchanging opinions and reports on the probable duration
+of the run. In the "walkers-on" room they gave it
+three weeks, and <i>that</i> playing to "paper houses" every
+night.</p>
+
+<p>Marion Ashley met Poppy in the wings during a quarter
+of an hour's wait that occurred in the second act.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't this an awful disappointment?" she said. "Have
+you anything in view, dear, if we come to a full-stop here?"</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing!" said Poppy, with a brave, careless smile.
+"Divil a thing!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well ... wouldn't you ... what about Mrs. Chesney?
+She's hankering after you still. In fact, she appears
+to have developed a craze for your society. She wrote
+to me this morning, asking me to search you out."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy flushed slightly. "I'm afraid I should be a
+failure as a companion," was all she could say. Marion
+looked at her with curiosity, vexation.</p>
+
+<p>The next day a terrible thing happened. For the first
+time in his short life little Pat was ill. Not very ill, just
+white and listless and disinclined to eat. Poppy, like
+a pale and silent ghost, held him in tender arms every
+moment of the day, except while he slept, when for his
+own sake she put him into his bed, but hovered near,
+watching, praying. Mrs. Print pooh-poohed the sickness
+as nothing but teething-fever, but the wild-eyed mother
+begged her to go out and find a doctor. A grave, kind
+man was found, and his words were not comforting.</p>
+
+<p>"He is not very ill, but he wants care. London is
+hardly the right place for babies at this time of the year.
+If it is possible, I should advise you to take him away
+into the country."</p>
+
+<p>When the hour came for her to go to the theatre, Poppy
+called in the faithful Mrs. Print once more to watch over<span class="pagenum">[278]</span>
+the sleeping child. It broke her heart to leave him, but
+there was nothing else to be done. She might forfeit her
+engagement if she did not appear at the theatre; or, at
+any rate, she would forfeit part of her salary, and she
+needed that more than ever.</p>
+
+<p>She took a halfpenny tram to Victoria Street, meaning
+to walk from there to the theatre. Someone had left an
+evening paper on the seat, and she took it up to glance at
+the advertisements, and see if any hope for the future
+might be gleaned from them. As she turned over the
+pages her distracted eyes caught the impression of a name
+she knew, printed large among several other names. She
+looked again, and flame came into her face, light to her
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>It was, indeed, a name she knew: and yet did not. <i>Sir</i>
+Evelyn Carson! His name was on the Birthday List
+of Honours. He had been made a baronet <i>for services
+rendered to the Empire</i>. Swiftly she scanned the column,
+until she found the short biographical paragraph which
+told in brief outline of his daring expedition into Borapota;
+of the extraordinary personal influence he had speedily
+acquired over the warlike people of that country and of the
+remarkable concessions he had gained for the Empire. He
+had, in fact, without bloodshed or political complications,
+succeeded in establishing a British Protectorate in a rich
+and profitable country.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the column there was a further piece of
+information concerning Carson. It was embodied in a
+cablegram from Durban, which stated, with the convincing
+brevity peculiar to cables, that Sir Evelyn Carson, having
+arrived from Borapota, was to be married immediately
+to Miss May Mappin, only daughter and heiress of the late
+Mr. Isaac Mappin, former Mayor of Durban.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>On her dressing-table at the theatre Poppy found a<span class="pagenum">[279]</span>
+little envelope, pale-tan in colour, containing a week's
+salary and a note from the manager, saying that after the
+next night (Saturday) the play would be taken off the
+boards; no further salaries would be paid. Every member
+of the company had received a similar notice.</p>
+
+<p>During the wait in the second act she sought out Marion
+Ashley.</p>
+
+<p>"Does Mrs. Chesney still want me?" she briefly inquired,
+and Marion turned to her eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course she does. Will you go? Oh, you dear
+girl! I'm <i>so</i> glad. When will you be able to take up your
+residence with her?"</p>
+
+<p>"On Monday next, I think. I can't go before as I have
+to ... take some one ... who is ill ... into the
+country. I shall stay a day there only ... unless, unless
+... the ... person is ... <i>worse</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"And if the person is better?" asked Marion quickly.
+"Oh, my dear, you won't fail poor Frances, will you, if
+you can help it?"</p>
+
+<p>"No." Poppy spoke in a perfectly calm and composed
+voice now, though her eyes were strange to see. "If I
+am alive, and have any reason to wish to continue living,
+you may rely upon me not to fail Mrs. Chesney."</p>
+
+<p>Marion did not quite understand this, but she came
+to the conclusion that some man Miss Chard was in love
+with was desperately ill, and that that accounted for her
+distraught look and strange words.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+<p><span class="pagenum">[281]</span></p>
+
+<p class="h2">PART IV</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 22em">
+<p>"This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,<br />
+Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,<br />
+Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."</p>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[283]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XX</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">ON a January night in 1898, Charles Bramham was
+smoking and writing in the dining-room of Sea
+House.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>It had been a pitiless day&mdash;the sun a ball of brass, and
+the thermometer at eighty-five degrees&mdash;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&mdash;one to his brother in England.</p>
+
+<p>"Read the <i>Field</i> for December 16th. There are two
+letters about American cartridges for shot-guns&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum">[284]</span></p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I know," said Bramham, pushing back his chair
+and regarding them&mdash;"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"Capron," said Abinger laconically.</p>
+
+<p>"What! again? A repetition of last night?"</p>
+
+<p>Bramham shot a glance at Carson, but the latter's face
+expressed nothing more than <i>ennui</i>: he had put his head
+far back in his chair, and was smoking ceilingwards, following
+the gyrations of the bat with a contemplative eye.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham got up and went to the sideboard, bringing
+glasses and decanters to the table.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>They all drank and smoked again in reflective concord.</p>
+
+<p>"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 an<span class="pagenum">[285]</span>
+advantage 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."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, get out!" said Abinger. "Is your name Max
+Nordau, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or are you Mr. Lecky?" derided Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well, you fellows can laugh, but it would be a
+good scheme all the same. Capron, now&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Capron, now&mdash;is thirsty," said he. "And what was
+the interesting remark you were about to make, Brammie,
+my dear?"</p>
+
+<p>"Only just <i>that</i>," Bramham responded serenely. "That
+you were probably thirsty&mdash;as usual. Help yourself&mdash;and
+you, Ferrand."</p>
+
+<p>They drank and were seated, and all smoked, less peacefully
+now, but more reflectively. Capron appeared to be
+the only person afflicted with <i>gaiet&eacute; de c&#339;ur</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you men think?" he demanded. "I went
+with Ferrand to see his patient at the Royal&mdash;he's actually
+got a patient!&mdash;and what do you suppose I saw while I
+was waiting for him in Ulundi Square?"</p>
+
+<p>The others remained calm and incurious.</p>
+
+<p>"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 pretty<span class="pagenum">[286]</span>
+<i>then</i>; but now, by Gad! she has a face that would set any
+man's blood on fire."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" said Abinger dryly; and Bramham virtuously
+remarked: "We are not all so inflammable as you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, I forgot! You're all saints and celibates here."</p>
+
+<p>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.
+Gruy&egrave;re only yesterday why it was&mdash;and what do you
+think she said, my dears?"</p>
+
+<p>No one seemed anxious to learn, but Capron sprightfully
+proceeded:</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Because one's wife wouldn't live with him, and
+another wouldn't live with his wife, and the third has a
+<i>penchant</i> for the wife of his neighbour."</p>
+
+<p>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. Gruy&egrave;re were a nice
+brace of birds.</p>
+
+<p>"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 a <i>mot</i> which 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>
+
+<p>"P-per-haps," stammered Abinger softly, "if you ask
+us we'll tell you."</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class="pagenum">[287]</span></p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"I am going to bed," said one.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What did you want to bring him here for?" demanded
+Carson of Ferrand, but the latter was unabashed.</p>
+
+<p>"I couldn't shake him, and I was tired of his insults.
+It was indicated that Bram should have a turn."</p>
+
+<p>"Someone ought to do unto him as was done unto the
+Levite's concubine," was Abinger's graceful contribution.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>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 in<span class="pagenum">[288]</span>
+the 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Bite on that!" added Bramham without any polish
+of manner.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"She's pale, but she glows like a rose: she has chaste
+eyes, but there is <i>diablerie</i> in 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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham thought: "Part of that might fit one woman
+... but it literally <i>couldn't</i> be her ... I wonder if I
+should go round and&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"If I <i>could</i> be interested in a girl," thought Carson, "I<span class="pagenum">[289]</span>
+might.... <i>A rope of black hair!</i> ... anyway, I have to go
+and look up Nickals at the Royal to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Could it possibly be that devil Poppy?" was Abinger's
+thought. "I shall go round and see." What he said
+was:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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:</p>
+
+<p>"Isandhlwana nineteen years ago to-day, Luce!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"That day we lay above Inyezan, Bram ... do you<span class="pagenum">[290]</span>
+remember? When you potted the big fellow in the <i>umpas</i>
+tree!... 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&mdash;chief
+<i>Gaarons</i>, one of their best leaders ... a sure shot
+... he got ten of our men ... but Bram got <i>him</i> all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>They sat for two solid hours reminiscing.</p>
+
+<p>"You and Luce have had some times together, Charlie!"
+said Carson, after Abinger had gone.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... it makes one feel old&mdash;I suppose we <i>are</i>
+getting 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&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>"I thought she was dead?"</p>
+
+<p>"So did I&mdash;but she wasn't. She is, <i>now</i>, however
+... dropped down one night behind the scenes and passed
+out in half an hour."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Tant mieux!</i>" said Carson serenely. "She didn't
+play according to rules. Well, I suppose, we must turn
+in, Bram&mdash;I've a ton of things to do to-morrow ...
+those cases of guns and ammunition and stuff are due,
+aren't they?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: I got the advice about them: they'll be in dock
+to-morrow. We'll go down and look everything over<span class="pagenum">[291]</span>
+during the week if you like. How long are you going to
+give yourself before you go back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my leave is six months, you know&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"Five years of solitude and natives and pioneers!"
+commented Bramham. "Pretty tough on you!"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;<i>you</i> know that. It's the people
+who come up after the work is done who stick in my
+gizzard."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Even if I possessed such a luxury I couldn't very well
+ask her to come up to a wild place like that&mdash;for wild it
+will be for many a year yet, thank the gods! Do you
+suppose any woman would care about it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I know half a dozen who'd jump at the chance, and<span class="pagenum">[292]</span>
+I expect you do, too. Women are fearfully keen on adventure
+nowadays. And then you're an attraction in
+yourself, Karri."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Joking apart&mdash;you ought to marry. Why don't you,
+Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 a <i>m&eacute;nage-&agrave;-deux</i>
+in the desert? Even supposing that I knew someone
+anxious to share it&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"You have your salary&mdash;two thousand a year," argued
+Bramham. He did not know what a <i>m&eacute;nage-&agrave;-deux</i> was,
+but he could guess.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"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, and<span class="pagenum">[293]</span>
+when it comes to transporting them over a few thousand
+miles of unbroken roads&mdash;why, of course, it is expensive!</p>
+
+<p>"I know all about that, Carson&mdash;all the same, I think
+it would be a good thing if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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 want <i>a</i> wife, but <i>the</i> wife, and I
+haven't met her yet&mdash;the woman who could stand the
+test of five years of <i>wattle-and-daub</i>, and boot-and-saddle,
+and sleeping under the stars for a change when one gets
+tired of the <i>wattle-and-daub</i>; 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.
+<i>We</i> know that these things are fine, Bram&mdash;the best you
+can get in a passable world. But would they be fine
+with the wrong woman?&mdash;with any woman but the one
+who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Who&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"Who can never materialise because she's mostly made
+up of dreams."</p>
+
+<p>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 has<span class="pagenum">[294]</span>
+secretly enshrined in his heart.' It appears that she was
+right."</p>
+
+<p>Carson laughed, too: but his face softened.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham gave him a shrewd glance. He would have
+given half he possessed to say at that moment:</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;but always striving. Scorn left Bramham's
+look and affectionate loyalty came back.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't hate a fellow like that," he thought.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 with<span class="pagenum">[295]</span>
+gold 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?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 said <i>the</i> wife ... 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, <i>something</i> ... about
+such a girl. The odd part of it is that I was crazy about
+another woman at the time&mdash;had been for years&mdash;and
+it cured me of <i>that</i>.... 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."</p>
+
+<p>They gripped hands and parted for the night.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards Bramham mused thus to himself:</p>
+
+<p>"He was lying! He must have been&mdash;or else she was.<span class="pagenum">[296]</span>
+What the deuce is one to make of it? <i>Plenty of water
+under the bridge since then!</i> I daresay!... Capron's
+stray shaft went home.... I wonder if there's any truth
+in <i>that</i> tale!... 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!"</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[297]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">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.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width : 14em">
+<p class="noin">
+"And a smile on the face of the tiger."<br />
+</p></div>
+
+<p>That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed
+into Bramham's head, as Abinger grinned upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"What do <i>you</i> want?" was the latter's affable greeting,
+and Bramham answered fearlessly:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, just a gin-and-bitters! It's getting somewhere
+about lunch-time, isn't it?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo! you fellows! Waiting to see Nickals, too?"</p>
+
+<p>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 and<span class="pagenum">[298]</span>
+see 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.</p>
+
+<p>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
+said <i>he</i> would 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p><i>Ennui</i> engulfed the trio. At last they departed in
+exasperation&mdash;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 fol<span class="pagenum">[299]</span>lowed,
+to inform him in a discreet voice that a note had
+come for him by one of the Royal <i>boys</i>. 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.</p>
+
+<p>"I had a premonition, by Jove!" he exclaimed excitedly,
+and tore it open. It was brief.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"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."</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Bramham stared at the letter for several minutes, then
+seized his hat and rang the bell.</p>
+
+<p>"Call Mr. Merritt," was his order, and the secretary
+reappeared.</p>
+
+<p>"Merritt, I am going out again at once. If Mr. Carson
+or Mr. Abinger send over for me from the Club, <i>I'm
+engaged. Very important business&mdash;here.</i> Shall probably
+see them later in the afternoon&mdash;understand?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly, sir," said the discreet Merritt, and withdrew.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 cr&ecirc;pe, with<span class="pagenum">[300]</span>
+silken oriental embroiderings scrolled upon it, and a big
+lilac-wreathed hat&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't believe my eyes," he said. "It is the most
+amazing thing that ever happened&mdash;to see you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" she asked softly, looking him in the eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought you were in England fighting your way along
+the road to Fame&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care about Fame any more, Charlie."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't care for Fame! Why, you were crazy after
+it!"</p>
+
+<p>"Crazy&mdash;yes, that is the right word. Now I am sane.
+You have had my hand quite a long time&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He did not release it, however, only held it tighter.</p>
+
+<p>"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!"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"What has happened to you?" he asked, in a low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"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 of<span class="pagenum">[301]</span>
+grief too deep for words. The hand that he awkwardly
+brushed across his face was his salute to sorrow.</p>
+
+<p>"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, <i>Hope</i> sitting 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.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't ever speak of it again, will you?... I can't
+... I am not able ..."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not.... No, all right ... I won't," he
+hastily and earnestly assured her.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Were you in this morning?" he presently asked.
+"I was about the hotel for an hour or so with two friends&mdash;Carson
+and Luce Abinger. We might so easily have run
+across you&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Her face when she turned told him nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I spent the greater part of the morning sitting under
+the palms facing the bay, talking to Mrs. Portal&mdash;but I
+left a message where I was to be found in case you
+called."</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Portal! I didn't know you knew her."</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;but,<span class="pagenum">[302]</span>
+if you know her at all, you know how kind and lovely
+her ways are."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, indeed," Bramham heartily agreed. "She is
+altogether charming."</p>
+
+<p>All the same, he was astonished. Mrs. Portal was
+charming, but she stood for orthodoxy, and the girl before
+him was mysteriously unorthodox&mdash;to say the least of it.</p>
+
+<p>"I am dining with her to-night to meet her great friend,
+Mrs. Capron," continued Poppy, eyeing him gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Then you ought to be careful," he blurted out; "for
+you are dining with the two most precise and conventional
+women in the place"&mdash;here he perceived himself to be
+blundering&mdash;"but I may also say the most delightful,"
+he added hastily.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! and why shouldn't I?" she queried softly, but
+her tone brought a slight flush to Bramham's cheek.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know," he stammered. "No reason at
+all, I imagine."</p>
+
+<p>"On the contrary," she said quietly, "you imagine every
+reason."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham scrambled out of his tight corner as best he
+might.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," she said; "and, dear friend&mdash;you need
+not be anxious for me. I only confess where I am sure of
+absolution and the secrecy of the confessional&mdash;never to
+women."</p>
+
+<p>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, through<span class="pagenum">[303]</span>
+tessellated 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;I know you
+are consumed with apprehension on these two points."</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him with such comradeship that he could
+not sulk any longer.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>"You suppose rightly: I have <i>got</i> on. I have three
+plays running at London theatres, two novels selling well,
+and a book of poems in its tenth edition&mdash;not bad for
+poems, you know."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You!... You!... why, I've never even heard
+of you!" he cried, mortified, astonished, and it must be
+confessed, slightly unbelieving.</p>
+
+<p>"But perhaps you have heard of <i>Eve Destiny</i>? Here<span class="pagenum">[304]</span>
+are 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&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"A hundred a year! Why, if you go on like this you'll
+be more likely to haul in ten thousand a year."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! but I'm not going on," she interpolated calmly.
+"I don't mean to work any more."</p>
+
+<p>"Not work any more? Why? Are you panned?...
+dried up ... fizzled out?"</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," she laughed. "I have as much fizzle as
+ever ... I don't want to work any more&mdash;that's all.
+I'm tired ... and there is nothing to work for."</p>
+
+<p>"But since when did you begin to feel like that?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 in <i>that</i>, 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&mdash;it was to keep herself from<span class="pagenum">[305]</span>
+wailing like a banshee! An interval here occurred, monopolised
+entirely by the waiter&mdash;a coolie, slim, snowily-draped,
+and regretful as are all coolie-waiters.</p>
+
+<p>It was Bramham who again broached the subject of
+Carson. He could not help himself&mdash;these two people were
+dear to him; and, besides, he was eaten up with curiosity.</p>
+
+<p>"If you go to the Portals you will meet Eve Carson.
+He is <i>persona grata</i> there."</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>"His wife&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I should think it would be&mdash;when he gets one.
+I was asking him only last night why he didn't marry,
+and he said&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"He would be sure to say something arresting," said
+Poppy, but she had grown pale as death. Her eyes waited
+upon Bramham's lips.</p>
+
+<p>"He said, first, that he was not wealthy enough&mdash;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."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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 their<span class="pagenum">[306]</span>
+engagement 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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Never! Never!" she cried fiercely. "I should curse
+you for ever ... I.... And so he is not married?" she
+said in an ordinary voice.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nor ever will be, till he finds the woman of his
+dreams, according to his own tale."</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly she rose from her chair.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye ... I must go now ... I want to be
+alone ... I want rest ... I must think. Forgive me
+for leaving you like this&mdash;" 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, two&mdash;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, otherwise
+<i>Eve Destiny</i>. Bramham became so engrossed at last that
+he forgot all the staring people in the room and the two
+coffee-cups and his discomfort.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a genius, by Jove!" he said grimly. "One
+must get used to being made uncomfortable."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[307]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"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!)</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.<span class="pagenum">[308]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Listen to the blood-shedders!" said Mrs. Capron.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, one of them is Bill," said Clem, "and I hoped
+he was looking after people inside! Who is he talking to,
+I wonder."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Capron opened her lips to answer, then closed them
+again and looked away at the sea. Luce Abinger smiled to
+himself.</p>
+
+<p>"That's C-Carson," he said. "He c-came up with
+me."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;he had as many sets of expressions for
+his eyes as he had for his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>But in whatsoever way he looked, he always made the
+woman he was talking to <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i> feel 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, <i>must</i> have
+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.</p>
+
+<p>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,<span class="pagenum">[309]</span>
+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. Gruy&egrave;re, 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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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 the
+<i>cheep-cheeping</i> of some tame guinea-fowl in a neighbouring
+garden.</p>
+
+<p>If only Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re 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 could<span class="pagenum">[310]</span>
+say "Oh!" and "Really?" quite prettily at appropriate
+intervals, and he much preferred her to Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re,
+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. Gruy&egrave;re'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&mdash;"both
+highly desirable qualifications, surely?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re, who had been educated at a Colonial
+<i>seminary</i>, 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.</p>
+
+<p>"But, <i>dear</i> Mrs. Portal, desirable qualifications are not
+always sufficient ones. <i>Where</i> did she come from, and
+who are her people, I wonder? It seems <i>strange</i> in a small
+place like Durban, not to have met her before! What
+does she want here?"</p>
+
+<p>"She paints charmingly," was all Mrs. Portal vouchsafed&mdash;"most
+beautiful little water-colours." After a
+moment's consideration she added: "She is going to do my
+miniature."</p>
+
+<p>Thereafter, she looked dreamily into space, apparently
+thinking of something else&mdash;an old ruse of hers when
+harassed about her harum-scarum acquaintances. Abinger<span class="pagenum">[311]</span>
+began 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. Gruy&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed! An artist?" that lady insisted abominably.
+"I wonder if&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;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&mdash;yes, decidedly her&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Really?" said Mrs. Gerald Lace, all attention, thinking
+what a charming miniature her blonde beauty would
+make.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re 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&mdash;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. Gruy&egrave;re had got her second wind.</p>
+
+<p>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, <i>much</i> more eligible for the post? (Her own<span class="pagenum">[312]</span>
+brother, in fact&mdash;<i>hinc ill&aelig;!</i>) 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?</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And was made Mayor, and died!" she finished as
+though she had been reciting a new kind of creed.</p>
+
+<p>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. Gruy&egrave;re, and remarked with great emphasis and
+point:</p>
+
+<p>"Rot!"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re looked as if she would have liked to snort
+at this rude reception of her news; she contented herself,
+however, with a sniff&mdash;a Colonial habit of hers.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"He would never <i>dream</i> of marrying a Colonial: Gerald
+told me so."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re'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&mdash;if she had only been a Johannesburg
+crow, with three coats of whitewash, <i>how</i> Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re
+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&mdash;and
+that was a far cry! And since her marriage, she was
+known to be what is called "absolutely de-<i>vo</i>-ted." What
+satisfaction can be got out of a woman like that? Mrs.<span class="pagenum">[313]</span>
+Gruy&egrave;re 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.</p>
+
+<p>"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."</p>
+
+<p>Abinger's answers were as various as Mrs. Portal's
+sandwiches, and as liberally supplied with mustard.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p class="noin">
+1. Yes; but he didn't live with Miss Mappin.<br />
+2. Carson had not asked his advice about the best
+place to spend a honeymoon.<br />
+3. Miss Mappin had not told him that she loved Carson.<br />
+4. He did not read Carson's letters.<br />
+5. He could not swear that Carson was not already married.<br />
+6. All women were in love with Carson, anyway.<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>At that, Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re sat back satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>"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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You ask too much, Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re," 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."</p>
+
+<p>"When <i>I</i> am in love!" said Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re loudly.<span class="pagenum">[314]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" cried Mrs. Lace with a shocked little laugh.</p>
+
+<p>"Isn't it true, Mr. Abinger?" Clem asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Carson is not so black as he's painted," said he
+with a great air of liberality.</p>
+
+<p>"As he paints, I suppose, you mean," pertly rejoined
+Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re.</p>
+
+<p>"There is a form of colour-blindness that makes its
+victim see everything black!" said Mrs. Capron drily.
+Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re sniffed again.</p>
+
+<p>"You need be colour-blind when you look at his eyes,"
+she said unpleasantly; "but some people have a morbid
+liking for deformity."</p>
+
+<p>They all looked astonished.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Deformity!</i>" cried Mrs. Capron; "why, everybody
+admires his striking eyes!"</p>
+
+<p>"And, <i>dear</i> lady," said Abinger, with great <i>tendresse</i>,
+"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&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Brass," said Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re neatly&mdash;for her.</p>
+
+<p>At this opportune moment Carson sauntered round the
+corner and joined them, and Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re's face became
+so like a Bougainvillea flower that there was hardly any
+difference, except that the Bougainvillea was prettier.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"</p>
+
+<p>Seeing no chair, Carson seated himself next to Abinger
+on the floor&mdash;"two bad, dissolute men, cheek by jowl,"
+said Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"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."<span class="pagenum">[315]</span></p>
+
+<p>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. Gruy&egrave;re, 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.</p>
+
+<p>It was Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>The two bad men looked up.</p>
+
+<p>She was amazingly arrayed in a gown that was a poem
+composed in France&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>Clem Portal rose, and, under cover of general conversation,
+said swiftly to her:</p>
+
+<p>"If Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re puts you to the question&mdash;<i>you paint</i>&mdash;charming
+little water-colours. You are going to do my
+miniature."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>Carson felt the old dream stir. He gave her a long, long
+look. As for Abinger, the expression of utter astonish<span class="pagenum">[316]</span>ment
+and bewilderment had passed from his face; he
+was smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"So <i>this</i> is Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but
+not too softly for Carson to hear him.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Who</i> is she, do you say?" he asked in a low tone.</p>
+
+<p>They had both risen from the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"A Cheltenham College girl, with pretty ankles," was
+the enigmatic response.</p>
+
+<p>Unaccountably, they both found themselves at Mrs.
+Portal's elbow. She introduced them with a gay inclusive
+little: "<i>Les amis de mes amis sont mes amis</i>"; then turned
+away to bid a guest good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"You are very <i>un-Irish</i>, Miss Chard, in spite of your
+face and your superstitions."</p>
+
+<p>This, said with great grace and gentleness, meant that
+no real Irishwoman would have had the abominable taste
+to notice what Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re had termed his "deformity."<span class="pagenum">[317]</span>
+But the girl either could not, or would not, taste the salty
+flavour of his compliment. She made a curious answer.</p>
+
+<p>"I do not profess to be Irish."</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, you mustn't mind Carson," said Abinger easily.
+"You see, he has unfortunately got a real Irish monkey
+for sale."</p>
+
+<p>"An Irish monkey?"</p>
+
+<p>"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&mdash;they thought nothing
+of giving him fifty pounds for letting it out on the
+spree."</p>
+
+<p>Her tears had slipped back unused to whence they
+came; she was now dry-eyed and rather haughty.</p>
+
+<p>"How could I know?" she began stiffly.</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;Mrs. Portal.</p>
+
+<p>By the time he had finished his remarks Miss Chard had
+regained her tranquillity.</p>
+
+<p>"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?"<span class="pagenum">[318]</span></p>
+
+<p>Some emotion kept Abinger dumb for several seconds;
+then under her tranquil gaze he recovered himself.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I am a cosmopolitan; incidentally of Scotch
+birth."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed!" Miss Chard looked politely interested. "You
+flatter yourself chiefly on the first, I suppose?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did, until to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"To-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"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 that <i>you</i> are&mdash;English."</p>
+
+<p>Her colour remained unchanged: her eyes regarded him
+steadfastly.</p>
+
+<p>"You took me for some new kind of barbarian, perhaps?"</p>
+
+<p>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.'"</p>
+
+<p>The girl's sweet laugh fell from her lips.</p>
+
+<p>"What a ridiculous thing to say! You evidently have
+not heard that I have only been in Africa for a few weeks
+or so&mdash;my <i>first</i> visit."</p>
+
+<p>Then, as though the conversation had ceased to interest
+her, she turned away and began to talk to Portal&mdash;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!"</p>
+
+<p>She stemmed that tide.</p>
+
+<p>"Why talk about 'home'?" she said impatiently.
+"It is far more interesting out here."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" cried Ferrand the poetical. "<i>Why?</i> 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 tasting<span class="pagenum">[319]</span>
+the fog and getting splashed with the mud and smelling
+the Thames...."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Miss Chard; "and I infinitely prefer the
+smell of mangoes."</p>
+
+<p>Ferrand would have turned away from her, if he had
+been able to turn away from any woman.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal, who had just joined them, agreed with
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"How can anyone compare the two lives&mdash;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?"</p>
+
+<p>But still Ferrand looked at Miss Chard.</p>
+
+<p>"'She is London, she is Torment, she is Town,'"
+he muttered.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't believe it," said Mrs. Portal in her other ear.
+"He is his own torment: he has his own box of matches.&mdash;Good-bye,
+Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re ... Good-bye, Mrs. Lace;
+so glad&mdash;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&mdash;don't forget....
+Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>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&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>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 was<span class="pagenum">[320]</span>
+wondering how she could possibly get the address of
+Miss Chard's dressmaker without asking for it.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Of course</i>, you are staying, Mary," said Mrs. Portal,
+sitting down by her and putting an arm around her waist.
+"And you, too, Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>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.&mdash;Thanks&mdash;he
+was sorry, but he must go and look after
+Bramham&mdash;he had promised&mdash;etc.</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>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. Gruy&egrave;re, who always came and stood near him
+and began telling someone in a loud voice about his<span class="pagenum">[321]</span>
+poor devoted wife living and dying like a saint at
+home.</p>
+
+<p>"Just as though it wouldn't have been far more saintlike
+to have come out here and minded her sinner, if he
+<i>is</i> one, which I don't believe," said Mrs. Capron.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>De mortuis!</i>" broke in Clem, gently; and de Grey
+said, laughing:</p>
+
+<p>"This country is full of sinners who keep their saints
+at home&mdash;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 "Caf&eacute; Royal" last time we were home; and
+for saints, they did themselves remarkably well&mdash;didn't
+they, Cora? And looked remarkably well too."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes: it's a becoming r&ocirc;le&mdash;dressed by <i>Paquin</i>,"
+said Cora de Grey drily. <i>She</i> never 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.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger began to stammer softly, and everybody listened.</p>
+
+<p>"B-Bramham will be able to come forth at l-last. Mrs.
+Gru' has a new nut to crack."</p>
+
+<p>He smiled sardonically and felt in all his pockets as
+though about to produce the nut&mdash;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.</p>
+
+<p>"And it will t-take her all her time to do it," he finished
+gently&mdash;even dreamily.</p>
+
+<p>"You frighten me!" said Clem. "What <i>can</i> you mean?"</p>
+
+<p>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.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chard," she cried suddenly. "I keep wonder<span class="pagenum">[322]</span>ing
+and wondering where I have seen you before. <i>I know</i>
+we have met."</p>
+
+<p>Her tone expressed extraordinary conviction, and everyone
+gazed at Poppy with curiosity and even a faint hint
+of suspicion&mdash;except Clem, whose eyes were full of warmth
+and friendliness, and Carson, who pretended to be bored.</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy only laughed a little&mdash;and by that had her
+will of Carson at last. He forgot to be bored, and gave
+her a long, deep look. Unfortunately, she was obliged to
+turn to Mrs. Capron at this moment to make an answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps," she said pensively, "we were rivals for a
+king's affection in some past age&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Capron's proud, valuable look came over her, and
+she stiffened as if she had received a dig with a hat-pin:
+the men enjoyed themselves secretly. But no one was
+prepared for the rest of the context.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Of course, <i>I</i> was the successful rival or it would have
+been I who remembered, and not you."</p>
+
+<p>This solution left Mrs. Capron cold-eyed and everyone
+else laughing in some fashion; but there was a nervousness
+in the air, and Clem vaguely wished that the gong
+would sound; for long ere this the dusk had fallen deeply,
+and little Cinthie was asleep in the hammock. It appeared
+that Carson still held to his plan to depart, and chose
+this moment to make his farewells in a small storm of
+abuse and remonstrance. One person minded his decision
+less than she might have done ten minutes before. The
+eyes veiled behind mists of hair knew that their service
+had not been in vain. The invisible hands, that had
+dragged and strained at Eve Carson's will, slackened
+their hold and rested awhile. Only: as he went down
+the flight of shallow stone steps that led to the gate&mdash;a
+tall, powerful figure in grey&mdash;a woman's spirit went with
+him, entreating, demanding to go with him, not to Bramham's
+home, but to the ends of life and death.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[323]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">NEARLY a week passed before Bramham again saw
+Poppy, for private affairs unexpectedly engrossed
+him. He made time, however, to write her a letter full
+of excellent business advice. Later, he called at the Royal
+with her papers, and found her writing letters in the library.
+She had just come in, and a big, plumed, grey hat, which
+matched her pale grey voile gown, lay on the table beside
+her. Moreover, the flush of animation was on her cheek
+and a shine in her eye.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! come now; you look as if you had taken fresh
+hold," said Bramham approvingly. "I've brought back
+your papers, and thanks awfully for letting me look through
+them. It is pretty clear that if you would only work,
+you could be coining money as fast as you like. You've
+caught on at home and everywhere else. Your books
+have been the wonder of this country for months, and
+descriptions of your plays have been cabled out to every
+big centre&mdash;but, of course, you know all this."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded.</p>
+
+<p>"And, of course, you know how your little book of
+poems rang up the country from end to end! By Jove!
+if the Durban people only knew who they had in the
+midst of them&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him quickly, apprehensively.</p>
+
+<p>"It is more important than ever to have no one know.
+Since I saw you and talked to you I have reconstructed
+my plans entirely. Life seems to mean something to me<span class="pagenum">[324]</span>
+again for the first time since&mdash;" She closed her eyes.
+He did not speak, only looked at her with compassionate
+eyes and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"I have made up my mind not to let everything go
+to wreck," she began again presently. "I'm going to work
+again&mdash;I <i>am</i> working." She threw back her head and
+smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"Hurrah!" cried Bramham. "I can't tell you how
+pleased I am to hear it. As a business man, I hated to
+see such a chance of making money chucked to the winds&mdash;and
+as a&mdash;well, as a plain man, I can't help applauding
+when I see what it does to your looks."</p>
+
+<p>"You are certainly plain spoken," said she, smiling.
+"But I want to tell you&mdash;I've taken a little house. I've
+just been there with the painter, and it's all going to be
+ready by the end of the week."</p>
+
+<p>"Where is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Facing the bay&mdash;a funny little bungalow-cottage, with
+an old-fashioned garden and a straggly path through sea-pinks
+right down to nearly the edge of the waves."</p>
+
+<p>"It sounds altogether too romantic for Durban. I
+expect these features exist only in your imagination. But
+can you possibly mean Briony Cottage?"</p>
+
+<p>"But, of course."</p>
+
+<p>"Good&mdash;it <i>is</i> a dear little place&mdash;and with the bay right
+before you, you'll hardly know you're down in the town."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm having a companion." She made a mouth,
+and Bramham himself could not disguise a faint twist of
+his smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Mrs. Portal said it was necessary, if I didn't want
+to be black-balled by the Durban ladies, so she found me
+a Miss Allendner, a nice little old thing, who is lonely
+and unattached, but eminently respectable and <i>genteel</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! I know her&mdash;a weary sort of plucked turkey,"
+said the graceless Bramham, "with a nose that was once<span class="pagenum">[325]</span>
+too much exposed to the winter winds and has never
+recovered. Never mind, you'll need someone to keep off
+the crowd as soon as they find out who you are&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But they are not going to find out! Charlie, I see
+that I must speak to you seriously about this. I believe
+you think my not wanting to be known is affectation;
+it is nothing of the kind. It is <i>most imperative</i> that my
+identity should be kept secret. I must tell you the reason
+at last&mdash;I am working now for money to fight out a case
+in the Law Courts before anyone in Africa knows who I
+am. Under my own name no one will recognise me or be
+particularly interested; but, of course, pleading as <i>Eve
+Destiny</i> would be another matter. I couldn't keep that
+quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"A law case! Great&mdash; Well, Rosalind," he said
+ironically, "you certainly do spring some surprises on
+me. Is it about your plays? Why can't you let me
+manage it for you? But what kind of case can it be?"</p>
+
+<p>"A divorce case&mdash;or, rather, I think a nullity case is
+what it would be called."</p>
+
+<p>"A <i>what</i>?" Bramham could say no more.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't look at me like that, best of friends ... I
+know, I know, you are beginning to think I am not worth
+your friendship ... that I don't seem to understand
+even the first principles of friendship&mdash;honesty and candour!...
+Try and have patience with me, Charlie....
+Perhaps I <i>ought</i> to have told you before ... but
+I've never told a single soul ... in fact, I have always
+refused to consider that I am married. It is a long story,
+and includes part of my childhood. The man who adopted
+me and brought me up in an old farmhouse in the Transvaal
+allowed me to go through a marriage ceremony with
+him without my knowing what I was doing ... an old
+French priest married us ... he couldn't speak a word
+of English ... only Kaffir ... and he married us in<span class="pagenum">[326]</span>
+French, which I could not understand at that time. Afterwards,
+my life went on as usual, and for years I continued
+to look upon the man simply as my guardian. At last,
+here in Durban, when I was just eighteen, he suddenly
+sprang the story upon me, and claimed me for his wife.
+I was horrified, revolted ... my liking for him, which
+arose entirely from gratitude, turned to detestation on
+hearing it.... I believed myself to have been merely
+trapped. In any case, whatever I might have felt for
+him didn't matter then. It was too late. I belonged to
+... the man you know I belong to ... I didn't know
+what to do at first. There were terrible circumstances
+in connection with ... the man I love ... which made
+me think sometimes that I could never meet him again
+... I would just keep the soul he had waked in me, and
+live for work and Fame. But the man I was married to
+wanted to keep me to my bond ... and then suddenly
+he found out ... something ... I don't quite know
+how it came to pass, but he <i>knew</i> ... I was obliged to
+fly from his house half clad.... It was <i>then</i> I found
+refuge with Sophie Cornell."</p>
+
+<p>"And these things all happened here? Do you mean
+to tell me that blackguard was some Durban fellow?"</p>
+
+<p>"He did live here at that time."</p>
+
+<p>"And now?"</p>
+
+<p>"He appears to be here still ... I saw him the other
+day. He behaved to me as though I were really Miss
+Chard ... but I know him. He will fight tooth and
+nail ... I don't suppose he cares about me in the least,
+but he will lie his soul away, I believe, and spend his last
+penny for revenge."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, upon my soul! I can't think who the fellow
+can be!" said Bramham artlessly, and Poppy could not
+refrain from smiling.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think there would be any good in telling you,<span class="pagenum">[327]</span>
+Charlie. You may know him ... in fact, you are
+sure to, in a small place like this ... and it would only
+make things difficult for you."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham was plainly vexed that she did not confide
+in him, but she was perfectly well aware that he knew
+Abinger intimately, and fearing that something might
+leak out and spoil her plans, she decided not to tell him.</p>
+
+<p>"You should have tackled the thing at home," said
+Bramham thoughtfully. "They'd have fixed you up in
+no time there, I believe."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I had advice about it, and was told that as the
+ceremony had taken place in the Transvaal, and the man
+is out here, I must go to the Rand Courts ... and,
+by the way, I must tell you&mdash;I wrote to the mission monastery
+which the old priest belonged to and made inquiries.
+They wrote back that old Father Eug&egrave;ne was dead, but
+that they had already gone into the matter on behalf
+of <i>my husband</i>, who had made representations to them.
+That they could only inform me that the ceremony performed
+by the Father was absolutely valid, and they were
+prepared to uphold it in every way. They added that
+they were well aware that it was my intention to try and
+disprove the marriage and for my own purposes escape
+from my sacred bond, but that I must not expect any
+assistance from them in my immoral purpose.... So,
+you see, I have them to fight as well. Another thing is,
+that the only other witness to the ceremony was a woman
+who would swear her soul away at the bidding of the man
+who calls himself my husband."</p>
+
+<p>"By Jove! It looks as if you're up against a tough
+proposition, as they say in America!" was Bramham's
+verdict at last. "But you'll pull through, I'm certain,
+and you've pluck enough. As for money&mdash;well, you
+know that I am not poor&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He stopped, staring at her pale face.<span class="pagenum">[328]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't ever offer to lend me money," she said fiercely
+rudely.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, you let me lend you some before! And were
+unusual enough to pay it back." Smiling broadly, he
+added: "I never had such a thing happen to me before!"
+But she would not smile. The subject seemed an unfortunate
+one, for she did not regain her joyous serenity
+during the rest of the interview.</p>
+
+<p>He went home wrapped in cogitation, turning over in
+his mind the name of every man in the place on the chance
+of its being the name of the culprit. Abinger's name,
+amongst others, certainly came up for consideration, but
+was instantly dismissed as an impossibility, for he had
+plainly given everyone to understand that&mdash;after the
+time of his disappearance from the Rand, until his readvent
+in Durban on the day Bramham had met him
+coming off the Mail-boat&mdash;he had been travelling abroad,
+and there was no reason to disbelieve this statement.
+Moreover, Bramham was aware of other facts in Abinger's
+private life which made it seem absolutely impossible that
+he could be the villain of Rosalind Chard's tale.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The day Poppy moved to her new home, Clem Portal
+was the first person to visit her and wish her luck and
+happiness there.</p>
+
+<p>They took tea in the largest room in the house, which
+was to be Poppy's working-room and study. It was long
+and low, with two bay-windows, and the walls had been
+distempered in pale soft grey. The floor was dark and
+polished, and the only strong note of colour in the room
+a rose-red Persian rug before the quaint fireplace. The
+chintzes Poppy had come upon with great joy in one
+of the local shops: ivory-white with green ivy leaves scattered
+over them&mdash;a great relief from the everlasting pink<span class="pagenum">[329]</span>
+roses of the usual chintz. The grey walls were guileless
+of pictures, except for the faithful blue <i>Hope</i> which overhung
+the fireplace above vases full of tall fronds of maidenhair-fern,
+and some full-length posters of the Beardsley
+school in black-and-white wash. Poppy's writing-table
+was in one window, and on the wall where she could always
+see it while at work was a water-colour of a little boy
+standing in a field of corn and poppies. The tea-table
+was in the other window. She and Clem sat looking
+at the blue bay flapping and rippling under the afternoon
+sunlight, with the long bluff ridge sleeping sullenly
+beyond.</p>
+
+<p>"You've found the sweetest place in Durban," said
+Clem. "Whenever I feel like a mealie&mdash;a <i>green</i> mealie&mdash;which,
+alas! is very often, I shall sneak down here to
+'simplify, simplify.' While you work I'll sit in the sun
+in the Yogi attitude and triumphantly contemplate
+eternity and jelly-fish."</p>
+
+<p>Later, she said:</p>
+
+<p>"Mary Capron wanted to come too, but I told her I
+must have you all to myself to-day. I'm afraid she was
+rather hurt, but ... I was not sure whether you liked
+her, Poppy. I do hope you are going to, dear, for I love
+her, and we shall be a triangle with sore corners, if you
+<i>don't</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was dreaming with her tea-cup in her lap, and
+the glitter of the bay in her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think three women ever get on well together?"
+she asked evasively. "There is always one out."</p>
+
+<p>Clem was quick to see the meaning of this. A look of
+disappointment came over her gay, gentle face.</p>
+
+<p>"Mary and I have been friends for years," she said.
+"She is the only woman I have never had any inspiration
+about; but though I am blinded by her beauty, I know her
+to be good and true. It would be a terribly disloyal thing<span class="pagenum">[330]</span>
+if I deserted her for you ... what am I to do if you
+two don't like each other?"</p>
+
+<p>"If <i>you</i> love Mrs. Capron, Clem, she won't need to
+bother about the liking of a woman like me."</p>
+
+<p>"She likes <i>you</i>, however. And I'm sure when you get
+to know her better, you'll like her.... I daresay when
+two beautiful women first meet, a feeling of antagonism is
+natural. But <i>you</i> should be above that, Poppy. And
+poor Mary is a subject for pity rather than dislike&mdash;any
+woman is who has drawn blank in the big lottery. I
+daresay you know <i>that</i> about her&mdash;most people do."</p>
+
+<p>"I have gathered that she is not very happily married,"
+said Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you ever seen him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I believe the first time I ever saw you, Clem, he was
+with you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, yes, I remember now&mdash;and we talked of you, the
+girl with the Burne-Jones eyes." Most women would
+have made this an easy stepping-stone into the flowing
+brook of confidences, and found out where Poppy was
+going to on that sunny day, and where she had been all
+the long years since; but Clem Portal had an instinct
+about questions that hurt. Her husband often said of
+her:</p>
+
+<p>"She is that lovely thing&mdash;a close woman!" Now, the
+peculiarity of a close woman is that she neither probes
+into the dark deeps of others, nor allows herself to be
+probed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nick Capron was not <i>quite</i> impossible in those days,"
+she continued; "but now a good place for him would be
+under the d&eacute;bris heaps outside de Beers'. When she first
+met him he was a romantic character on the down-grade.
+Had been all over the world and gone through every kind
+of adventure; lost a fortune at Monte-Carlo on a system
+of his own for breaking the bank; written a book (or<span class="pagenum">[331]</span>
+more probably got it written for him) about his adventures
+as a cowboy in Texas; and made quite a name for
+himself as a scout in the war between Chili and Peru.
+Amongst other things he has an intimate knowledge of
+torpedoes and is supposed to have been the author of the
+plan that sent the Chilian transport, the <i>Loa</i>, to the bottom
+by a torpedo launched from an apparently harmless fruit-boat.
+At any rate, he was seen on the fruit-boat, and
+when he came to Africa shortly afterwards, they said it
+was to escape the vengeance of the Chilians. Mary, who
+was on a visit to this country, met him at the Cape when
+everyone was talking about him. Unfortunately, when
+women hear sparkling things about a man, they do not
+always think to inquire about the sparkling things he
+drinks&mdash;and how much <i>that</i> has to do with the matter.
+She fell in love with him, or his reputation, and they were
+married in a great whirl of romantic emotion. Well,
+you know what happens to people who engage in
+whirling?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy looked up, anxious to learn, and Clem continued
+with the air of an oracle of Thebes:</p>
+
+<p>"After a time they find themselves sitting still on the
+ground, very sick. That is Mary's position. She sits
+flat on the ground and surveys a world that makes her
+feel sick. Nick Capron, however, continues to whirl."</p>
+
+<p>"She must have great courage to face the situation," said
+Poppy sincerely.</p>
+
+<p>"She has more than courage," said Clem, alight with
+loyal enthusiasm. "She is one in a thousand. You
+know enough of Africa, I daresay, Poppy, to know that
+life out here is just one huge temptation to a beautiful
+unhappily-married woman. The place teems with men&mdash;good,
+bad, and indifferent, but all interesting (unless
+drink is sweeping them down hill too fast), and they all
+want to be kind to her. Many of them are splendid<span class="pagenum">[332]</span>
+fellows. But the best of men are half-devil, half-child,
+and nothing more, where a beautiful woman is concerned.
+You know that, don't you?"</p>
+
+<p>What Poppy <i>did</i> know was that Clem had far greater
+knowledge of the world of men and women than she
+had, and she was only too interested to sit and imbibe
+wisdom. She frankly said so.</p>
+
+<p>"I thoroughly understand these things," Clem replied
+without pride. "Sinners can never take me by surprise,
+whatever they do. Perhaps it is because I might easily
+have been a devil of the deepest dye myself, but for luck&mdash;Billy
+is my luck."</p>
+
+<p>This from the most orthodox woman in Africa! Poppy
+could not refrain from a trill of laughter.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you are one of those who paint themselves
+black to be <i>en suite</i> with the people you like, Clemmie,"
+she said; "but you're not extraordinarily clever as an
+artist."</p>
+
+<p>"Not so clever as <i>you'll</i> have to be when Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re
+comes round to have her miniature done," said Clem
+maliciously. "I must think about going, darling. Mary
+is coming to fetch me in her carriage and she will be here
+in a minute or two now. Before I go, I want you to promise
+me to steal away whenever you can. If you sit too
+much over work you will fall asleep, and have to be put
+in the poppy-garden instead of flaunting and flaming in
+the sunshine and being a joy to behold. What a fascinating
+flower it is! Both your names are fascinating ...
+<i>Eve Destiny!</i> ... what could have prompted it, I
+wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>"Simply an idea. I am a child of destiny, I always
+think&mdash;at least, the old blind hag seems to have been at
+some pains to fling me about from pillar to post. Eve&mdash;"
+She turned away, knowing that she could not mention
+that name without giving some sign of the tumult it<span class="pagenum">[333]</span>
+roused within her. "Eve&mdash;was the most primitive person
+I could think of" (the lie did not come very glibly), "and
+<i>I</i> am primitive. If I were my real self I should be running
+loose in the woods somewhere with a wild-cat's skin round
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you wouldn't run alone for long, that's very
+certain," laughed Clem.</p>
+
+<p>"No, I should want my mate wherever and whatever
+I was"&mdash;Clem laughed again at her frankness, but she
+went on dreamfully&mdash;"a Bedouin, or a shaggy Thibetan
+on the roof of the world, or a 'cassowary on the plains
+of Timbuctoo.' Oh, Clem! the sound of the wind in
+forest trees&mdash;the sea&mdash;the desert with an unknown horizon,
+are better to me than all the cities and civilisation in the
+world&mdash;yet here I sit!" She threw out her hands and
+laughed joylessly.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to marry an explorer&mdash;or a hunter of big
+game," said Clem thoughtfully, and got up and looked
+out of the window. "Here comes one in the carriage with
+Mary. But he is an Irishman, so I wouldn't advise you to
+look <i>his</i> way.... An Irishman should never be given
+more than a Charles Wyndhamesque part on the stage of
+any woman's life ... a person to love, but not to be in
+love with...."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Clem! You are Irish yourself&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Clem did not turn round. She went on talking out of
+the window and watching the approaching carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, and I love everyone and everything from that
+sad green land ... the very name of Ireland sends a
+ray of joy right through me ... and its dear blue-eyed,
+grey-eyed people! Trust an Irish-woman, Poppy, when
+she is true-bred ... but never fall in love with an Irishman
+... there is no fixity of tenure ... he will give
+you his hand with his heart in it ... but when you come
+to look there for comfort, you will find a bare knife for<span class="pagenum">[334]</span>
+your breast ... unstable as water ... too loving of
+love ... too understanding of another's heart's desire
+... too quick to grant, too quick to take away ...
+the tale of their lips changing with the moon's changes&mdash;even
+with the weather.... Hullo, Mary! Here I
+am.... How do you do, Karri?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Capron's carriage had pulled up before Poppy's
+little side-gate, which gave on to the embankment. She
+was gowned in black, a daring rose-red hat upon her lovely
+hair, and by her side was Evelyn Carson. She waved at
+the two women in the window, but did not leave the
+carriage. Carson came instead, making a few strides of
+the little straggly, sea-shelled path.</p>
+
+<p>"We've come to drag Mrs. Portal away," he said to
+Poppy, after shaking hands through the window, "having
+just met her husband taking home two of the hungriest-looking
+ruffians you ever saw."</p>
+
+<p>Clem gave a cry of woe and began to pin on her hat.</p>
+
+<p>"The wretch! I thought he was going to dine at the
+Club."</p>
+
+<p>"He gave us strict orders to send you home at once,"
+laughed Carson, "so Mrs. Capron won't come in."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are the men?" demanded Clem.</p>
+
+<p>"Two brutes just arrived by to-day's boat, with a
+sea-edge to their appetites. I should say that nothing
+short of a ten-course banquet would appease them."</p>
+
+<p>Clem's groans were terrible.</p>
+
+<p>"Cook will have prepared half a chicken's wing for
+me. She always starves me when I'm alone. You come
+back with me," she commanded Carson. "If you talk
+beautifully to them they won't notice the lightness of the
+<i>menu</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I'd rather come when you are prepared,"
+said the graceless Carson. "I'm hungry, too. When
+you've gone I'm going to ask Miss Chard for a cup of tea."<span class="pagenum">[335]</span>
+Smiling, he plucked a sea-pink and stuck it in his coat.
+They were in the garden now on the way to the carriage.</p>
+
+<p>"Deserter! Well, Mary, <i>you'll</i> have to come and let
+them feed upon your damask cheek&mdash;something has got
+to be done."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy exchanged greetings with Mrs. Capron, and presently
+the two women drove away, leaving her and Carson
+standing there with the gleam of the sunlit bay in their
+eyes. Turning, she found him staring in an odd way at
+her hair, which she was wearing piled into a crown, with
+the usual fronds falling softly down. Her lids drooped
+for a moment under his strange eyes, but her voice was
+perfectly even and conventional as she asked if he would
+really care for tea.</p>
+
+<p>"I should, indeed&mdash;and to come into the restful grey
+room I got a glimpse of through the window. It reminded
+me of a cool, cloudy day in the middle of summer."</p>
+
+<p>Pleasure at his approval brought a faint wave of colour
+into the face she was determined to mask of all expression.
+She led the way indoors, he following, his eyes travelling
+swiftly from the crowned head she carried with so brave
+an air on her long throat, down the little straight back
+that was short like the classical women's, giving fine sweeping
+length from waist to heel.</p>
+
+<p>She rang for fresh tea and went to the tea-table. Carson
+stood about the room, seeming to fill it.</p>
+
+<p>"If you are fond of grey, we have a taste in common,"
+he said, and she gave him a quick, upward glance. The
+face which Africa's sun had branded her own looked
+extraordinarily dark above the light-grey of his clothes
+and the little pink flower stuck in his coat. It seemed to
+her that no woman had ever loved so debonair a man as
+this Irishman with his careless eyes and rustling voice.</p>
+
+<p>"I love <i>green</i> best of all colours," she answered steadily;
+"but one gets tired of green walls now that they are<span class="pagenum">[336]</span>
+fashionable and everyone has them&mdash;" her voice broke off
+suddenly. In his looming about the room he had stopped
+dead before <i>Hope</i> over the mantelpiece. The cup Poppy
+held rattled in its saucer. He presently asked who the
+picture was by, and where he, too, could get a copy of
+it.</p>
+
+<p>"I like it," he said. "It seems to me in a vague way
+that I know that picture well, yet I don't believe I have
+ever seen it before ... strange...!" He stared at it
+again, and she made no response. For the moment she
+was back in a little upper chamber in Westminster.</p>
+
+<p>He came presently over to the tea-table, and was about
+to sit down when another picture caught his eye&mdash;the
+water-colour of the little child among the poppies and
+corn. He stepped before it and stayed looking for a long
+time. At last he said, laughing constrainedly:</p>
+
+<p>"You will think I am mad ... but I imagine I know
+<i>that</i> picture too ... that little chap is extraordinarily
+like someone I know ... I can't think who ... but
+I'm certain ... is it some of your work, Miss
+Chard?"</p>
+
+<p>He looked at her with keen inquiry, but his glance
+changed to one of astonishment. Her eyes were closed
+and she was pale as a primrose; her hands had fallen to her
+sides.</p>
+
+<p>A moment afterwards she recovered herself and was
+handing him a cup of tea with some inconsequent remark.
+She had made absolutely no response to his questions
+about either picture, and he thought the fact rather
+remarkable.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards they talked and he forgot surprise (for the
+time being) in listening to the shy graces of thought to
+which she gave utterance and watching her inexpressibly
+charming delicacies of manner. When he left her the
+magic of her was on him; she had bound him with the spell<span class="pagenum">[337]</span>
+of his own country; but he did not know it. If he <i>had</i>
+known it he would have repudiated it with all his strength,
+for already he was a bound man.</p>
+
+<p>"His honour rooted in dishonour stood."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[338]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">THE women of Durban received Poppy into their midst
+with suspicion and disfavour, which they carefully
+veiled because they could find out absolutely nothing,
+damning or otherwise, about her, and also because Mrs.
+Portal's introductions were as good as a certificate of
+birth, marriage, and death, and to be questioned as little;
+and Mrs. Portal's position was such that no woman dared
+assail her for exercising her privileges. What they could
+do, however, was narrow their eyes, sharpen their claws,
+and lie in wait, and this they did with a patience and zest
+worthy of their species.</p>
+
+<p>Meanwhile, those who sought Poppy might sometimes
+find her at the house of Mrs. Portal; but not as often as
+she wished, for work chained her almost perpetually, and
+she was working against time. She was straining every
+nerve to have her work finished and paid for, and her law
+case quietly settled in Johannesburg, before the time
+came for Carson to set out for his five years' exile in Borapota.
+She was working for freedom and bondage and
+life&mdash;for, indeed, all that life had to offer her now was
+the word of a man bidding her to follow him into bondage.
+It was hard on her that while she worked she must
+lose time and opportunities of meeting him and winding
+more spells to bind him. But&mdash;she had grown used to
+fighting her battles against odds. So she gave up six
+solid hours of daylight and two of the night to hard labour;
+and she made a rule never to count the hours, which were<span class="pagenum">[339]</span>
+many, that were spent at her desk <i>dreaming</i>. For no
+writer does work of any consequence without dreaming,
+even if the dream is not always of work.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Allendner might have found life a dull affair in
+Briony Cottage had she not been of that domesticated
+type which finds satisfaction and pleasure in managing a
+household and ordering good meals. Under her rule the
+little cottage became a well-ordered, comfortable home,
+where things ran on oiled wheels, and peace and contentment
+reigned. No one and nothing bothered Poppy,
+and the long, bright hours of day were hers to work in
+uninterruptedly. Such visitors as called, and some did
+call, if only out of curiosity, were received by Miss Allendner,
+and regaled with dainty teas and mysteriously
+impressive statements as to Miss Chard's <i>work</i> which unfortunately
+kept her so busy that she could see no one&mdash;<i>at
+present</i>. The companion had of necessity been let into
+the secret of her employer's work and identity, for Poppy
+was a careless creature with letters and papers, and it
+irked her to have to exercise caution with an intimate
+member of her household. Poor Miss Allendner almost
+exploded with the greatness and importance of the information.
+But she was a faithful and trustworthy soul,
+and happy for the first time in all her needy, half-rationed
+life.</p>
+
+<p>If Poppy had been a bread-and-butter woman she might
+have been happy, too, in some fashion, within the trim,
+well-ordered confines of comfortable mediocrity. But it
+was not there that her desire lay. She had tasted of the
+wine and fruit of life&mdash;Love, and wanderings in far lands,
+and vagabondage. Bread-and-butter could never satisfy
+her again.</p>
+
+<p>Work was wine, too. She felt the fire of it circling in
+her veins, even when wearied out she flung her books
+and pencils from her and ran out to the sea. And play<span class="pagenum">[340]</span>
+was wine&mdash;when on some lovely evening she arrayed herself
+amazingly, took rickshaw and Miss Allendner and
+ascended the wide, sloping road that led to Clem Portal's
+home on the Berea.</p>
+
+<p>The Portals' social circle varied, because it was constantly
+being enlarged or decreased by the comings and
+goings of travellers and visitors; for, besides knowing
+everyone worth knowing in South Africa, they could
+beckon friends and acquaintances from the four poles.
+Add to this that they were both charming, witty, cultivated
+people, with the true Irish love for bestowing hospitality
+and the true Irish grace in bestowing it, and it
+will be easily understood that all delightful and interesting
+people who came to South Africa sought them as the
+bee seeks clover.</p>
+
+<p>As a background to new faces could always be found
+those of fixed and steadfast friends&mdash;Mrs. Capron's&mdash;the
+de Greys'&mdash;the Laces'. Always Carson, when he came to
+Natal; and Abinger, because he was both interesting and
+something of a crony of Bill Portal's.</p>
+
+<p>A sprinkling of Durban people came and went.</p>
+
+<p>Evening is a pleasant time in Natal, and the Portals'
+moonlit gardens and lawns and long verandahs lent themselves
+agreeably to strolling people, tired of the clang and
+glare of the day. With someone always at the piano to
+sprinkle the still air with melody, it was pleasant to saunter,
+the dew in your hair and all the sounds of the night-things
+about you, while you talked with someone whose interest
+interested you, or gossiped of life as it could, or would,
+or might be, or of "Home," meaning England, which
+through the glamour of an African night seems the moon
+of all men's Desire. There are more intense sudden joys
+in Life than these, but few more poignantly sweet.</p>
+
+<p>To be Mrs. Portal's friend was to share her friends,
+to know them, to gossip with them, to criticise and be in<span class="pagenum">[341]</span>
+turn criticised by them. Sport, books, music, pictures,
+people&mdash;all that goes to the making of life worth the living,
+came under discussion; and in Africa, where everyone
+is using every sense of mind and body, living and feeling
+every moment of life, there are always new things to be
+said on these subjects&mdash;or perhaps only things that are
+so many centuries old that they sound new. Truth, after
+all, is older than the everlasting hills.</p>
+
+<p>Naturally, there was never much grouping. General
+conversation has more than a liability to platitude, or,
+at best, to flippancy, and the finest talking is never done
+in groups, but <i>t&ecirc;te-&agrave;-t&ecirc;te</i>. Indeed, it is on record by a
+thinker of some importance that the best things men
+say are said to women who probably don't understand
+them:</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:21em">
+<p>"To the women who didn't know why<br />
+(And now we know they could never know why)<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And did not understand."</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>That is as may be. Remains the fact that the best
+talkers (apart, of course, from orators, politicians, and professional
+diners-out) do not talk for a crowd, and the most
+potent phrases and epigrams&mdash;when epigrams are not
+<i>vieux jeu</i>&mdash;are made for one, or at the most, two listeners.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy's ears took in many pretty and many witty
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Bill Portal was a blithe soul, overflowing with gay
+parables and maxims for the unwise, whom he claimed
+to be the salt of the earth.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger was epigrammatic, sardonic, and satanic, and
+he never asked for more than one listener&mdash;a woman
+for preference, as she would certainly repeat what he said&mdash;and
+there were other reasons. But the women of the
+Portals' circle recognised a serpent when they met him,
+however leafy the garden, and always preferred to listen
+to his wisdom in twos and threes. With Poppy he never<span class="pagenum">[342]</span>
+encompassed any talk at all, unless she felt Clem strong
+at her back. He smiled at this: the smile of the waiting
+man to whom everything cometh at last.</p>
+
+<p>Nick Capron never graced the assemblies with his handsome
+dissipated presence. His lust was for poker and his
+fellow-men&mdash;which meant the Club and small hours. He
+was never even known to fetch his wife. But many a man
+was pleased and honoured to do his duty for him. Sometimes
+she stayed all night with her friend Clem. Sometimes
+Carson took her home in a rickshaw.</p>
+
+<p>The women with attentive husbands pitied her amongst
+themselves; but she gave no sign of discontent, and they
+never ventured to offer sympathy. Invariably she looked
+wonderfully beautiful&mdash;and, therefore, it was not necessary
+for her to exert herself to much conversation. Since
+Poppy's soft thrush-note had first been heard in Clem
+Portal's verandah, Mrs. Capron's laugh had been silent:
+though it was a pretty laugh, too. But her smile was as
+alluring as the sound of a silvery brooklet, and sometimes
+the sympathetic wives trembled when they saw their
+husbands lingering near her&mdash;not to talk, but to look.
+She sat so fearlessly under bright light, and looked so
+flawlessly good. It was, indeed, a comfort to remember
+that she was as good as she looked, or she would not be
+Mrs. Portal's closest friend. It was remembered, too,
+that she had never tried to beguile any woman's man
+away from her.</p>
+
+<p>When one wife after another had ceased to tremble for
+her man, realising that this Circe did not use her toils,
+they rewarded her by saying amongst themselves that it
+must be sad to be so <i>cold</i>. This warmed the coldest of
+them&mdash;with a glow of self-satisfaction.</p>
+
+<p>Mary Capron did not bother about any of them. The
+riddle she sought to read was Rosalind Chard. Always
+she watched Poppy, and pondered where she had seen her<span class="pagenum">[343]</span>
+before. Poppy suspected this, but it did not agitate her.
+She had prepared another soft-answer-warranted-not-to-turn-away-wrath
+if Mary Capron should attack her in the
+open again. But Mary Capron, if she was not witty,
+was wise. She was no fencer, and had no intention of
+encountering Miss Chard's foil with the button off. She
+preferred to choose her own weapon, time, and place, and
+to pursue the little duel in her own fashion. She was
+merely "getting her hand in" when she said to Abinger,
+looking dreamily at Poppy the while:</p>
+
+<p>"Did you ever hear of a Sphinx without a secret?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's what Wilde taxed the modern society woman
+with being, I believe," he answered idly; he was easily
+one of the best-read men in Africa. "But it would not
+apply out here."</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said dreamily. "Everyone has a secret in
+this country, haven't they? even girls."</p>
+
+<p>At another time she and Carson were near when Poppy,
+with her arm in Clem's, presented Luce Abinger with a
+suave answer, so heavily encrusted with salt, that even
+his seasoned tongue went dry. However, his impertinence
+had warranted punishment, so he bore it as best he might.
+And Clem's tact oiled the troubled waters.</p>
+
+<p>But Mary Capron said something to Carson that kept
+him awake that night.</p>
+
+<p>"She's <i>quite</i> clever, isn't she? Only it's a pity she has
+to begin at the beginning for herself."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Carson had scarcely been struck by Miss Chard's <i>cleverness</i>&mdash;considering
+that on both his first and second meeting
+with her she had had odd lapses of something very like
+<i>gaucherie</i>. But he thought her interesting, arresting,
+and beautiful. He knew of no reason why he should
+think of her at all; but he sometimes found her face and<span class="pagenum">[344]</span>
+her voice amongst his thoughts and considered the fact
+a curious and rather annoying thing.</p>
+
+<p>And the sight and sound of her had an extraordinary
+power at times to rouse to active, vivid life, a dream of
+the past that was old grief and pain.</p>
+
+<p>Circumstance sometimes threw them together in the
+verandahs or out under the Southern-Cross flaming above
+the garden, and Poppy's low laugh might be heard mingling
+with his voice; but she did not always laugh because she
+was amused.</p>
+
+<p>Carson's silver tongue could take on an amazingly sharp
+edge. Being an Irishman, he was a law unto himself,
+with a fine taste for unconventionality in other people.
+But if he knew South Africa from one end to the other,
+he also knew men and cities, and the rules that govern
+women all the world over. Gradually he had become to
+be aware that Miss Chard outraged the most important of
+these by being both unclassifiable and mysterious. Even
+in what calls itself society in South Africa, women and their
+belongings and connections must be above-board and open
+to inspection. An unattached woman has got to prove
+her right to social status there, as elsewhere. If she cannot,
+she must prepare to take the consequences&mdash;and the
+least unpleasant of these is to have the worst believed of
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Of course, Rosalind Chard was backed by Mrs. Portal,
+but that did not prevent tongues from wagging.</p>
+
+<p>Carson took it upon himself to let Miss Chard know
+something of these things whenever Fate ordained that
+he and she should walk under the stars together.</p>
+
+<p>It was wittily done, by the delicate instrumentality of
+chosen implication, and it never missed the mark: the
+arrow quivered in Poppy every time. Hot and cold,
+with sudden rages and terrors, she would turn on him
+only to find the strange eyes so pleasantly indifferent;<span class="pagenum">[345]</span>
+his expression so guileless that it was hard to suspect him
+of malicious intent. Her refuge was a little laugh. Carson
+told himself sardonically that the game amused him.
+It may have done so. Doubtless Indians were amused
+when they threw barbs at their staked victims. But as
+a fact, something more than an Indian sense of humour
+would have been appeased in him, if, instead of the brave
+smile that flickered across his victim's face, or the little
+dry retort that her lips gave out even while they quivered,
+she had answered him haughtily with the pride of race or
+family or position&mdash;the pride of <i>anything with a root to it</i>.
+That was the important point: what were the roots of
+Rosalind Chard? That she had pride was plain enough&mdash;the
+fine pride of courage; the pride of a slim, strong
+young tree that stands firm in winds that tear and beat,
+flaunting a brave green pennon.</p>
+
+<p>But what was the name of the tree? In what strange
+garden had it first grown? Was it of a garden at all?
+Or a highway? Whence came the suggestion that it had
+bloomed in the desert?</p>
+
+<p>Carson scarcely realised that he fiercely desired information
+on these matters. He supposed it to be curiosity
+about a pretty and interesting girl&mdash;pure curiosity. He
+had heard things said, a word dropped here and there&mdash;mostly
+by women, and he knew that harsh winds had
+begun to blow round the young slim tree with the brave
+green pennon.</p>
+
+<p>So out of <i>pure curiosity</i> he tormented her when opportunity
+arose; and she&mdash;gave him witty, gentle little restrained
+answers, with her hand against her heart when
+the shadows allowed. Or if she could touch a tree she had
+greater strength to bear her torment and to laugh more
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>Of all the rest she was careless. Let them think what
+they would&mdash;Clem was her friend.<span class="pagenum">[346]</span></p>
+
+<p>If her personality and appearance had been less fascinating,
+probably the gossip about her mysterious appearance
+in Durban without friends or connections, or a known
+home, would have died a natural death. But with her
+first coming to Clem's house, her loveliness seemed to have
+grown. In the heat of a room there was a dewiness about
+her that began in her eyes, and was wonderfully refreshing
+to the jaded spirit. In the chill of the late evening she
+seemed to glow with a warmth that was cheering to the
+coldest heart. Unfortunately, she sometimes forgot to
+be conventional and ordinary in little social matters.
+Clem never took notice of such trivialities, but Mrs. Capron
+and the other women would raise delicate eyebrows and
+even the men exchange inscrutable glances.</p>
+
+<p>One day Mrs. Capron said:</p>
+
+<p>"Clem, didn't you tell me that Miss Chard was a
+Cheltenham College girl?" in an incredulous voice. (It is
+not always convenient to be faced with your statements
+made at a pinch.)</p>
+
+<p>"Mary," was the answer, after a little pause, "that girl
+has got a wound that bleeds inwardly, and has spent her
+life trying to hide it from the world. She has had no time
+to notice the little conventionalities and banalities that
+count with us."</p>
+
+<p>"One wonders sometimes if she ever had the opportunity&mdash;that
+is all. She walked into the dining-room ahead of
+Lady Mostyn and everybody else last night&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Clem winced; then, remembering Lady Mostyn's outraged
+face, laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, one hardly picks up those things at school,
+<i>ch&eacute;rie</i>&mdash;and she may have been on a desert island ever
+since."</p>
+
+<p>"That would be an interesting reason for her bad manners,
+darling, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I won't admit that they are bad&mdash;only unusual; and,<span class="pagenum">[347]</span>
+besides, she has the excuse of genius. If I might only tell
+you what I know of her work&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Miniatures?</i>" asked Mrs. Capron wickedly.</p>
+
+<p>"No: lovey-dovey darling&mdash;don't tease and don't be
+uncharitable&mdash;you are much too beautiful to be a cat.
+Some day that girl will burst forth upon us all in the glory
+of fame."</p>
+
+<p>"Clem, you are infatuated."</p>
+
+<p>"You'll see," said Clem. "Only be patient and kind&mdash;I
+must really go and see what cook has for lunch. If
+she gives us curried mutton once more and stewed guavas
+and custard, Billy will calmly proceed to bust."</p>
+
+<p>She escaped.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[348]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">MRS. PORTAL knew that Poppy was working as for
+her life, but she did not know why. Only, sometimes,
+out of the deep love and sympathy she felt for the
+girl, she longed to know the truth. The truth was far even
+from her far-seeing eyes.</p>
+
+<p>She believed that there must be a man somewhere in
+the world whom Poppy loved, for well she knew that
+such a wound as Poppy hid could only have been dealt
+by a man's unerring hand&mdash;and none but a loved hand
+could strike so deep! With all the mystical-religious,
+loving side of her nature, Clem prayed that life might
+yet do well by her friend and give her her heart's desire;
+but hope did not rise very high. She was fond of quoting
+that saying:</p>
+
+<p>"The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee.
+Everything that belongs to thee for aid or comfort shall
+surely come home through open or winding passages. Every
+friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender
+heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace."</p>
+
+<p>&mdash;and she would have liked to believe it, but Life had
+taught her differently. In the meantime, in so far as she
+was able, she watched faithfully and anxiously over Poppy's
+destiny, dragging her from her desk when the lilac eyes
+grew heavy and the tinted face too pale for health; making
+up gay little parties to drive or walk or go to the theatre,
+arranging merry dinners and excursions&mdash;anything that<span class="pagenum">[349]</span>
+would distract, and presently bring back vivacity and
+strength, and renew courage.</p>
+
+<p>If it had not been for these things it is very certain
+that Poppy, with all her resolution and purpose, must
+have broken down from overwork and the strain of seeing
+the man she loved turn his eyes from her perpetually.
+For there were desperate hours when she obliged herself
+to face the fact that Evelyn Carson gave no sign of any
+feeling for her but a certain polite curiosity. In the
+black, despairing days that never fail to come to highly-strung,
+temperamental people, she bitterly derided herself,
+her work, her cause, asking what it was all for?</p>
+
+<p>To win freedom from Luce Abinger and cast herself
+into the arms of Eve Carson? But were his arms open
+to her? Plainly not. Plainly here was another of the
+"little songs they sing in hell"&mdash;of the woman who loves,
+but is beloved not by the beloved.</p>
+
+<p>Oh! she had her black and desperate days&mdash;</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"And the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night."<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>But afterwards <i>Hope</i> played for her on the one brave
+string&mdash;and she took up her pen and worked on.</p>
+
+<p>On a stormy, sullen day towards the end of April she
+wrote the concluding words of the two things she had
+been working on at the same time&mdash;a play and a novel.
+They contained the best work she had ever done, for
+though they were begun for the love of a man, they were
+gone forward with, for the love of her craft, and, as all
+good craftsmen know, it is only in such spirit that the best
+work is achieved. All that remained to do was to go over
+and through the manuscripts once more, when they had been
+typed, to polish here and re-phrase there; and just to linger
+over all for a day in sheer delight and surprise. She was not
+peculiar among writers, in that, apart from the plan and
+construction of a thing, she never remembered from day<span class="pagenum">[350]</span>
+to day what she had written, and always felt the greatest
+surprise and freshness in re-reading passages which had
+sped from her mind to paper in inspired moments, and
+which, if not written at those moments, would have been
+lost for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Schopenhauer was not the only person in the world to
+discover that a beautiful thought is like a beautiful woman.
+If you want to keep the one always you must tie her to
+you by marriage, if the other, you must tie it to you with
+pen and paper or it will leave you and never return.</p>
+
+<p>On that morning when she made her finished work into
+two tall piles of exercise-books before her on her table,
+the measure of content was hers that is felt by even the
+heaviest-hearted when they look upon good work done.</p>
+
+<p>She laid her head on the books and tears fell softly
+down, and her heart sang a little song that was pure thankfulness
+and praise for the goodness of God.</p>
+
+<p>And while she sat, there came a little tap at the door.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Allendner entered with a letter, and Poppy, taking
+it from her, saw that it was addressed in the small, strong
+writing she had not seen for years, but which she instantly
+recognised as Luce Abinger's. She laid it down mechanically
+on the table.</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Abinger brought it himself," said Miss Allendner,
+"and would not leave it until he heard that you were
+here and would receive it at once. He said it was <i>very</i>
+important."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Poppy quietly, and sat staring at
+the letter long after her companion had left the room.</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards, she laid her head on the books again, but
+wearily now, and the tears of her eyes were dried up and
+so was the little chant of praise in her heart. She was
+afraid&mdash;afraid of the letter; of the look she had seen in
+Luce Abinger's eyes of late&mdash;the old, hateful look&mdash;and of
+the fight before her. Now that she had done the work and<span class="pagenum">[351]</span>
+would have the money to fight with, she was afraid. But
+only for a time. Those who have fought with any of the
+grim forces of life&mdash;sorrow, pain, poverty, despair&mdash;and
+defeated even the least of these in battle, have strength to
+fight again, and secret springs of courage to drink from in
+the hour of need. Poppy rose from her table at last
+with such new courage in her, that she could laugh disdainfully
+at the sealed letter and all it contained of threats,
+or commands. She left it sealed and lying there for some
+other hour's perusal. It should not spoil <i>this</i> her glad
+day of finished tasks.</p>
+
+<p>She locked the door upon it and her work, and went to
+her room to change her gown and get ready to spend the
+rest of the day with Clem Portal. She would probably
+stay the night, but she took nothing with her, for she had
+now quite a collection of clothes at Clem's for emergencies.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>On the afternoon of the same day she sat dreaming in
+a Madeira-chair in Clem's drawing-room, while the latter
+meditated on the piano, trying to compose an air sufficiently
+mournful to set to the words of a little song of
+Poppy's called "In Exile." Softly, she sang it over and
+over to long slurring chords&mdash;curiously sweet and strange.</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:17em">
+<p class="cen">I.</p>
+<br />
+<p>Across the purple heather<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The winds of God blow sweet.</span><br />
+But it's O for the smell of London<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the roar of a London street!</span></p>
+<br />
+
+<p class="cen">II.</p>
+<br />
+<p>Upon the wine-dark waters<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">The sun strikes clean and hot.</span><br />
+But it's O for a London garden<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">And the woman who loves me not!</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"You say you are no musician, Clem, but I never knew<span class="pagenum">[352]</span>
+anyone who could make lovelier sounds come out of a piano,"
+Poppy said.</p>
+
+<p>Clem laughed.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, I can't play at all: it is this little song that sets
+chords singing in my head. What were you thinking of
+when you wrote it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of Dr. Ferrand, I think, that first Sunday I came here.
+You remember how he talked of London?&mdash;and you said
+that he had 'his own box of matches and could make his
+own hell any day in the week,' like poor <i>Dick Heldar</i>.
+The circumstances seemed to indicate that there was some
+woman in England who didn't love him&mdash;but I daresay
+that applies to a good many men out here."</p>
+
+<p>"The most usual circumstance," said Clem laughing,
+"is that the woman loves too well. Some men find that
+hardest of all to bear."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy reflected on this for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose you mean wives! It is curious how many
+people seem to marry to live apart, isn't it, Clem?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I call it the cat-and-reptile game," said Clem,
+swinging round on the music-stool and beginning to run
+her hands through her crinkly, curly, fuzzy dark hair
+with seven red lights in it. "The cat catches the reptile,
+scratches him, bites him, wounds him, puts her mark on
+him for good, and as soon as he has no more kick left in
+him, off she goes and leaves him alone."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy was laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, some of the reptiles make marvellous recoveries,"
+said she, remembering one, at least, whom she had
+known.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't blame them for <i>that</i>&mdash;it isn't very interesting
+to be dead, I suppose."</p>
+
+<p>"As for the cats who don't leave their reptiles," continued
+Poppy, thinking of some of the dull people she
+had recently met, "nothing could be deader than the pair<span class="pagenum">[353]</span>
+of them. And then they label themselves 'happily
+married.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Now, Poppy, I won't have you walking over my
+cabbages and onions."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not, Clem&mdash;but they don't make marriage look
+alluring to anyone with an imagination, do they? Of
+course, it is wonderful to see your happiness&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; Bill and I <i>are</i> rather wonderful"&mdash;Clem jumped
+up in a hurry&mdash;"I must <i>absolutely</i> go and get some socks
+and stockings to mend. There is a pile as big as a house
+waiting&mdash;" She flashed out of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"She won't discuss her happiness with me," thought
+Poppy. "It is too sacred!"</p>
+
+<p>By the time Clem came back a settled gloom was over
+everything; the rain was heavily pelting against the windows;
+occasionally a bright beam of light shot through
+the room, leaving it as grey as a witch; afterwards the
+thunder groaned like some god in agony.</p>
+
+<p>"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said
+Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered
+sadly. "And Cinthie inherits the gentle trait. It is <i>too</i>
+bad, for I hate darning."</p>
+
+<p>She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat
+peering her glimmering head over her work, while they
+talked in desultory fashion: but the storm got worse, the
+thunder groaned more terribly.</p>
+
+<p>"God sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to
+throw it under the feet of dancing women and men," said
+Poppy, in a voice that rang with some unusual emotion.</p>
+
+<p>Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."</p>
+
+<p>To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.</p>
+
+<p>"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem
+... these storms ... a storm like this reminds me of<span class="pagenum">[354]</span>
+when I was a child ... I was once out in a storm like
+this."</p>
+
+<p>"You?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."</p>
+
+<p>"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning
+tore through the room, showing her for an instant a tortured
+face. She reached out and took the girl's hands in hers,
+gripping them tight. Dimly, through the rumble of the
+thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think
+have only been in Africa for a few months at a time ... I,
+the gently-nurtured English girl! ... educated at Cheltenham
+College! ... I did not actually tell you these things,
+Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ...
+I was born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and
+hungry ... been a little beaten vagabond in the streets."</p>
+
+<p>"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and
+gentleness; "what do these things matter&mdash;except that
+they have made you suffer? ... they have made you
+the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I
+have always known that there was a wound ... don't
+make it bleed afresh ... I love you too well to want
+to hear anything that it hurts to tell ... always believe
+this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any woman I
+have ever known."</p>
+
+<p>"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am
+not worthy even to speak to you, to touch you.... It
+is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless you ...
+I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for
+you.... I did not know one woman could be so sweet
+to another as you have been to me ... you are like the
+priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the harlot broke
+over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ!
+What am I?"</p>
+
+<p>Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was<span class="pagenum">[355]</span>
+heard but the sound of deep weeping. Outside the storm
+raged on. But when next a gleam of light flashed through
+the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was revealed
+clasped in another woman's arms.</p>
+
+<p>"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips'
+false tales ... since I have been near you and seen your
+true unafraid eyes ... the frank clear turn of your mouth
+that has never lied to anyone ... I have died many
+deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ...
+pure women don't know what suffering there is in the world,
+it is no use pretending they do ... they are wonderful,
+they shine.... O! what wouldn't <i>we</i> give to shine with
+that lovely cold, pure glow ... but they can't take from
+us what our misery has bought."</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman
+said steadily. "I don't want to know ... whatever
+Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I don't care!
+I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you
+is sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It
+is all a matter of luck ... God was good to me ... I
+had a good mother and a fleet foot ... when I smelt
+danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you
+had not, perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only
+difference&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.</p>
+
+<p>"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are
+generous, Clem, but truth is truth, and I should like to
+speak it to you now and always ... confession has no
+attractions for me, and I once told a man I should never
+confess to a woman&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a
+woman learns to be silent about herself, she gains power
+that nothing else can give her. And words can forge themselves
+into such terrible weapons to be used against one&mdash;sometimes
+by hands we love."<span class="pagenum">[356]</span></p>
+
+<p>"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you,
+dear, once and for all. Let me tell you&mdash;even the name
+I use is not my own!"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care. What does a name matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey,
+nor Eve Destiny, nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester,
+though I have called myself by all of these at some time
+in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an
+Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"</p>
+
+<p>"What do these things matter?"</p>
+
+<p>"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle
+in deep waters to keep myself from I know not what
+deeper deeps&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"I have always maintained that a woman has a right
+to use whatever weapons come to hand in the fight with
+life, Poppy."</p>
+
+<p>"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my
+weapons have been&mdash;lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All
+the tears of all the years cannot wash me clean of the lies
+I've told ... I feel you shivering ... you hate me!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, Poppy&mdash;only I can't understand why! What
+could have been worth it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul
+for, Clem! That is where you will not understand."</p>
+
+<p>"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One
+thing I am sure of, it was never wanton. You had some
+miserable reason."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Miserable!</i> I am misery's own!" she cried passionately.
+"She marked me with a red cross before I was
+born.... Well! let me tell you ... have you ever
+noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face,
+Clem? More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am
+not candid; I am not innocent ... I never was ...
+even when I was twelve I could understand the untold tale
+of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had<span class="pagenum">[357]</span>
+only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for
+having no home and children of her own.... I understood
+without being told, that in the sweet hour of her life
+the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover left her
+when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began
+to sing a p&aelig;an of praise to the gods that <i>my</i> lover would
+never go lacking the gift of my breasts. I made a song&mdash;all
+Africa knows it now:</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts&mdash;&mdash;'"<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly.
+"When Cinthie is twelve, will you want her to be thinking
+of lover's caresses?"</p>
+
+<p>"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a
+mother's caresses. Your nature was starving for love,
+poor child!"</p>
+
+<p>"You have a tender heart for sinners."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to
+tell you <i>something</i> of what the last three years have been
+... three years of lying to get a living ... lying to get
+money: the stage, governessing, serving in shops, nursing
+invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great
+variety about my <i>r&ocirc;les</i> in life, Clem, except for one faithful
+detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook,
+a man cropped up and stood in the path. There was
+something special about me, it seemed, that brought them
+unerringly my way&mdash;nothing less than my <i>wonderful
+innocence</i>. That drew them as the magnet draws steel
+... lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they
+all wanted to open the portals of knowledge for me ...
+to show me the golden way into the wondrous city of Love.
+And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint! Sin
+was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow!
+I looked into their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I<span class="pagenum">[358]</span>
+told them I was good and adjured them by their mothers to
+leave me so. At first they were always deeply impressed,
+but later they became slightly bored.... The affair
+nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part
+never to forget that I had a <i>real</i> friend if I should ever want
+one, and I understood very well what <i>that</i> meant, but invariably
+I pretended that I did not, and went my way
+innocent-eyed.... But there were variations on this ...
+sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship
+in the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In
+such cases I always helped myself liberally ... I had
+an unerring instinct that I should shortly be seeking a
+new home&mdash;a new friend ... and that instinct never
+played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once
+more, looking for a way to earn a living and stay <i>pure</i>
+and <i>innocent</i>. Once I was almost content with an old
+woman. I washed her and dressed her, and, incidentally,
+was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high....
+Alas! like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a
+decent boy, too ... but when he had looked into my eyes
+and found me good, there was the old tale to tell.... <i>He</i>
+used to give me lovely presents ... I was never too
+good to take presents, Clem&mdash;under protest.... He
+wanted to marry me, but marriage was not in my plan ...
+then the old mother found out, and I had to go. Another
+man in Birmingham, whose children I taught, gave me
+<i>hundreds</i>&mdash;just for being good! would have given me thousands
+only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once
+and flew to the worst conclusions ... she believed I had
+stolen her husband and was as bad as I could be ... no
+one could be surprised at what she called me ... but
+it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go
+back to London, and there was nothing at first to go back
+to but the stage.... I did not stay <i>there</i> long ...
+innocence is not very valuable on the stage&mdash;except in the<span class="pagenum">[359]</span>
+play!... and though I have a special talent for acting
+<i>off</i> the stage, I am too nervous <i>on</i> it to open my lips ...
+so there was no hope for advancement that way ... I
+had to begin again on the old round."</p>
+
+<p>"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand&mdash;why?
+<i>why?</i>... what was it all for?"</p>
+
+<p>"For money, Clem. I wanted money."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't believe it!&mdash;Oh! <i>not</i> for money!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money;
+there is nothing they will not do to get gold in their hands.
+I was <i>good</i> for money ... a saint, an angel, a virgin&mdash;most
+especially a virgin."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you
+say can make no difference to me. I <i>will</i> love you. I
+<i>will</i> be your friend. But&mdash;is there anything in the world
+that money can get that was worth it all? I ask out of
+sheer curiosity&mdash;<i>is</i> there?"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a
+few words dropped into the silence of the room.</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted the money for my child."</p>
+
+<p>The storm had died away at last, leaving a terrible
+peace behind it. The colour of the evening sky was sard-green,
+than which nothing can be more despairing.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal sat with her head drooped forward a little
+as if very tired, and Poppy arose from her seat, pushed
+open a window, and stood looking out. The smell of wet
+steaming earth came into the room. Presently, speaking
+very softly, she continued her narrative:</p>
+
+<p>"I wanted all the money I could get for my son. He
+had no name, no heritage ... his father ... had, I
+believed, married another woman. I was resolved that
+he should at least have all money could give him.... I
+thought that when he grew up he would turn from me
+in any case as a woman who had shamed him and robbed
+him of his birthright, so that it did not matter <i>what</i> I did<span class="pagenum">[360]</span>
+while he was yet young, and yet loved me, to insure him
+health, a fine education, and a future. First it was to give
+him the bare necessaries of life, later to provide a home in
+the country where he could grow up strong and well under
+good, kind care ... then, my thoughts were for his future
+... Oh! I hoped to redeem my soul by his future, Clem!...
+So I worked and lied ... and lied and took ...
+and lied and saved ... not often with my lips did I lie,
+Clem ... but <i>always</i> with my eyes. I had at last amassed
+nearly eight hundred pounds ... you will think that
+remarkable, if you will remember that always I amassed
+it virtuously ... that there is no man of all I met in those
+years who can call me anything but a good woman&mdash;abominably,
+disgustingly, vilely <i>good</i>.</p>
+
+<p>"And then ... I was introduced to a financier, who,
+because of the charm of my innocent eyes, told me that,
+in a few weeks, he would transform my eight hundred
+pounds into eight thousand pounds. Incidentally, he
+remarked that we must see more of each other ... and
+I looked into <i>his</i> eyes and saw that they were <i>not</i> innocent,&mdash;and
+that there would be a difficult day of reckoning for
+me later on ... but for eight thousand pounds, and
+secure in mailed armour of <i>purity</i>, I risked that ...
+especially as he was just leaving England for a few weeks
+... I handed over my eight hundred pounds without
+a qualm, for he had a great name in the financial world.
+In less than three weeks his dead body was being hauled
+over the side of a yacht in the Adriatic, and my eight
+hundred pounds was deader than Dead-Sea fruit, for I
+never heard of it again ... nor wanted to ... the need
+of it was gone ... my boy was dead!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy! Poppy!" Clem got up and drew the girl
+down to the floor by her side. "Rest your head on me
+dear ... you are tired ... life has been too hard for
+you.<span class="pagenum">[361]</span></p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"'Dost thou know, O happy God!&mdash;&mdash;'<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>"Life has been brutal to you. I think of my own
+sheltered childhood, and compare it with yours&mdash;flung
+out into the fiery sands of the desert to die or survive, as
+best you might!... The strange thing is that your
+face bears no sign of all the terrible things that have overtaken
+you! I see no base, vile marks anywhere on you,
+Poppy.... It cannot all be acting ... no one is clever
+enough to mask a soiled soul for ever, and from everyone,
+if it really <i>is</i> soiled.... You <i>look</i> good&mdash;not smirking,
+soft goodness that means nothing, but brave, strong goodness
+... and I <i>know</i> that that look is true ... and so
+I can love you, after all these things you have told me ...
+I can love you better than ever. But <i>why</i> is it, Poppy?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know. If it <i>is</i> so, the reason must be that all
+was done for Love, Clem ... because always I had a
+sweet thing at my heart ... the love I bore to my child,
+and to the father of my child. Because, like the mother
+of Asa, 'I built an altar in a grove' and laid my soul upon it
+for Love. I want to tell you something further. Being
+<i>good</i>, as the world calls it, has no charm for me. Many
+of the men I have spoken of had a sinister attraction.
+<i>I understood what they felt.</i> I looked into eyes and saw
+things there that had answers deep down in me. I am a
+child of passionate Africa, Clem ... the blood in my
+veins runs as hot and red as the colour of a poppy.... It
+is an awful thing to look into the eyes of a man you do not
+love and see passion staring there&mdash;and feel it urging in
+your own veins, too. It is an awful thing to know what
+it is that he is silently demanding, and what that basely
+answers in your own nature.... Yet there are worse
+things than this knowledge. A worse thing, surely, would
+have been to have gone hurtling over the precipice with
+some Gadarene swine!... Clem, if I had been <i>really</i>
+innocent those years, nothing could have saved me. I<span class="pagenum">[362]</span>
+should have gone to the devil, as they call it, with some
+vile man I had no love for, just because I didn't know how
+to keep out of the traps laid for me by my own nature&mdash;and
+then I should have 'been at the devil' indeed! But
+I had bought knowledge with the price of my girlhood ...
+and I had mated with my own right man.... I had
+looked at life, if only for an hour, with love-anointed eyes
+... and so, it came to pass that I had a memory to live
+for, and a child to fight for ... and courage to fight my
+greatest enemy&mdash;myself. I think no one who knew the
+workings of my heart would deny me courage, Clem."</p>
+
+<p>"No, and it is a noble quality, child&mdash;the noblest, I
+think, when it is used to fight one's own baser nature.
+That only would keep a woman beautiful ... it is to
+<i>that</i> you owe your beauty, dear."</p>
+
+<p>"Then it is to you I owe it to a great extent&mdash;for it
+was you who first put the creed into me of courage&mdash;and
+silence&mdash;and endurance. Do you remember the night
+you wished me good-bye over your gate, Clem?"</p>
+
+<p>"I remember everything&mdash;but, dear, there is one thing
+that grieves and bewilders me&mdash;why, <i>why</i> could you not
+have earned a clean, fine living with your pen ... where
+was your gift of writing?"</p>
+
+<p>"It left me, Clem, when I tried to earn money with it.
+I could not write. I tried and tried. I sat to it until
+my eyes sank into my head and hollows came to my cheeks&mdash;until
+we were hungry, my little Pat and I&mdash;and cold.
+For bread and firing I had to leave it, and turn to other
+things. After the boy died ... it came back and mocked
+me. I wrote then to ease my pain ... and everything I
+have written since has been successful ... found a ready
+market and in some sort Fame ... but it was all too
+late!"</p>
+
+<p>"Poor child! everything has mocked you!" Clem put
+her arms round the girl and kissed her tenderly; then<span class="pagenum">[363]</span>
+drew away and assumed an ordinary pose, for a maid had
+come into the room bringing lights, and with the intimation
+that she was about to sound the dressing-bell, as it
+wanted only half an hour to dinner-time.</p>
+
+<p>"Heavens!" cried Clem; "and I hear Billy's voice in
+the garden; Eve Carson's, too, I believe. <i>Fly</i> to your
+room, Poppy. I expect Sarah has laid out one of your
+gowns."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[364]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IT was, indeed, Carson whom Portal had brought home
+with him. They had encountered in West Street,
+and Bill had insisted on bringing him back just as he
+was in the inevitable grey lounge suit, assuring him that
+there would be no one to find fault with his appearance
+but Mrs. Portal, who was notoriously forgiving.</p>
+
+<p>So Carson came, and had no faintest inkling that Poppy
+was there too. Being an old <i>intim&eacute;</i> of the family, he knew
+his way about the house and after leaving Portal's dressing-room,
+he sought the nursery, was admitted by Cinthie's
+nurse, and stayed talking and romping with the child long
+after the second bell had sounded and dinner been announced,
+with the result that Portal insisted on taking
+Poppy into dinner, while Clem sought the recalcitrant in
+the nursery. Later, they came laughing to the dining-room,
+and for the first time Carson knew of Poppy's
+presence. She was sitting facing the door, and a big silver
+candlestick, with wide branching antlers, framed her in
+a silver frame. With her mysterious, tendrilly hair, her
+subtle scarlet mouth and Celtic cheek-bones, she had the
+alluring appearance of a Beardsley-drawing without any
+of its bloodlessness, for her gown was as scarlet as the poppies
+of the field, and she glowed with inward fires at seeing
+Carson. The deep, sweet glance she gave him as they
+greeted made him glow too, with gladness of living, and
+some other radiant reason that for the moment was not
+clear to him. He only knew that weariness was gone from<span class="pagenum">[365]</span>
+his veins and that the splendour of life had come back at
+last with the rush and swell of full-tide.</p>
+
+<p>After dinner they all went into the verandah and the
+men smoked there. Clem never smoked, but she liked the
+smell of cigars. Poppy had long broken herself of the
+cigarette habit. Later, Portal said he must go and write
+two important letters to catch the mail&mdash;after that they
+would have a game of Bridge if anyone liked. Clem said
+she would go and play to the others her setting to "In
+Exile," of which she was very proud. She sang it softly
+over and over to them for a while. Afterwards she wandered
+through Chopin's "Prelude" into Schubert's gentle "Andante."
+Then unaccountably she began to fling out
+into the night the great solemn chords of a Funeral March.
+It was a wonderful thing, full of the dignity of sorrow,
+underlaid by thin wailings that spoke of little memories
+of all the past sweetnesses of the dead. There was a place
+in it that made Poppy think her dead child's arms were
+round her neck, and another where Carson thought of
+Alan Wilson and his thirty-one brave companions lying
+under the stars up in lonely Zimbabwe. At another time,
+he remembered a man dear to him, killed at Gwelo in the
+second native rising; he seemed to see the fellow with his
+hands in his pockets whistling to his dogs in a peculiar way
+he had.</p>
+
+<p>Through all the playing Poppy and he sat in the verandah,
+side by side, in two low canvas chairs. A fold of her gown
+lay across his feet. They were absolutely silent and they
+did not look at each other. Carson was staring straight
+before him, but without a turn of his head or flicker of his
+eyelids he was conscious of every tiniest detail of the woman
+by his side. He saw the gracious line of her cheek and
+throat and thigh and foot; but, more than that, he believed
+he saw the spirit of her too, gentle and sad, but brave and
+desirable to him beyond the soul of any woman&mdash;<i>and his</i>.<span class="pagenum">[366]</span>
+She was his. He was certain of that now. He had taken
+the knowledge from her eyes when they met that night;
+and yet it seemed old knowledge to him, something he had
+known since the beginning of time.</p>
+
+<p>Her hand lay within reach of his, but he did not touch
+it. Only too conscious of the mysterious magnetism of
+the flesh, he strove with all the fine instincts and high
+aspirations his spirit had ever given birth to and his body
+honoured, to free himself from the shackles of the flesh and
+give to this woman whom he loved and blessed a greater
+salute than the mere touching of hands.</p>
+
+<p>As for her&mdash;her eyes were closed. She, too, was reaching
+out with spirit-hands to him. Inasmuch as human souls
+which are aloof and lonely things can communicate&mdash;theirs
+met and hailed each other as mate until the end of time.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Clem freed them of sorrow. She began to
+play something that was like an old piece of brocade all
+flowered over quaintly with tiny leaves, true lovers' knots,
+and little pink-and-blue rose-buds. Presently the brocade
+became a stately dress, worn with powder and patches and
+high scarlet-heeled shoes.... Portal, having finished his
+mail, came back to the verandah, and Clem closed the
+piano then and came out too. They sat and talked, and
+no one again suggested cards.</p>
+
+<p>The night was fresh and sweet after the rain, and the
+sky above alive with newly-washed stars. Far away,
+Durban flashed and sparkled, and just above the bay
+there was a great splash of vermilion against the darkness
+of the bluff&mdash;sometimes it showed streaks of carmine
+in it. They discussed the phenomenon, and eventually
+concluded that a boat out on the water was afire. Whatever
+the cause, it certainly gave the finishing touch to the
+picturesque beauty of the night.</p>
+
+<p>A little after eleven Carson left. He shook hands with
+everyone at parting, and for a brief instant he and Poppy<span class="pagenum">[367]</span>
+drank another deep draught of joy from each other's
+eyes.</p>
+
+<p>No sooner had he gone than Clem said:</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy, you are to go to bed instantly, and stay there
+until I give you leave to get up. You look like a spectre."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy took her hand and kissed it. She was trembling
+with happiness, but she dared not speak of it. Clem put
+an arm round her.</p>
+
+<p>"I must come and see if your room is all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but who are these midnight vigilantes in the
+garden?" exclaimed Portal. "I believe I hear Bramham!"</p>
+
+<p>Bramham, indeed, it was who came into the light with
+a crumpled and weeping woman clinging to his arm.</p>
+
+<p>"What the&mdash;&mdash;?" softly demanded Portal of Heaven,
+and Clem stared. Poppy swiftly recognised Miss Allendner.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" she cried, stepping forward.</p>
+
+<p>Miss Allendner only wept more violently.</p>
+
+<p>"This poor lady has been greatly upset," said Bramham,
+and placed her in a chair. Then he spoke with the
+brevity of a good man with a bad tale:</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chard's house has been burnt to the ground;
+fortunately no one is hurt, but everything is destroyed."</p>
+
+<p>"Burnt! <i>burnt?</i>... <i>everything?</i> My work ... my
+freedom&mdash;" cried Poppy wildly with clasped hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Everything! Nothing left but a few bricks and some
+melted iron. I wonder you didn't see the flare-up&mdash;it
+lighted the whole bay. The thing was discovered too late
+to do anything but get Miss Allendner out." His firm
+brevity left him. "Oh, Lord, I <i>am</i> sorry!" He stared
+dismally.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Poppy!" cried Clem, with pitiful voice, and they
+all drew round the pale girl. She did not speak for a
+time&mdash;just stood there in the light streaming from the
+drawing-room windows, white and still; and presently
+some tears fell down her face. Then she said:<span class="pagenum">[368]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Poor Miss Allendner. Shall we put her to bed, in my
+bedroom, Clem? She is worn out!"</p>
+
+<p>The women went away. At the gate Bramham said to
+Portal:</p>
+
+<p>"And there is worse to come.... That crazy Allendner
+turkey was shrieking round the fire like a lunatic ...
+imploring the crowd to save the writings of <i>Eve Destiny</i>,
+the South African writer&mdash;everybody knows who she is
+now ... the place is humming like a beehive with the
+news ... and it will be in all the news-rags in the morning....
+She'll be more broken up over that than anything
+... for reasons of her own she didn't want it known....
+Oh, it's a hell of a country, Portal."</p>
+
+<p>This thing was news also to Portal. Mrs Portal being
+that lovely thing, a close woman, he knew nothing of
+Poppy's identity with <i>Eve Destiny</i>.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[369]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">WHEN Carson left the Portals he did not go home.
+He turned his face towards the higher heights of
+the Berea, and those surmounted, tramped on&mdash;on past
+darkened blind-drawn, lonely houses, and long stretches
+of gardens and vacant lands, until he came at last to the
+cliff-side that overlooks Umgeni. Afterwards he tramped
+and tramped, without knowing or caring where he went, but
+always with the light silent feet of the athlete. Irishmen
+are natural athletes. Also, if they are <i>real</i> Irishmen, that
+is, born and brought up through boyhood in their own land,
+they have learned to play "Handball"; and so their feet are
+as light as their hands are swift to feel and their eyes to
+observe. For a man whose lot must be cast in the sinuous
+paths of Africa&mdash;jungle or money-market&mdash;there could be
+no better training than constant play in his youthful days
+in an Irish ball-court, for it teaches quickness of wit and
+limb more than any game ever played, as well as developing
+both sides of the body, thus making for perfect symmetry.
+Carson had a passion for the game, and he went hot with
+anger when he thought how neglected and ignored it was
+amongst the fine sports of the world. "Pilota," the Spanish
+national game, has some resemblance to "Handball,"
+and is played by men of all classes in Spain. But in Ireland
+with the exception here and there of a gentleman enthusiast,
+who has learnt his love of the pastime at his college, only
+the poor fellows play it now, and those usually the roughest
+of their class, who are obliged to depend for their "courts"
+on the proprietors of public-houses.<span class="pagenum">[370]</span></p>
+
+<p>All young Irish boys love "Handball," however, and
+Carson had often thought it a wistful thing to see little
+ragged chaps watching a game with eyes alight, holding
+the coats of players, on the chance of getting a chance to
+play themselves when the "court" was vacated.</p>
+
+<p>In the Protectorate he had established, he meant to
+build "ball-courts" and teach the fine stalwart Borapotans
+to play the finest game in the world.</p>
+
+<p>But to-night, as he tramped, he did not think of these
+things. The sports and pastimes of his boyhood were
+as far from his mind as was the innocence of his boyhood
+from his heart. He was trying to tramp out the remembrance
+of a sin. Trying to obliterate from his memory
+the face of a woman he did not love, never had loved, never
+would love&mdash;but to whom honour held him fast. A
+woman who had nursed him in sickness with devotion and
+care&mdash;and who, when he was still physically weak, had
+flung herself into his arms&mdash;at his feet, offering her life,
+her love, her honour. And he had weakly fought, weakly
+resisted, and at the last most weakly taken&mdash;taken just for
+the love of pity, and the love of love and all the other loves
+that Irishmen, above all men, know all about, and that
+have nothing to do with Love at all.</p>
+
+<p>The bitter cud to chew now between his gritting teeth
+was that he had never reaped anything but soul-misery
+and sacrifice of fine resolves from the thing. Yet here
+it was holding itself up before him like some pure star that
+he must never cease from following after: a creed never to
+be forsaken; an idol before which to sacrifice the rest of his
+life&mdash;to sacrifice the most wonderful love that ever thrilled
+a man's veins and shook from his life all mean and paltry
+things.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, Lust past and Love present had a great fight in
+the heart of Evelyn Carson, Bart., D.S.O., C.M.G., in the
+early hours of that April morning. It must have been<span class="pagenum">[371]</span>
+close on six hours that he tramped and fought, for when
+at last he came by devious ways to Sea House, the shroudy
+dawn was breaking over the face of the Indian Ocean.</p>
+
+<p>And Bramham was in his dining-room insanely drinking
+whiskies-and-sodas.</p>
+
+<p>"What the&mdash;&mdash;?" Carson stood in the doorway staring.</p>
+
+<p>"Waiting up for you, of course! Where have you been?"
+said the drunk and dauntless Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't remember engaging you to wet-nurse me."
+Carson was too savage with life to be polite even to the
+best friend he had ever possessed. He strode into the
+room, threw his soft hat rolled into a ball into a corner,
+and would have passed through, but Bramham detained
+him with a word.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chard's house was burnt to the ground last
+night!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson came back and stood by the table. It seemed
+to him that a good thing to do would be to mix a strong
+whiskey-and-soda, and he did so, and drank it thirstily.</p>
+
+<p>"What was that you said, Bram?" he asked, later.</p>
+
+<p>"Miss Chard's house is burnt to the ground. The whole
+town knows now that she is <i>Eve Destiny</i>, the South African
+novelist&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"The how much?"</p>
+
+<p>"The South African novelist. The woman who wrote
+the book of poems that set all the African mothers flying
+to lock the nursery doors&mdash;and the plays <i>In a Tin Hotel
+at Witpoortje</i> and <i>A Veldt Ghost</i>. Why, Carson, you don't
+seem to know anything! You ought to employ someone
+to dig you up every five years."</p>
+
+<p>Because of his desire for further information on this
+interesting subject, Carson kept his temper between his
+teeth and bore as best he might with Bramham's unusual
+wit. It was to be remembered, too, that Bramham was a
+"good man," and as such permitted a lapse. However, if<span class="pagenum">[372]</span>
+the latter had anything more to tell he kept it to himself,
+and only gave a repetition of his former statements with
+a graphic description, which Carson was not at all interested
+in, of the fire.</p>
+
+<p>One thing alone, stood out, a salient point in the narrative:</p>
+
+<p>"And I happen to know that everything she has is
+burnt. With the exception of a few royalties, she is penniless.
+All her finished work is burnt&mdash;everything she had
+in the world. She had a face like a banshee when I told
+her," was his complimentary conclusion.</p>
+
+<p>Carson departed and took a bath and shave on this
+information. Afterwards he went down and looked at
+the sea. When he came in to breakfast, a sane and calm
+Charles Bramham was seated there before him&mdash;bathed,
+groomed, dressed, eating an orange with a tea-spoon.</p>
+
+<p>They took breakfast with the appetites and serenity of
+good men, who having passed an excellent night, were
+about to attack the problems of the day with clear consciences.
+There was nothing noticeable about Bramham,
+except a thirst for tea.</p>
+
+<p>Just before they had finished, Carson casually said:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm going up to the Rand to sell everything I hold."</p>
+
+<p>Bramham regarded him piercingly, and at the moment
+a <i>boy</i> entered with the morning papers. Each man
+reached out for one, and turned with striking unanimity of
+interest to the Market reports.</p>
+
+<p>"Good Lord!" cried Bramham instantly. "<i>East Rands</i>
+at 5.5.0, and still sinking."</p>
+
+<p>Carson gave a groan, which meant, "Oh, Hades! why
+didn't I sell at &pound;10?"</p>
+
+<p>Bramham continued his dolorous tale, quoting all the
+prices in which he and Carson were interested.</p>
+
+<p>"Main Reefs, Randfonteins, Crown Reefs, Knights&mdash;all
+steadily sagging in sympathy; if you sell now, Karri,
+you'll be in the cart."<span class="pagenum">[373]</span></p>
+
+<p>And Carson knew that Bramham spoke the thing that
+was. In the state of the market it would mean ruin to
+sell. The loss would be so great that he doubted if he
+would be able to pay up the inevitable deficiency at his
+bank. He reflected that possibly a few of his syndicate
+shares might pull him through, but what good was that!
+He wanted <i>money</i>&mdash;money to marry Rosalind Chard and
+take her with him to Borapota; to free <i>her</i> from the cares
+of life and money for evermore.</p>
+
+<p>As he stared gloomily at Bramham, the colour of his
+prospects were of the same hue as the black scowl on his
+brow. But like all speculators, he was not long without
+a ray of hope. His face suddenly cleared.</p>
+
+<p>"What about my claims on the South Rand?" he
+demanded blithely.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you still got those?" cried Bramham in surprise.
+"Good! How many?"</p>
+
+<p>"Half interest in a hundred?"</p>
+
+<p>"By George! Well, you'd better go up and see what
+Charlie Rosser can do. If there's anything to be made
+he'll do it for you."</p>
+
+<p>They rose from the table.</p>
+
+<p>"When shall you go? To-day?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; to-day I have every moment occupied until six
+o'clock."</p>
+
+<p>"There's a good train to-night at nine."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't go to-night&mdash;I have something else to do."</p>
+
+<p>A transforming look flashed across Carson's face. Whatever
+grace of heart was his showed in his eyes for a moment
+as he thought of the girl who would be waiting for him
+to-night.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[374]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXVIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">"CLEM, scuttle up&mdash;we'll be late," shouted Portal.
+"What <i>is</i> she doing, Miss Chard?"</p>
+
+<p>"Hearing the bratiken's prayers, I think."</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd hurry her up."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy went out into the hall and stood at the nursery
+door, which was ajar. Clem's voice could be heard inside
+arguing with a small, sullen one.</p>
+
+<p>"Say them now, Cinthie&mdash;'Gentle Jesus&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"No, mummie."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, darling."</p>
+
+<p>"I want you to sing 'Bye-low Lady.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Not to-night, my dearest" (sound of a kiss); "there
+isn't time. Daddy's waiting for me to go to the theatre;
+we'll have longer sings to-morrow night. Say prayers
+now, Cinthie."</p>
+
+<p>"No, mummie."</p>
+
+<p>"Go on now, darling. Mother'll be cross with you in
+a minute. 'Gentle Jesus&mdash;&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"No, mummie."</p>
+
+<p>A silence.</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentle Jesus'&mdash;Go on now, Cinthie&mdash;'Gentle Jesus&mdash;'"</p>
+
+<p>"'Gentle Jesus'&mdash;sat on a wall," said the small voice,
+and burst into a peal of laughing. There was a rustling
+and Clem appeared at the nursery door gowned and gloved,
+her face bearing traces of smothered laughter. But from
+the door she called back, in a voice intended to be most
+hauntingly sad:<span class="pagenum">[375]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Mother's sorry her little girl is so naughty to-night.
+Good-night, Cinthie."</p>
+
+<p>"G'night," was the cheerful response.</p>
+
+<p>Clem came out into the hall and shut the door, and
+putting her arm in Poppy's hurried to the drawing-room,
+where Portal was offering up loud prayers for patience,
+and bemoaning the miserable, wasted lives of all married
+men.</p>
+
+<p>"Time is simply nothing to them, I tell you!" he chanted.
+"It is no concern of theirs! They cannot wear it, nor give
+it to their offspring to play with! As for punctuality, it
+is a rule invented for men and dogs only&mdash;and rickshaw
+pullers. Ours has been waiting at the gate for twenty
+minutes&mdash;but <i>that's</i> all right&mdash;what do <i>we</i> care for the first
+act of a play?"</p>
+
+<p>Clem took not the slightest notice. She turned to Poppy.</p>
+
+<p>"And, darling, when you've finished your coffee I wish
+you'd go in and hear her prayers. She feels very much
+injured to-night&mdash;you will, won't you? I am so vexed that
+we have to go out and leave you&mdash;and <i>I do</i> wish you would
+have come too. It might have made you forget all about
+that wicked fire."</p>
+
+<p>"I shall be quite happy here, Clem. I have much to
+think of and plan; and, of course, I'll mind Cinthie. Be
+off now."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy hustled her into her cloak and laces and saw them
+both off into the rickshaw. Afterwards she returned to
+the drawing-room, poured out her coffee, and took it
+into the nursery. Cinthie's little straight, white bed stood
+in the centre of the room, and she was lying with the sheet
+drawn up to her chin, two long pigtails stretching down
+on either side of her, and two big, dark eyes glooming out
+of the little, soft, dark face. Beside her on the pillow two
+still, inanimate forms glared glazily at the ceiling.</p>
+
+<p>"Cinthie!"<span class="pagenum">[376]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Eum!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo, Cinthie!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hallo!"</p>
+
+<p>"You asleep?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, not yet."</p>
+
+<p>"Sure you're not?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm not, Poppy." She sat up in bed and gave a
+lively prance to show she was awake.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I've come to have a little talk."</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie made a joyful noise that sounded like <i>corn-cookoo</i>,
+and gave another prance.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat on the edge of the bed and sipped her coffee,
+tendering to Cinthie an occasional spoonful, which was
+supped up rapturously.</p>
+
+<p>"Who've you got there with you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Two my chil'ren."</p>
+
+<p>"Which ones?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Daisy-Buttercup</i> 'n <i>Oscar</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! have they said their prayers yet?"</p>
+
+<p>A pause, then:</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't tell them to say prairses to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Not?" cried Poppy, in shocked surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"No." (A pause.) "They's too tired."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but Cinthie! Fancy, if they died in their sleep!
+How sorry they'd be they hadn't said their prayers."</p>
+
+<p>An uncomfortable pause. Poppy drank some more
+coffee.</p>
+
+<p>"I know <i>you</i> would never go to sleep without saying
+<i>your</i> prayers."</p>
+
+<p>A silence.</p>
+
+<p>"I hope you prayed for me to-night, sweetness?"</p>
+
+<p>A silence.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And for that darling mummie of yours?"</p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And your lovely daddie?"<span class="pagenum">[377]</span></p>
+
+<p>Silence.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;Because I know they couldn't enjoy themselves at
+the theatre, or go to sleep to-night, or anything, if you
+didn't. But of course, you did. Good-night, sweetness&mdash;give
+a kiss."</p>
+
+<p>"G'night!" The little figure bounced up and put its
+arms round her and kissed her all over her face. Poppy
+tucked her in carefully.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so glad you prayed for mummie and daddie and
+me," she said fervently. "Good-night, darling-pet."</p>
+
+<p>"G'night."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't have the candle left, do you?"</p>
+
+<p>"No."</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I put the mosquito-curtain round?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy flicked it well with her handkerchief and arranged
+it round the bed like a big, white bird-cage; then taking
+the candle in her hand, walked slowly to the door.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-night."</p>
+
+<p>"G'night."</p>
+
+<p>She opened the door and went out slowly.</p>
+
+<p>At the last conceivable instant, as the door was on the
+point of closing, a little voice cried:</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, sweetness."</p>
+
+<p>"I want a drink of water."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy went back, poured a glass of water, and carried
+it to the delinquent, who took a mouthful; then said,
+slowly and sorrowfully:</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'll say prairses, Poppy."</p>
+
+<p>"All right darling!" She sat down on the bed again
+and put her arms round the slim figure, who, kneeling
+with her nose snuggled into the soft, white shoulder, said
+her "prairses" at express-speed down into Poppy's evening-gown:<span class="pagenum">[378]</span></p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:12em">
+<p>"Gen-tuljeesus, meek n' mil',<br />
+Lookup pon a little chil';<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Pitimysimplisitee,</span><br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Suffer me t' come to Thee.</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Our Fath 'CHART in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.
+Thy King and come, Thy will be done 'Nearth as 'tis
+'Neaven. Give us 's day our <i>DAILY BREAD</i> N' forgive
+us our trespasses 'gainst us. But 'liver us from evil.
+For Thine's kingdom, Power and GLORY, frever and
+ever, Amen.</p>
+
+<p>"Our Father, please bless my darling Mummie, and
+take care of her at the theatre, and my lovely Daddie,
+<i>and</i> Grannie, <i>and</i> Grandad, <i>and</i> Poppy, <i>and</i> all the servants
+in <i>this</i> house, <i>and</i> all the little children in the world,
+<i>and</i> fill our hearts with love 'n kindness, Amen&mdash;now I
+must say my <i>Latins</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Clem was Catholic and Bill Protestant, and the result
+was a strange medley of prayers for Cinthie. She kneeled
+up, crossed herself solemnly in Latin, and began to chant
+the lovely words of the Angelical Salutation:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta
+tu in mulieribus, et benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Sancta Maria! Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
+nunc et in hora mortis nostr&aelig;. Amen.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>Afterwards she fell into a peal of laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"Why do you laugh, darling?" Poppy gravely asked,
+and the answer was:</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Poppy! Wouldn't <i>Nunc</i> be a funny name for a
+dog!"</p>
+
+<p>Then once more the sheets were tucked in, the mosquito-net
+arranged, and a kiss blown through it.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Pansy-face!"</p>
+
+<p>"G'night, Red-rose!" responded Cinthie ardently.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Gold-heart!"</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie thought laboriously for a few seconds, struggling<span class="pagenum">[379]</span>
+for a fitting response. At last, just as Poppy reached the
+door, she shouted breathlessly:</p>
+
+<p>"G'night; White-soul!"</p>
+
+<p>At that Poppy gave a cry and ran back once more and
+hugged her.</p>
+
+<p>When at length she tore herself away from the warm,
+loving little arms and went alone to the drawing-room,
+heavy tears were splashing down her cheeks and her lips
+were like a wistful, sorrowing child's. She stood in the
+open window and stared out at the beauty of the night.
+Above in the solemn purple sky was the Cross, picked out
+in scarlet stars. Far below twinkled the town lights, and
+at quick intervals the Bluff Lighthouse sent long, sweeping,
+golden lines across the bay, revealing for an instant the
+shadowy fabrics of ships and sailing craft lying safe in dock.</p>
+
+<p>Out at sea a great liner steamed slowly to anchorage,
+hundreds of lights flashing from her three tiers, and presently
+the rattle of her cable through the hawse-pipes
+floated distinctly up to the heights, the throbbing in her
+breast died away, and she lay rocking softly like some great
+tired bird nested at last.</p>
+
+<p>In the dim valley a Zulu boy, heart-hungry for his
+home-kraal, was making music of an infinite sweetness
+and melancholy on that oldest instrument in the world,
+a reed-flute. The sound brought further tears to Poppy,
+and a burning in her throat. It seemed the voice of her
+heart wailing, because she had never been a child, because
+"earth was so beautiful and Heaven so far"; because she
+loved a man and was beloved of him and darkness lay
+between them! At that, she longed passionately with
+every sense and nerve in her for Evelyn Carson. She
+ached in the very bones and blood of her for a sight or
+sound of him. If he would only come&mdash;&mdash;!</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, God! be good to me for once!" she cried with
+soundless lips. "Let him come&mdash;I will do the rest. There<span class="pagenum">[380]</span>
+is no barrier I cannot break down between him and me.
+He is mine&mdash;dear God, you <i>know</i> that he is mine! I
+bound him with my hair, my lips, my soul. I gave him of
+my best, I gave him my girlhood&mdash;<i>I bore his son</i>." The
+green leaves of the passion-plant trailing over the window
+lapped gently against her cheek, and she put up her hands
+to them. "Oh, trees, leaves, all green things, help me&mdash;let
+him come&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>And he came, through the open gate, up the broad
+pathway, straight to her.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes were closed tight to stop her tears, but she
+heard him coming as she stood there with the shaded
+lamps behind her in the empty room, and the silver night
+on her face. He came so close to the verandah that he
+could look in upon her, and plainly see her pale emotion-wrung
+face and the tears urging through her tightly-closed
+lids and dripping from her lashes. Her lips opened and
+her breath came heavily, and the sight of her took strange
+hold of him. His own lips unclosed; the marks self-mockery
+had made about them had been wiped out; his
+handsome, haggard eyes had changed, boyhood had come
+back to them.</p>
+
+<p>"Won't you come into the garden?" His voice had
+all the sweetness of Ireland in it. She unclosed her eyes
+and came out to him, the tears still shining on her cheeks:
+a pale, ardent woman&mdash;strangely like a narcissus.</p>
+
+<p>He put an arm through hers and they walked together
+in the gracious dimness.</p>
+
+<p>Down the centre of the garden dividing two lawns ran
+a high hedge of Barbadoes-thorn. It is a shrub garlanded
+with white tiny flowers of a perfume probably the most
+pungent in the world&mdash;much like the gardenia, or tuberose,
+but heavier, sweeter. To-night this perfume hung
+upon the air, and stayed with these lovers all their lives
+after. They sat on the grass under a giant flamboyant<span class="pagenum">[381]</span>
+tree and a tiny green tree-frog sang a love-song to its
+mate in the branches over their heads. But they did not
+hear. They were deaf to everything now save the drumming
+in their hearts and the urging of their pulses. Carson
+had his arm about her, half for her support, wholly
+because he could not help it. Her tears were still on her
+face, and he leaned so close that his cheek was wetted by
+them. One heavy drop fell on his lips and he tasted the
+salt of it, and it was as if he had tasted blood. Suddenly he
+turned her lips to his and began to kiss her with a mouth
+of flame.</p>
+
+<p>"Eve! Eve!" she cried, afraid of her gladness. He
+did not speak; nor could he, if he would. Only he dragged
+kisses from the mouth he had desired so long; the eyes he
+had looked away from; the curving, cloven chin; the throat
+that shone in the darkness like a moony pearl. And when
+he came to her lips again, they kissed him back with wild,
+sweet kisses. Her arms were round him too. One held
+his throat and her eyes were shut and sealed.</p>
+
+<p>After some short, blind moments, in which she was lost,
+and he torn in two between desire and iron-determination,
+he lifted her suddenly to her feet.</p>
+
+<p>"Darling, my heart, good-bye&mdash;for a little while," he
+said; "and then&mdash;<i>never</i> good-bye again. The next time we
+kiss, you must be my wife."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[382]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXIX</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">CARSON left the next day for Johannesburg as he
+had intended, speaking to no woman after he had
+parted from that pale, ardent one under the flamboyant tree.
+Other women, indeed, had ceased to exist for him. With <i>one</i>
+he knew there must yet be a scene, most painful and bitter,
+which could not be shirked; the thought of it, <i>when</i> he
+thought of it, turned his heart cold&mdash;but it must be confessed
+that he did not think of it often. He was too busy in his
+first weeks of absence to think of any woman much&mdash;even
+the best-beloved. Up to his eyes in affairs, and among a
+hundred old friends and haunts in the busy, virile life of
+the Rand, he had scarcely time to turn up the book of his
+mind for a page he knew was there, illumined with letters
+of fire and gold. But always he wore a red rose in his heart.
+Always a star glimmered at the back of his life, colouring
+the days golden.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes in the night-hours, or with the dawn, a vision
+of her face would come to him, so sharp and clear, that it
+seemed her body must be in the room, as well as her spirit,
+and almost she would fill the arms he put out for her.
+In those hours it was made clear to him how Love can
+wrench the spirit from the body and send it speeding across
+the miles to the Beloved.</p>
+
+<p>He had not asked her to write, nor did he write himself.
+Their love was not one which needed to be kept afire by
+words; already it burned too fiercely for peace. Letters
+would have been a delight, it is true; but he was artist<span class="pagenum">[383]</span>
+enough to realise the value of restraint from small joys
+that a great joy may be more complete, and he knew that
+their meeting would be the dearer and sweeter for this
+intervening silence "too full for sound or foam."</p>
+
+<p>Moreover, his affairs were critical. He required all his
+coolness and judgment for the share market, and the
+letters he must write if he wrote at all to her, though they
+would not have disabled him for the fight, must at least
+have left him less calm and unshaken than he desired to be
+at this juncture. Fortune is a woman, and a jealous one
+at that. She must be wooed and worshipped, and all
+others forgotten for her sake before she will bestow her
+smiles. Carson approached her in a spirit of ravishment.
+His desire was for her favours, and he was prepared to drag
+them from her, if she would not give. He was prepared to
+buy and sell as never before in all his gay, careless life&mdash;feverish
+for gain.</p>
+
+<p>The glance with which he searched the face of Fortune
+was neither imperialistic nor altruistic now, but purely
+personal; he was thinking, plotting, planning for the
+future; but the details of that same future were too wild
+and sweet to be thought upon. They sang a song in his
+veins that would not be silenced.</p>
+
+<p>His first business was to find Charlie Rosser, his broker,
+the shrewdest, straightest man on 'Change,' and a personal
+friend at that. But the slump was affecting people's
+health. All Johannesburg was laid up, nursing its lungs,
+its hump, or its pet stocks, and Rosser was amongst the
+invalids. So Carson's first week was spent at a loose end,
+for he was too wise a citizen of the world to venture upon
+the seas of finance, of which he had no great knowledge,
+without a good man at the helm. Most days, however,
+found him making his way through the crowded streets
+to "the Chains" for news of the market. Things were
+as bad as they could be, and every man had a tale of dolour<span class="pagenum">[384]</span>
+to pitch, but no one looked dolorous. The high, fine air
+of Johannesburg is a wonderful thing for making people
+think they are all muscle and no nerves&mdash;and they don't
+find out their mistake until after they have made their
+pile, or lost it, when the "finding out" doesn't matter,
+anyway.</p>
+
+<p>The place was always home to Carson, and "full of
+friendly faces," and he trod its streets as familiarly as the
+decks of his own soul.</p>
+
+<p>One morning, just before High Change, he found an
+extra jostle going on amongst the crowds of brokers and
+dealers "between the Chains." Everyone was agog.
+The market had come better from London. In anticipation
+of a demand at High Change, shares were changing
+hands merrily. Carson was hailed blithely by friend and
+foe alike, offered everything he didn't want, and alternately
+elated and depressed by the news that came to
+him concerning the stocks in which he was interested.
+But on the whole, the outlook was bright.</p>
+
+<p>"Boom!" was the hilarious word that cleared the horizon
+of clouds. "There's going to be a boom!" men shouted,
+and their eyes were full of the bland joy of piracy. Rumours
+had come that the "Corner House" was supporting the
+market for <i>their</i> special stocks, and other houses followed
+the lead. Johannesburg is the most sensitive market in
+the world&mdash;it responds to outside influence as the violin to
+Sarasate.</p>
+
+<p>In the midst of the dust and din Carson caught sight
+among the crowd of a puffy red face, with grim eyes and
+the sweeping moustache of an Algerian pirate. He was
+waving frantically at Carson and yelling:</p>
+
+<p>"My office! Come and pow-wow!"</p>
+
+<p>In five minutes Carson had trailed Rosser to his lair,
+and they were deep in a discussion of prospects. Rosser's
+tips were no better than any other, but his opinion on the<span class="pagenum">[385]</span>
+trend of the market was always worth hearing, and usually
+as nearly right as possible.</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I sell or hold?" demanded Carson, when his
+affairs had been laid upon the board and swiftly scanned.</p>
+
+<p>"Hold?" screamed Rosser. "Everything is going to
+the devil. Do you think I take any stock in this good
+news? Why&mdash;<i>the country is rotten</i>. The British public
+is steadily selling. This improvement can't last&mdash;it's only
+a flash in the pan. Sell! This is your chance. Sell all
+you've got. Sell calls&mdash;sell your shirt&mdash;sell <i>anything</i>&mdash;up
+to ninety days. Destruction comes after."</p>
+
+<p>This was Carson's mood also. But he had an anchor
+now that deterred him from advancing too gaily towards
+the breakers. He first examined Rosser from top to toe
+with steely eyes, then advanced the objection that if he
+had to pay brokerage on the whole amount out of his call-money,
+he wouldn't make a heap of profit. Rosser began
+to prophesy, but without sanctity.</p>
+
+<p>"No calls will be taken up this year. Hell! I've a
+good mind to run the biggest bear account you've ever
+dreamt of, Carson. Take my advice and sell, man. Sell
+on 'fixed delivery' and 'buyer's option' and 'to arrive'&mdash;play
+bear till all is blue." He suddenly became calm and
+business-like. "Think it over for a few moments while
+I read my letters, and then decide."</p>
+
+<p>In old days Carson would have embraced the proposition
+with the devil-may-care philosophy of the usual Rand man,
+that if "bearing" smashed him up he'd be no worse off
+than a hundred better men who'd done the same thing
+before him. But now&mdash;he was feverish for gain&mdash;the
+thought of loss was unendurable. Rosser suddenly looked
+up at him with a waiting smile.</p>
+
+<p>"Well?"</p>
+
+<p>"Damned if I don't do it, Charlie. You can sell calls
+on everything I've got, this morning&mdash;here's the list,<span class="pagenum">[386]</span>
+and in the afternoon you can sell everything I haven't
+got on 'fixed delivery,' or 'to arrive.'"</p>
+
+<p>"Good, man!" cried Rosser.</p>
+
+<p>"And what about my block of South Rands?"</p>
+
+<p>This was Carson's hold-by. The biggest stone in his
+box. He had bought these fifty shares at a sheriff's sale
+for twenty pounds each, years before, and though he had
+often wanted the money, some indefinable superstition
+had kept him cheerfully paying up licences and hanging
+on. <i>Now</i> rumour went, the Big House wanted them.</p>
+
+<p>"What will you take for them?" asked Rosser, grinning.
+"Cost?"</p>
+
+<p>"No!" said Carson violently, "nor double, nor quadruple.
+I'll do or die by those damned things."</p>
+
+<p>Rosser regarded him cynically, but with affection. It
+had not escaped the grim eyes that Carson here present
+was not the notoriously careless, indifferent Carson of the
+past.</p>
+
+<p>"You sound to me like a man who wants to buy a
+trousseau for himself," he remarked, but his gibe brought
+no blush to the brazen cheek before him, and he did not
+dream that he had made a bull's-eye.</p>
+
+<p>"But you're quite right, Karri.... You're going to
+make a big bag out of that little preserve ... only keep
+cool ... and if Wallerstein asks you about them, say
+they're not for sale ... I haven't time to tell you any
+more now." He was looking at his watch. "By Cli! I
+must get away to 'Change. Where shall we meet
+afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"At the Club," said Carson briefly. "One sharp. My
+table is third on the left as you go in ... don't be late."</p>
+
+<p>They parted. Rosser for 'Change, and Carson to walk
+swiftly away down Commissioner Street towards Jeppestown,
+past the City-and-Suburban-Township-blocks, with
+the fine buildings that look so substantial and impressed<span class="pagenum">[387]</span>
+every new-comer with the stability and security of life
+and fortune in the great mining centre. The place was
+teeming with life and apparent prosperity. But a grim
+smile hovered on Carson's lips. He knew, as well as
+Rosser, that things, so far from being secure and stable,
+were, under the corrupt Boer Government, rotten to the
+core, and could never be on a sound basis until England
+intervened. But this was '98, and the time was not yet.</p>
+
+<p>Punctually at one Rosser arrived at the Rand Club.
+Carson was deep in an <i>indaba</i> with two men he knew well,
+and the talk was all of shares and money&mdash;big business
+had been done on 'Change. Rosser was cold-eyed and
+inaccessible until the other men went, then he brightened
+and told Carson what he had done.</p>
+
+<p>"I've sold everything on time!" he said. "Committed
+you&mdash;roughly&mdash;to ten thousand pounds of sales
+... sixty days ... buyer's options."</p>
+
+<p>If Carson's spirit groaned, his face gave no sign; but the
+little broker was as sensitive as the market. He looked at
+the other keenly.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't do the business if you're afraid; I'm perfectly
+satisfied to go into it alone. Why! I'm so certain of
+the coming fall that I advise you to run a bear account
+up to fifty thousand pounds. Hell! Carson, what's come
+to you? I've never known you like this before."</p>
+
+<p>"I've got a touch of fever," said Carson irritably, but
+he did not specify the peculiar brand he was suffering
+from. He was ashamed of his funk&mdash;but the best of men
+get attacks of it in certain circumstances.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, if you'll make up your mind to stick to it for
+three months you'll make ten thousand pounds at least."</p>
+
+<p>"Three months!" It was Carson's turn to cry "Hell!"
+But presently he said firmly: "Go ahead, Rosser, and sell
+another ten thousand&mdash;buyer's options, this afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Right!" cried Rosser gaily, and with a heart at peace<span class="pagenum">[388]</span>
+proceeded to acknowledge his friends at various tables,
+while Carson turned up the wine-list. They had been
+eating and drinking steadily through lunch.</p>
+
+<p>"Coffee, 1830 Brandy, and '94 Coronas," was Carson's
+order, and when the waiter had come and gone, Rosser
+sadly said, looking at his glass:</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder how long it will last!"</p>
+
+<p>"What, the market?" Once more the teeth of Carson's
+soul chattered.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;Karri, you're all to bits&mdash;the brandy. There
+can't be much of it left. Now let's get to this South-Rand
+proposition. Look here&mdash;you know I'm a few
+pounds to the good ... and I'm really smitten with
+my bear scheme. If you're anxious about it, I'll stand in
+with you ... share and share. But only on the condition
+that you give me a share in your South Rand claims."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's hear the proposition," said Carson, beginning to
+take a more cheerful view of life through his smoke rings.</p>
+
+<p>"You have fifty claims? Wallerstein will give you
+one hundred pounds each for them; but they are worth
+five times that if the business is properly engineered.
+They're a long way from the out-crops, but the reef
+<i>must</i> be found dipping through them, and the Big House
+<i>must</i> have them to make up their area. Now what I propose
+is this: You leave the business to me. Value the
+claims say at two hundred pounds each, and give me half
+of what I can get over that."</p>
+
+<p>It did not take Carson very long to come to a conclusion.
+He knew he was dealing with one of the straightest
+men and best fellows in Johannesburg, and there was no
+faintest chance of his confidence being abused. He closed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll have an agreement drawn up, relating to the
+claims, at once," said Rosser. "What about the bear
+scheme? Shall I stand in with you, or will you stand
+alone?"<span class="pagenum">[389]</span></p>
+
+<p>"I'll stand alone, thanks, old man." All Carson's careless
+nerve had come back to him, with the memory of a
+face fair to see. He knew, in spite of his words, that
+whatsoever fortune befell&mdash;poverty or riches&mdash;he would
+never again stand alone in the world.</p>
+
+<p>"Good, man!" cried Rosser. "I must scoot. I've two
+appointments before 'Change this afternoon&mdash;so long!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson was left to his own many and various devices.</p>
+
+<p>The market rose steadily for a week. The air was full
+of good and gentle rumours. An Industrial Commission
+was to be appointed! The iniquitous Dynamite Monopoly
+was to be smashed! Native labour was to be guaranteed
+at lower wages! Everything in the garden was
+to be lovely! And everyone wore a brow unsullied by
+care! And bears were tumbling over each other in every
+direction to cover.</p>
+
+<p>Carson had some bad times with himself, but his under-lip
+never slackened. Rosser's grip on the market was
+firm and unhesitating. He sold heavily "to arrive."</p>
+
+<p>"I have never known anyone who made money&mdash;worth
+talking about&mdash;by buying and holding," was the creed
+he offered to Carson. And in this case he was right.
+Suddenly the reaction began. Shares fell with a bump,
+and kept steadily on the down-grade for months.</p>
+
+<p>At the end of the first month Carson's bear account closed
+with a handsome profit to himself of twelve thousand
+pounds.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, negotiations had been proceeding over
+the South Rands. The lifelessness of the market did
+not affect the fact that the "Big House" wanted Carson's
+claims, and was steadily working to get them by hook or
+by crook. But Carson and Rosser were both up to every
+hook and crook of the game. They held the cards and
+they knew it, and when four hundred pounds each was
+offered for the shares, they only sat and smiled like little<span class="pagenum">[390]</span>
+benign gods. Further, Rosser airily informed Wallerstein,
+the representative of the "Big House," that he would not
+consider anything under one thousand pounds. However,
+in secret conclave, the two conspirators agreed to take
+eight hundred pounds apiece&mdash;not bad for claims that had
+cost Carson twenty pounds each at the sheriff's sale.
+Rosser was for holding out for a thousand, but Carson's
+time was running out, and his patience.</p>
+
+<p>"No: get a definite offer for eight hundred pounds, and
+close on it," were his orders, and on that decision he rested,
+as much as a man <i>can</i> rest in Johannesburg, taking the
+days quietly and dining sanely at nights with old friends.
+But he got little joy of their society, for the reason that
+though he knew their lives and interests, they knew nothing
+of the most vital and important part of his. They had
+never seen those lilac-coloured eyes with the big, black
+velvet centres; they could know nothing of the sweet, wild
+strain on his heart. He felt like a man who stood on the
+walls of a citadel filled with treasure, parleying with friends
+and enemies alike, but allowing no one to enter.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly he grew horribly lonely; the days dragged
+and the nights brought memories that set him in bodily
+torment.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately at this juncture Forsyth, an old crony,
+carried him off to the Potchefstroom district for some
+veldt shooting. The air, the long tramps, and the joy of
+sport, filled in the days, and found him too tired at nights
+to do anything but fall log-like into the blankets.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[391]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXX</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">POPPY and Cinthie were sitting in the garden together
+under an orange-tree, which was set in the midst
+of the thick fence of Barbadoes-thorn. Poppy's muslin
+gown was of a colour that made her look like a freshly-plucked
+spray of lilac, and she wore a wide white hat,
+trimmed with convolvulus.</p>
+
+<p>Every ornament she possessed had been burnt except
+a jewelled pendant she always wore round her neck, and
+her big malachite brooch; but now on the third finger of
+her left hand she wore a ring&mdash;a great, gleaming emerald,
+which had arrived in a little box that morning from
+Johannesburg.</p>
+
+<p>She had seen Clem looking at it with wondering eyes,
+but as yet she had not been able to explain, for Clem that
+day was rather more especially busy than usual. During
+breakfast she had been flitting in and out constantly to
+her husband's bedroom. Portal had been suffering from
+a bad attack of slump fever, and instead of doing the
+"camel-trick," and feeding on his hump, he required a
+special <i>menu</i> which kept the cook and his wife busy. He
+had been more or less confined to his room for three days.
+It is true that he made wonderful recoveries in the evenings,
+and rising up donned glad raiment and went to
+the Club to dine. But when the morning papers arrived
+he was worse than ever.</p>
+
+<p>The moment breakfast was over Clem had flown to
+prepare the drawing-room for a committee-meeting of<span class="pagenum">[392]</span>
+ladies interested in the fate of fifty able-bodied domestics
+arriving by the following week's mail-boat.</p>
+
+<p>So Cinthie and Poppy had taken to the bush for shelter.
+For since Poppy's identity had become known, everyone
+was anxious to examine her closely, to see what colour
+her eyes were, whether her hair was real, and how she
+behaved generally in the strong light of notoriety which
+enveloped her. The feeling about her had entirely changed.
+People said they understood <i>now</i> why she should be so
+strange-looking, and alone. She was a genius&mdash;the
+newspapers said so! And as such they opened their
+arms to her, and their doors, and bade her enter. But
+instead, she invariably fled with Cinthie into the bush.</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie was six now, and growing tall. Her brown
+holland overall was a mere frill about her neck, and looked
+an&aelig;mic beside the deeper colouring of her legs. Her
+sailor-hat hung at the back of her by its elastic, and in
+the corner of her mouth she thoughtfully sucked the end
+of one of the long streaks of hair. In her fingers she held
+a large and discoloured lump of dough, which she was
+kneading and pinching with the busy concentration of a
+beetle rolling a <i>mis bolitje</i>. Her nine dolls were seated,
+some against a flat rock, some against the tree, but all
+gazing stonily at their mother, except the banshee, who
+lay prone on her back, her arms extended as if to embrace
+the universe, her beady eyes fixed revengefully on Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy, sharing the trunk of the tree with the dolls,
+leaned lazily peeling an orange, which had kindly dropped
+from the branches above. Other oranges were lying about
+on the short grey-green grass.</p>
+
+<p>"What are you going to do with that dough, Cinthie?"
+she asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Make pudding."</p>
+
+<p>"Who for?"</p>
+
+<p>"For my chil'ren." She dipped her fingers into a doll's<span class="pagenum">[393]</span>
+tea-cup full of water, which stood at the elbow of the
+banshee, and continued to knead; the dough now clung
+to her fingers in long, elastic threads, and her face showed
+a deep and vivid interest in her occupation.</p>
+
+<p>"Are these all the children you've got?"</p>
+
+<p>"No; <i>Minnie-Haha</i> and <i>Danny Deever's</i> inside. They
+been naughty. They's in bed."</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth did they do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't say they prairses last night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how naughty!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; I don't love them when they don't say prairses
+for their daddy."</p>
+
+<p>"Their daddy?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; he lives in England. He has been living in
+England for twenty years. They have never seen
+him."</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness!"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it's very sad." She wagged her head dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>Presently she unplucked the dough from her fingers
+and began to spread it out on the large, flat stone, patting
+it smooth with the palm of her hand. Thereafter, she
+made a pattern round its edges with a doll's fork, as she
+had seen cook do.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I could make puddings like you," said Poppy,
+lying on her elbow and eating her orange.</p>
+
+<p>"I can make nicer ones'n this," said Cinthie boastfully.
+"I can make Best-pudding-of-all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do tell me, Cinthie, so when I have nine children
+I can make it for them too."</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie looked at her dreamfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps you won't have any children," she said.
+"Perhaps you'll be a widow."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Cinthie, don't be unkind&mdash;of course, I shall have
+some! Go on now, tell me about the pudding."</p>
+
+<p>Cinthie rubbed her nose and reflected for a long time.<span class="pagenum">[394]</span>
+At last, solemnly, with a long think between each
+sentence, she delivered the recipe.</p>
+
+<p>"Get some dough ... dip it in water for a minute
+or two ... get some pastry ... dip it into water
+twice ... roll it hard ... put it into the dish on top
+of everything&mdash;" Long pause.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Straighten the edges ..." (she carefully cut all
+round the dough on the stone with the handle of the fork);
+"bang it with your hand and it will come straight" (she
+banged the dough with the palm of her hand); "then
+spread a little water over it ... and there!" She sighed
+and took a fresh mouthful of hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I shall just make a pudding like that," said
+Poppy determinedly.</p>
+
+<p>The gentle slurring of a silk petticoat was heard on
+the dry grass, and Mrs. Capron joined them, smiling
+mischievously.</p>
+
+<p>"The committee meeting is over," she said, "and Clem
+has gone to see Lady Mostyn off on <i>The Scot</i> and taken Miss
+Allendner with her. She hopes she will be back for lunch,
+but is not sure; if not, we are to go on without her. She
+gave me leave to come and look for you two in the garden,
+so you can't very well kick me out, even if you don't
+want me. Hyacinthie, your nurse is walking about with
+two baked bananas smothered in cream, asking everyone
+if they've seen you."</p>
+
+<p>"Ooh!" Cinthie slashed the hair out of her mouth in
+anticipation of her favourite eleven-o'clock lunch. "Mind
+my babies!" she commanded Poppy with a menacing eye,
+and sped up the lawn, disappearing into the trees surrounding
+the house. The two women looked after her
+with entirely different emotions in their eyes. Mrs. Capron
+sighed.</p>
+
+<p>"Fleet of foot, but, alas! that one should have to say<span class="pagenum">[395]</span>
+it of Clem's child&mdash;flat of foot also." She seated herself
+daintily upon the rock which had served for Cinthie's
+kitchen-table; her eyes fastened themselves upon the
+emerald ring. She had never seen a ring on Poppy's hand
+before.</p>
+
+<p>"Her feet are scarcely formed yet," said the latter;
+"and Clem has perhaps let her wear sandals too long."</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Capron withdrew her fascinated eyes from the
+ring and shook her head sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"She will grow up ugly in every way; and it is just as
+well. If she had Clem's temperament and charm and
+Bill's beauty she might wreck the world."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no&mdash;only herself," said Poppy, with a tinge of
+bitterness. "The world goes gaily on, whatever befalls.
+But I don't agree with you at all about Cinthie's looks!"</p>
+
+<p>"Most people do. Someone was saying to me the
+other day&mdash;I forget who&mdash;Mr. Abinger, perhaps&mdash;that
+Cinthie looks like the incarnation of all the deviltries Clem
+and Bill have left undone, all the wickedness they have
+kept under."</p>
+
+<p>"Mr. Abinger is a better judge of deviltries than of good
+women," said Poppy drily.</p>
+
+<p>"He is a rip, of course. But, then, rips always unerringly
+recognise other rips," smiled Mary Capron, and
+Poppy smiled too, though she was not extremely amused.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you accusing Clem of being a rip?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not, though Bill is so charming he must
+have been one some time, don't you think?"</p>
+
+<p>"I think he is nearly nice enough to be Clem's husband,"
+said Poppy curtly, "and too entirely nice for any other
+woman." It was an old suspicion of hers that Mary
+Capron was not as real as she pretended to be in her
+friendship for Clem.</p>
+
+<p>"You are a very loyal friend, Miss Chard; and I hope
+you don't think that I am <i>not</i>, just because I find it intensely<span class="pagenum">[396]</span>
+interesting to talk about the people I care for?" Mrs.
+Capron spoke with a quiet sincerity that made Poppy
+feel ashamed of her thought, for, of course, most women
+do find it interesting to talk of people they care for. The
+best of friends do it. After all, Mrs. Capron had said
+nothing that a friend might not lightly say.</p>
+
+<p>"I would never talk about her to anyone but you,"
+continued Mrs. Capron, "and I know that you love her as
+much as I do. But I see that you think I am wrong."</p>
+
+<p>"I think, Mrs. Capron, that one would be a stock or
+a stone to know Clem, and yet not be intensely interested
+in her husband, her child, and everything that concerns
+her," Poppy answered warmly. "I could sit all day and
+watch her face, wondering how she came to know so much
+about life without being old, or bitter, or uncharitable
+about anything in the world."</p>
+
+<p>"She will tell you that the deep lines she has on her
+face are only little mementos of Africa&mdash;that Africa always
+puts her marks on the faces of those who love her. But"&mdash;Mary
+Capron's voice was very gentle and sad&mdash;"I
+happen to know that she has been <i>pounded in the mortar</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat silent, thinking how great must be a nature
+that could be pounded in the mortar of life, and come
+out with nothing but a few beautiful marks on the face.
+Further, her thought was that if Mary Capron knew Clem's
+sorrows, Clem must love her very much indeed, and she
+must be worthy of that love.</p>
+
+<p>She determined that she would never again allow herself
+to feel jealous of the bond of friendship existing between
+the two women. Mary Capron spoke again in a very
+low voice.</p>
+
+<p>"What I am terribly afraid is that her suffering is not
+over, but only beginning."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy stared at her startled, and saw that the beautiful
+brown eyes were filled with tears.<span class="pagenum">[397]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Sorrow has her elect!" said the girl gently. "Dear
+Mrs. Capron, do not let your sympathy for Clem beguile
+you into telling me anything that she would not wish me
+to know; I believe you have her confidence. I wish I
+had too. But I would rather not hear anything ... of
+her inward life ... from anyone but herself." Poppy
+began falteringly, but she ended firmly, for she was convinced
+that she was right. She had laid her whole life bare
+to Clem, and if Clem had wished to give her confidence in
+return, she had had endless opportunities to do so in their
+intimate talks. She felt that she was right in stopping
+Mrs. Capron from saying anything further. But already
+Mrs. Capron had gone further.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Once</i> I have seen her in the ashes of misery and despair.
+I would rather die than witness it again."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy sat up and rested her hand on those of the
+trembling, troubled woman before her.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't," she said soothingly; "don't fret&mdash;Clem is
+brave and strong enough to fight every imaginable trouble
+in the world; and <i>don't</i> say anything more; I'm sure she
+would not wish it."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>must</i> ... I must tell you.... She is going
+to suffer again&mdash;<i>terribly</i> ... and I want to save her if I
+can, and I want you to save her."</p>
+
+<p>"Me!" faltered Poppy, listening in spite of herself.
+"What can I do?"</p>
+
+<p>Mary Capron's tears were falling thick and fast now.</p>
+
+<p>"Clem's sorrow is a terrible one," she said brokenly.
+"She loves a man with all the depth and passion her
+nature is capable of&mdash;and the man is not her husband."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" Poppy went white to the lips. She sat rigidly
+against the orange-tree and stared at the other woman.
+"Clem!... I'll never believe it ... <i>Clem!</i>" Afterwards
+she said burningly: "If it <i>could</i> be true, how could
+you sit there and betray her?"<span class="pagenum">[398]</span></p>
+
+<p>Mary Capron's eyes flamed at her through the tears.</p>
+
+<p>"How dare you think I could do it idly?... You
+think no one feels love for her but yourself ... I hope
+you are prepared to show your love and prove it ...
+by saving her. If <i>I</i> could do it, I would. Let me tell
+you, Rosalind Chard, that there is <i>nothing</i> in this world
+that I would not give up for Clem, or do for her. And
+you? Can you say that too? Or is your love of the
+school-girl type&mdash;all marks of exclamation and admiration
+and&mdash;was it <i>condemnation</i> that I heard in your voice?"
+She spoke scornfully, yet there was a wondrous, thrilling
+appeal in her words. "Would you condemn her, Rosalind?
+Do you know nothing of love, then? That it is
+always the best whom it attacks most violently&mdash;that no
+one can keep one's heart from straying ... that there
+are men in the world who when they call must always
+be answered ... whom no woman can fight successfully
+against...."</p>
+
+<p>But Poppy could only whisper to herself: "Clem!
+Is there <i>any man in the world</i> who could beguile Clem from
+the straight, clear way on which her feet are set ...
+away ... to the deep pits whence comes the wailing of
+... transgressors! Is there <i>any man</i> ... in the world?..."
+Suddenly she sat up straight and rigid, and her
+head struck the trunk of the orange-tree. A look of
+terror was in her face. She knew the answer. <i>She knew
+what she was going to hear.</i></p>
+
+<p>What came dully to her ears was something she had
+long known&mdash;long, long.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And when he went away to Borapota she was like
+a woman mad with grief ... I thought she would have
+died.... She besought me, <i>besought</i> me to go as far as I
+could with him ... Nick and I ... in case he should
+sicken and die of fever.... He did get fever again ...
+was terribly ill at Borwezi ... and always his one cry<span class="pagenum">[399]</span>
+was for her.... Nick would tell you ... he too knows
+... it was always <i>Loraine</i>...."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah!" The girl under the tree gave a cry and covered
+her smitten eyes with her hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Always it was <i>Loraine</i>. That was his secret name for
+her.... I never knew till after I came back that it really
+is her name ... I asked her one day ... she only
+said it was her name, but that she never let anyone use
+it ... <i>he</i> used it though ... he ... <i>he loved her</i>...
+Miss Chard, I believe that he loves her still ... it is
+not possible that a man could cease to love a woman
+like Clem ... a girl's face might attract him ... and
+draw him for a while ... but <i>Clem</i> ... a man would
+always come back to her ... she is the kind that men
+come back to ... are faithful to for ever.... Oh,
+child! I believe I have hurt you bitterly ... deeply
+to-day ... forgive me ... it is for <i>her</i> sake ... I
+love her ... do <i>you</i> love her ... enough to spare
+her?"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When Poppy's hands fell away from her eyes, which were
+dull now, like the eyes of a dead woman, she was alone
+in the garden. She sat on&mdash;all through the morning, far
+into the afternoon hours, and no one disturbed her.</p>
+
+<p>Indoors an odd thing had happened. The servants had
+laid lunch for five people, according to the after-breakfast
+instructions of their mistress. But of the five people
+who were to sit down in the dining-room not one appeared.
+Mrs. Portal had telephoned up from the Point that she
+and Miss Allendner could not be back in time, and so
+would lunch on the ship with Lady Mostyn. Nurse had
+received the message on the telephone, but there was
+no one in the house to deliver it to. Mrs. Capron had
+come to the nursery window and informed nurse (just
+free from beguiling Cinthie off to her mid-day <i>siesta</i>),<span class="pagenum">[400]</span>
+that she felt faint and ill, and had decided to take a rickshaw
+home instead of remaining for lunch. Then, Mr. Portal,
+after sleeping badly all night and breakfasting in his room,
+had gone afterwards to lie in the garden, to see if he could
+sleep there. But when Sarah went to seek him he was
+nowhere to be found. His book was open on the grass,
+and the cushion he had taken for his head had a dent in
+it, showing that it had been used. Both were lying by
+the Barbadoes-hedge, under an orange-tree that grew
+in the middle of it, but Mr. Portal had gone. Nurse,
+however, believed that from the nursery window she had
+seen him walking out of the garden with his hat pulled
+right down over his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"But then, again," she said to cook, "I really couldn't
+be sure, for he looked so strange, and walked so funny.
+If I didn't know that master doesn't drink, I should have
+said he'd had a drop too much. But there, he's not well&mdash;maybe,
+that's why he looked so queer!"</p>
+
+<p>As for Miss Chard, no one thought about her; the
+servants supposed that she had gone with Mrs. Portal to
+the Point. If Sarah had thought of looking over the Barbadoes-hedge
+just at the place where Mr. Portal had been
+lying, she would have seen Miss Chard sitting there, sometimes
+staring vacantly before her, sometimes holding her
+face against the orange-tree as though for comfort.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[401]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXI</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">ON their way home from the Point, Mrs. Portal and
+Miss Allendner looked in for a while at a friend's
+house on the Musgrave Road, where an "At Home"
+was in full swing.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone clustered about Clem with solicitous inquiries
+for the health of Miss Chard, and she found herself detained
+a good while longer than she had intended. When at
+last she reached home she was flushed with haste, for
+not only were there people coming to dine, but two women
+friends were arriving that night to stay for some days;
+and the margin of time she had allowed herself to dress,
+give a final survey to the bedrooms, inspect the <i>menu</i>,
+and attend to the table-flowers, was far from wide. Also,
+she had a longing for a few moments' gossip and rest in
+Poppy's room, for through the rush of small affairs she
+had been barely able to exchange a word with her friend
+all day.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as she entered the hall Sarah handed her a
+telegram, which she tore open and read immediately,
+supposing it to be from one of her expected guests. But
+as her eyes fell on the flimsy paper, both Sarah and the
+elderly spinster saw by the change that swept over her face
+that this must be something more serious than a guest's
+telegraphed regrets. A look of blank astonishment was
+followed by one of horror. Her lips went white and the
+deadly shade crept over her face, seeming to age it suddenly.
+Then, her dazed eyes perceived the two women<span class="pagenum">[402]</span>
+looking anxiously at her. Instantly she controlled herself;
+gave an order to Sarah, asked Miss Allendner if she
+could possibly arrange the table-flowers for her as she
+didn't think she would have time to do it herself, and with
+apparent indifference took up and read the cards of some
+visitors who had called during the afternoon. She even
+called Sarah back and made some inquiries as to whether
+any of the visitors had asked to see Miss Chard.</p>
+
+<p>"They did so, ma'am. But I could not find Miss
+Chard anywhere, and I thought she was with you&mdash;afterwards
+she came in from the garden."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, Sarah&mdash;give cook as much help as you can
+this evening."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>yes</i>, m'm."</p>
+
+<p>The maid went her ways, and Mrs. Portal to her room.</p>
+
+<p>When she had closed her door she stood still and re-read
+the telegram upon which her hand had retained a convulsive
+clutch. Afterwards, with a little groan, she
+dropped it and fell upon her knees by her bed. Kneeling
+there, her face buried in her hands, she after a while lost
+count of time, and did not hear a knock on her door.</p>
+
+<p>When the senses are dulled by suffering they play
+strange tricks on the poor human beings who depend on
+them. Poppy, who knocked, imagined that she distinctly
+heard a voice say:</p>
+
+<p>"Come in," and opening the door she softly entered.</p>
+
+<p>Clem sprang to her feet and turned her haggard face to
+the intruder, anger in her eyes; and Poppy, aghast and
+trembling, suddenly shrank back.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Clem!... I beg your pardon," she stammered.
+"I was so certain I heard you say 'Come in' ... I ...
+Oh, you <i>know</i> I would not dream of intruding on you...."
+She was whiter even than when she entered; her lips
+were quivering so much she could hardily speak coherently.
+Unwittingly she had seen Clem kneeling there&mdash;abandoned<span class="pagenum">[403]</span>
+to misery! And now she saw the tragic eyes that looked
+at her&mdash;and she knew what it all meant! <i>This</i> was the
+first moment in the whole long day Clem had had to
+herself ... and she ... <i>she</i> must needs intrude on
+the secret grief of the woman she loved <i>and had robbed</i>!
+She put out her hand with a gesture that implored forgiveness
+and told of love. Almost for the moment she
+forgot her misery in Clem's. But Clem had turned away
+and was standing at her dressing-table. Over her shoulder
+she said in a strained voice:</p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter ... I don't mind <i>you</i> ... I
+have had some bad news. But don't ask me about it,
+dear. I can't speak of it&mdash;<i>even with you</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>Was this said in bitterest irony? Poppy wondered
+dully, and she did not know what she answered before she
+left the room, and that did not matter, for Clem Portal
+did not hear. They were two people walking in heavy
+darkness that cut them off from the voices of their
+fellows.</p>
+
+<p>Half an hour later the house rang with the laughter
+and merriment of the two new arrivals&mdash;old friends of
+the Portals&mdash;who had come down from Maritzburg to
+spend a few days and attend the Durban Club Ball, which
+was to take place the next night. In the drawing-room,
+before dinner was announced, Clem's laughter was the
+gayest of all; but to Poppy's ear there was a note in it
+like the clank of a broken bell. The Maritzburgers were
+two light-hearted, pretty women of the military set, whose
+husbands' regiments had so recently come from India
+that they were still keenly and sorely feeling the difference
+between Simla and the benighted capital of Natal. But
+their repinings were for the time forgotten in vivacious
+crowing over the fact that their husbands had been unable
+to accompany them at the last moment, so that there
+would now be nothing to prevent them from having<span class="pagenum">[404]</span>
+a delightful fling and dancing their heels off at the coming
+ball.</p>
+
+<p>"Robbie is all very well up to supper-time," cried
+Mrs. Dorand to the world at large, "but after supper he
+gets sleepy, and I meet his sulky face at every corner
+imploring me to come home."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Everybody</i> knows how foolish Theodore is about my
+adoration for your Billy, Clem." The wife of Major Monk
+was a violet-eyed, jolly girl from the Curragh. "But
+<i>now</i> I shall be able to dance with him uninterruptedly all
+night."</p>
+
+<p>"Indeed then you won't," said Clem, "for he's been
+called away on business quite suddenly, and I doubt
+if he'll be back in time for the ball&mdash;so we shall be a hen
+party."</p>
+
+<p>Amidst moans and expostulations she added: "But I
+daresay I can beat up a few wild-geese from somewhere.
+There are several coming to-night." She proceeded to
+recount the names and accomplishments of the men
+expected, and during the tale the rest of the party arrived
+and dinner was announced.</p>
+
+<p>Poppy found herself upon the arm of Luce Abinger.</p>
+
+<p>There were moments during the course of that dinner
+when she believed herself to be on the point of going mad;
+when the lights and the jewels and the wine and the
+faces were all hideously mixed, and she could have shrieked
+like a banshee at the two merry Maritzburg women,
+and fled from the table and the house. But always she
+was recalled to herself by just glancing to the head of
+the table where Clem Portal sat, the wittiest and most
+charming of hostesses, with two badly-painted streaks of
+red in her cheeks, and flaming lips which gradually lost
+their colouring and looked oddly at variance with the rest
+of the "make up" by the end of the dinner. Even bad
+dreams come to an end some time.<span class="pagenum">[405]</span></p>
+
+<p>If there were two things in Poppy's world impossible
+to associate with peace and gratitude, they were assuredly
+the darkness of a garden and the exclusive society of Luce
+Abinger. Yet she found herself during a part of that
+nightmare-evening looking upon these things as blessings
+for which to be distinctly thankful to Heaven.</p>
+
+<p>Two other people were sauntering afar, and in the
+drawing-room a quartette had settled down to Bridge,
+with Miss Allendner at the piano playing the stilted
+<i>polonaises</i> and polkas of her vanished youth.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger and Poppy talked together in a friendly, natural
+fashion that they had never known before. He congratulated
+her about her work, said how much he had
+enjoyed reading her last book, and asked her if she had
+sold the African rights of her plays, as they were sure
+to bring in a large sum. She told him she had long ago
+sold all rights and spent the money; that, indeed, she had
+spent most of her money, and must begin to think about
+earning more at once. He knew, of course, about her loss
+of all the work she had recently done. Suddenly the
+recollection swept over her that it was to fight him that
+she wanted the money. She stood still in their idle sauntering,
+and faced him. All the terror and misery of the
+past, that he indirectly had been the cause of, came back.
+Yet she could not hate him when she saw his haggard,
+distorted face. And how ill he looked! For a moment
+she forgot her wrongs, in womanly pity.</p>
+
+<p>"You look ill, Luce," she said kindly.</p>
+
+<p>"I am ill; I am a starving man." He came near her
+and looked at her. "You and I are both starving&mdash;for
+something we can't have. I have never been able to
+discover what it is you want&mdash;or, to be more precise, <i>who</i>&mdash;but
+you know very well who it is, and what, that I want."</p>
+
+<p>She drew back from the look in his eyes. His tone
+changed instantly; he looked and spoke idly.<span class="pagenum">[406]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;my offer holds good at any time."</p>
+
+<p>"Your offer?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... don't forget it ... I know that the mere
+fact of money is nothing to you ... but you're not
+happy. If you like work and fame, well&mdash;you don't
+look like a girl who does, that's all!"</p>
+
+<p>They were walking now over the dew-spangled lawn,
+and she was wondering what he meant. Suddenly he
+stood still and began to stammer at her incoherently.</p>
+
+<p>"When I told you the truth in that letter, I did not do
+it in the spirit that a man throws up the sponge&mdash;don't
+think that! I did it," he continued hoarsely, "to be fair
+and square with you for once. To begin again with the
+way clear before us&mdash;if you will. It was a rather fine thing
+to do, I thought," his tone changed to the old, sneering
+one; "but like all the fine things I've ever done it ended
+in repentance. I know now that I was a fool to tell
+you."</p>
+
+<p>"What are you talking about, Luce?" she wonderingly
+asked. Then for the first time since she had locked her
+studio door on it she remembered his unread letter. "Is
+it something you told me in the letter you sent to the
+cottage?&mdash;I never read it. It was burned unopened the
+night of the fire."</p>
+
+<p>A change came over his face. His scar seemed to twitch
+and gleam spasmodically in the moonlight. There was a
+silence. Then very softly he began to laugh, looking at
+her intently and feeling in all his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"What was in the letter, Luce?" she said beguilingly.
+She knew now that it was something she ought to know.
+But he only went on laughing softly. She tried to recall
+and understand the words he had been saying, but she
+could not.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of all the furious rage and contempt he had
+expended on himself within the last few weeks while he<span class="pagenum">[407]</span>
+waited and waited for some word of thanks from her for
+the fine generous thing he had done in telling her the
+truth at last&mdash;that she was not his wife at all; that Carmen
+Braganza, the beautiful Spanish dancer, whom he had
+secretly married in Johannesburg, was still living at the
+time of the ceremony between himself and Poppy&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>And she had never read the letter! All was as before!</p>
+
+<p>She did not know, and there was still a fighting chance
+that, wearied out with the strife and siege, she would
+turn and surrender.</p>
+
+<p>Then he would say:</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but we will not take the world into our confidence
+about the little ceremony in the White Farm.
+We'll go and be married publicly."</p>
+
+<p>Thinking of these things, what could he do but look at
+her and softly laugh?</p>
+
+<p>As for her, sick at heart, hopeless, remembering her
+misery, she turned away and set her desolate face towards
+the house, where a woman whom she loved well wore two
+little painted flames in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>
+"What need to strive, with a life awry?"<br />
+</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>Life was awry with everyone it seemed! What did it
+matter what Luce Abinger had to say?</p>
+
+<p>She had no fight left in her. Her feet, as she walked
+up the sloping lawn, seemed too heavy to lift&mdash;they
+caught in the grass as she stumbled wearily towards the
+house, Abinger following.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Luce," she said lifelessly as they reached
+the verandah. She felt no anger towards him now. She
+let him take her hand and she listened without resentment
+to his whispered words.</p>
+
+<p>"When are you coming back to your home and your
+husband, Poppy?"</p>
+
+<p>Indoors, the card-party had broken up. The travellers<span class="pagenum">[408]</span>
+were tired, and Clem was for hunting them to bed. The
+men made farewells and went, Abinger with them, and
+Clem and Miss Allendner hustled away to the rooms of the
+guests. Poppy took the opportunity of slipping into the
+narrow little writing-room, which opened off the hall and
+was meant for common-use. She wished to write out a
+telegram, and she knew there were forms to be found
+there. Sitting down to the desk she found the stack of
+forms and began to write on the top one. But someone
+had been using it before her, and with a violent hand and
+stubby pencil had left an entire message deeply indented
+on the form beneath the one that had been used and torn
+off. With the first word Poppy wrote the ink flowed
+from her full pen into the rutted words, outlining a part of
+the message, and she read all then as dully and unthinkingly
+as she had done everything else that evening.</p>
+
+<blockquote><p>"<i>Come back to me. You have never been out of my heart
+for a moment since first I loved you.&mdash;Loraine.</i>"</p></blockquote>
+
+<p>The address was a code word, care of the Rand Club,
+and the words were in Clem's writing. It was the last
+link in the chain. If Poppy had had any lingering, hoping
+doubt in her mind, it fled now. She forgot the words she
+had meant to write, and then she told herself they didn't
+matter in any case. Vaguely she remembered to tear the
+form off and destroy it; then rose from the desk and
+walked rather blindly to the door and out into the
+lighted hall. Clem was waiting there to bid her good-night.</p>
+
+<p>The red had faded from her cheeks now, or else the light
+was kinder, and her eyes looked big and dim. She put out
+her hands, took Poppy's, and gave them a little, gentle
+squeeze, and she smiled her own brave turned-up-at-the-corners
+smile.<span class="pagenum">[409]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Life is a curious thing, Poppy," she said gently. "It
+is hard to tell which is dream and which is real. Sometimes
+I don't think any of it is real at all. Good-night
+dear."</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[410]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">AFTER a week or so at Potchefstroom, Carson returned
+to Johannesburg, to find Rosser beating the town
+for him, crazy with impatience. Wallerstein had offered
+seven hundred pounds apiece for the South Rands, but
+Rosser had not closed; he considered it madness not
+to stand out for eight hundred.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll only be a matter of a week or two," said he.
+But Carson gloomed and cursed. It maddened him to
+find the thing still unsettled, for he had made up his mind
+not to return to Durban until he knew definitely whether
+he had poverty or wealth&mdash;both comparative, of course&mdash;to
+offer to the woman of his heart. However, as he had
+stayed so long already, a few days more could not make
+much difference, he argued lifelessly with himself, so he
+gave a grudging half-assent to Rosser and went his ways.
+He still had several minor affairs to attend to, and various
+people to see, but he did all half-heartedly. Choosing and
+despatching a ring to Poppy was the only thing that
+gave him any joy, and that was too poignant for pleasure.
+Then, suddenly, in one day he grew restless and haggard.
+Hunger was on him for the sight of a face, and at last he
+knew he could wait no longer, but must go. The decision
+came upon him suddenly in the Club with the sight and
+scent of a gardenia Forsyth was wearing in his coat at
+lunch-time. Now, between the scent of a gardenia and
+the scent of Barbadoes-thorn there is scarcely any difference
+at all, except that the gardenia's fragrance is perhaps<span class="pagenum">[411]</span>
+more subtly insistent. Carson spun out of the Club into
+a cab and in fifteen minutes was in his broker's office.</p>
+
+<p>"Close for seven hundred pounds each, Rosser," he said
+briskly. "And get the whole thing fixed up as soon as
+possible. I'm leaving to-night."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I've already closed for eight hundred pounds
+each," chirruped the elated Rosser. "The transfer is
+completed and the money paid in." He pranced into an
+inner office and produced voluminous documents. "Loot,
+my son! Loot from the house of Rimmon! I take my
+little fifteen thousand pounds and you take twenty-five
+thousand. Isn't <i>that</i> all right? <i>Now</i> will you be good!"</p>
+
+<p>An hour later Carson regained his cab and was driven
+to his rooms. A portmanteau at <i>Vetta's</i> head was a sufficient
+indication of his intentions, and the rest of the afternoon
+was spent in settling up his remaining business
+matters and appointments by telegram and telephone.
+Then he dined, and caught the eight o'clock express by
+one minute and a half. <i>Vetta</i>, who was on the look-out
+for him, indicated an empty first-class, and Carson fell
+into it and slept like the dead until morning.</p>
+
+<p>Those were the days when the run between Johannesburg
+and Durban occupied the better part of twenty-seven
+hours. The first stop of any importance was at Volksrust,
+the boundary town, and Carson roused himself to take a
+look at country he knew well, and was not likely to see
+again for many years. It was as early as five <span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, and
+a wet salt mist lay over everything, chilling him to the
+bone as he opened his window and looked out at the bleak
+Drakensberg looming through the haze, and tragic Majuba,
+which throws a shadow athwart every brave man's path
+as he passes. Later, the train dashed through the Laing's
+Nek tunnel, and as it descended the sloping spur of the
+range, Natal lay before Carson's eyes&mdash;all beautiful green
+valleys and running water: the land of his desire. The<span class="pagenum">[412]</span>
+mist had cleared from the air, but it still seemed to obscure
+Carson's vision as he looked, and he passed Ingogo, and
+Mount Prospect, with ill-fated Colley's monument, unknowingly.
+Only the far blue haze that meant the coast
+lured his eyes, for there for him lay heart's content.</p>
+
+<p>Presently, at Newcastle, came the faithful <i>Vetta</i> with
+tidings of breakfast; and Carson scrambled amongst a
+weary, sleepy crowd, in which he recognised no face, for
+sandwiches and vile coffee flung at him, half in cup and
+half in saucer. When he had breakfasted in this fashion,
+taken a leisurely stroll, glanced in all the carriages to
+see if there could possibly be any passengers he knew,
+inspected the accommodation of <i>Vetta</i>, and inquired into
+the matter of the latter's breakfast, he returned to his
+carriage. There was still a residue of sixteen hours to get
+through before the journey ended. Having no reading-matter
+with him, he thought at first to kill time with
+pleasant thoughts of a woman in a garden, but it was
+presently borne in upon him that his consciousness, or
+conscience, or memory, or whatever he may have cared
+to call it, had another and less agreeable affair to consider
+with him. Something within, that he would fain have
+cursed into silence, earnestly solicited his attention to the
+fact that the train which was crawling with him to the
+woman he loved, was at the same time tearing with most
+indecent haste towards one whom he had never loved,
+and the hour in which he must tell her so. Presently the
+thought of that hour lashed him, cut him with knives,
+turned him sick.</p>
+
+<p>In time, he stared at the wild and rugged outline of the
+Biggarsberg, until it seemed blurred with a red haze; and
+as the flat and dreary land of stunted bush that lies between
+Elandslaagte and Howick unrolled itself monotonously
+before his window, rocks appeared to grin and gibe at
+him, and isolated trees menaced him with gnarled arms,<span class="pagenum">[413]</span>
+even as in Wiertzs's picture Napoleon is menaced by the
+arms of women.</p>
+
+<p>As the hours passed his eyes grew bloodshot and his
+throat dry. His mouth sneered with self-contempt;
+unconsciously his lips opened and closed, and he swallowed
+with the expression of a man who is tasting the bitterness
+of death. But through all, his heart held steadfast to
+one plan&mdash;the man's plan, the old plan that was in the
+beginning and shall be till the end.</p>
+
+<p>Later, he lay on the seat of the carriage, his face to
+the wall, his eyes closed, his hands clenched&mdash;thinking,
+thinking. He would remember Poppy's shut eyes as he
+kissed her under the flamboyant tree; how her throat
+shone in the darkness. Then a voice, <i>not hers</i>, would break
+in upon him, crying:</p>
+
+<p>"Evelyn, I love you. For your sake men may brand
+me&mdash;swear you will never forsake me for another woman!"</p>
+
+<p>Did he ever swear? Was that his voice he seemed to
+hear?&mdash;tender, fervent&mdash;swearing by her face, by his
+life, by&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lord God! what a blackguard!" he groaned aloud.</p>
+
+<p>But his heart held steadfast to his plan.</p>
+
+<p>When at last evening fell, the train reached Maritzburg,
+and the passengers poured out into the station dining-room.
+Carson, haggard-eyed, found the bar, and drank
+three brandies atop of each other. He was on the point
+of ordering a fourth when a Maritzburg acquaintance
+stepped in and saved him the trouble&mdash;slapping him on
+the shoulder, and claiming his attention with a little scheme,
+which he said Bramham was standing in with. It was
+something about coal, but Carson never afterwards remembered
+details, though he listened very politely and intently
+to every word, for it was good to be spoken to by a decent
+man as if he were another decent man, after those years
+of degradation in the train.<span class="pagenum">[414]</span></p>
+
+<p>The four brandies might have been poured over a rock
+for all the effect he felt of them; but when the starting
+bell rang, he made his way back to the train through the
+hustling crowd with a calmer mien, and leaning from the
+window, wrung his acquaintance's hand with unassumed
+warmth. Ever afterwards he felt real friendship for that
+Maritzburg man.</p>
+
+<p>To his surprise, he found that he now had a fellow-passenger,
+a lady. Her figure seemed vaguely familiar
+as she stood packing her things into the rack, and when
+she turned round he wondered where in the world before
+he had met the unabashed gaze of those large brown eyes
+beneath a massed fringe of dusty, crispy hair. She, on
+her part, was regarding him with the pleased smile of an
+old acquaintance.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Evelyn Carson! How funny!" she said, and
+smiled winningly. Carson bowed, and his smile was ready
+and courteous, for, in truth, he was glad not to be alone;
+but he continued to greatly wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe you don't remember me!" said she archly.
+"How unkind! And I've so often bowed to Mr. Bramham
+when you've been with him in the old days. And you've
+been to Brookie's office, too, when I was his seckertary."</p>
+
+<p>At last Carson was enlightened. He was, in fact, in
+the pleasant company of Miss Sophie Cornell.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah! yes, of course&mdash;I remember quite well," said he.
+Indeed, if she could but have known it, he remembered a
+good deal more than was flattering, for Bram's tale of
+highway-robbery was still clear in his mind. She had
+changed a good deal since then: grown coarser and more
+florid&mdash;and there were other things&mdash;! When a woman
+has flung her kisses to the world as generously as summer
+flings daisies in a green meadow, the tale of them is marked
+upon her face for all who run to read. However, her
+dress was black, and so extremely neat that it was a pity<span class="pagenum">[415]</span>
+she should have spoiled its effectiveness by wearing a pair
+of yellow <i>su&egrave;de</i> evening shoes.</p>
+
+<p>Carson was not surprised when she informed him that
+she had left the uninteresting field of typewriting, to adorn
+a profession where beauty and wit are more readily
+recognised and liberally remunerated.</p>
+
+<p>"I am in an <i>awfully</i> nice bar in Maritzburg," she told
+him languorously. "Come in and have a drink next time
+you are there&mdash;'The Falcon.' All my friends were <i>awfully</i>
+annoyed with me for leaving <i>literary</i> work, but really
+it was <i>so</i> dull&mdash;and, of course, it's a great mistake to think
+one can't stay <i>a lady</i>, whatever one does; don't you think
+so, Sir Evelyn, eh?"</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly!" he gravely agreed.</p>
+
+<p>"I am treated as <i>quite</i> the lady by all the smartest men
+in the town, and there's a great difference between that
+and being bullied from morning to night by a little bounder
+like Brookie, you know. Not that he didn't have his good
+points. But still, the way he treated me in the end was
+perfectly <i>frot</i><a name="FNanchor_6_6" id="FNanchor_6_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_6_6" class="fnanchor">[6]</a>, and there's no other word for it. In fact,
+everybody did. Charlie Bramham, now, always said he'd
+be my friend, but as soon as it suited him, he just scooted
+off and never came near me again ... after persuading
+me in the first place to come to Durban to work for
+him."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_6_6" id="Footnote_6_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_6_6"><span class="label">[6]</span></a> Rotten.</p></div>
+
+<p>"Oh! Bramham's a good fellow," said Carson, smiling
+at this new version of a tale of highway-robbery. "I
+don't think he could have behaved very badly."</p>
+
+<p>"Good fellows and bad fellows are all just the same
+when they're tired of you," said Miss Cornell feelingly;
+adding, with great hauteur: "Not that I ever allowed
+any man to get tired of <i>me</i>, Sir Evelyn, I assure you.
+There's not a single fellow in Africa can say a <i>thing</i> about
+me."<span class="pagenum">[416]</span></p>
+
+<p>This was very impressive, but Carson did not exactly
+know what it might mean. He only knew that he was
+growing a little weary.</p>
+
+<p>"And then there was a girl that I befriended. I took
+her in when she came to my house without a rag to her
+back, or a shoe to her foot, one night&mdash;fed her, clothed
+her, and treated her like my own sister&mdash;or would have
+done if she hadn't been such a cold-blooded, standoffish
+<i>slang</i>.<a name="FNanchor_7_7" id="FNanchor_7_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_7_7" class="fnanchor">[7]</a> Yet I can assure <i>you</i>, Sir Evelyn, that when
+I was on the Durban Race-course three weeks ago, with
+two <i>perfect gentlemen</i> from the Rand, she sat quite close to
+me in a carriage with that Mrs. Portal, and though I
+smiled and bowed to her <i>twice</i>, she deliberately looked
+right through me.... I might have been a bit of rubbish
+lying in the street...."</p>
+
+<div class="footnote"><p><a name="Footnote_7_7" id="Footnote_7_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_7_7"><span class="label">[7]</span></a> Snake.</p></div>
+
+<p>Something in this narrative dimly, though unpleasantly,
+interested Carson. He forgot his weariness for the moment
+and looked at the woman intently.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes ... what do you think of that? Deliberately
+<i>cut</i> me ... me who had been her friend in need. I
+supposed it was because she had managed to get taken up
+by a big-pot like Mrs. Portal.... I said so to one of my
+friends&mdash;such a nice boy&mdash;you may know him&mdash;Wolfie
+Isaacs, of the firm of Isaacs and Jacobs. But after he'd
+been away talking to some other men, he came back and
+told me that <i>she</i> was the great authoress who wrote all
+the cracked books and poems about Africa, and that
+everyone was raving about her. He said I must have
+made a mistake when I thought I knew her! What do
+you think of <i>that</i>? The girl I had taken in without any
+shoes to her feet!... and, oh my! couldn't I tell a
+tale to her swell friend Mrs. Portal if I&mdash;" Something
+in the steely expression of the face opposite suddenly
+arrested her flow of eloquence.<span class="pagenum">[417]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you mind telling me whom you are talking about?"
+said Carson quietly.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly&mdash;I'm delighted to. It is only fair that
+everybody should know what a <i>slang</i> that girl is, to cut
+<i>me</i> like that, who had taken her in without asking a single
+question about where she came from.... Och! but I
+can tell you I found out afterwards, Sir Evelyn ...
+she's as bad as she can be, that Rosalind Chard&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Carson's tanned skin had turned an ashy-yellow shade,
+which was neither becoming nor artistic.</p>
+
+<p>"Woman&mdash;" he said in a low, hoarse voice, scarcely
+audible; but his eyes said a great deal more than his lips;
+and Miss Cornell, at first surprised, became angrily
+red.</p>
+
+<p>"Och! don't you <i>woman</i> me!" she cried, bridling.
+"So <i>you're</i> a friend of hers, too, I suppose! She's got
+very grand all at once!... but I wonder if she told
+you she used to be constantly in a house on the Berea
+with Luce Abinger. That it was from <i>his</i> house she came
+that night I took her in! My <i>boy</i> Zambani saw her come
+through the gap in the hedge that led from Abinger's
+garden. Ha! ha! and she pretending to be such a saint
+all the time! Ask Mr. Bramham! He knows all about
+it."</p>
+
+<p>Carson took it like a blow between the eyes. If he had
+not been sitting, he would have reeled. As it was, he
+leaned against the back of the seat and closed his eyes
+for a moment, though the lids scorched like flame. But
+the woman mistook his attitude for calm unbelief. She
+thought he shut his eyes because he was pretending to be
+bored, and she was furious.</p>
+
+<p>"And she pretending to be such a saint all the time,"
+she repeated. "A saint in the company of Luce Abinger!"
+she laughed coarsely.</p>
+
+<p>Carson's eyes were still closed. He was considering&mdash;as<span class="pagenum">[418]</span>
+well as fury, and surprise, and misery, and four neat
+brandies become suddenly potent would let him.</p>
+
+<p>Would this woman dare bade up her vile statement with
+Bramham's name, unless&mdash;?... but there must be
+some explanation. She and Abinger! Oh, God! <i>no!</i>
+Bram could explain ... she could explain ... if she
+could not, he would kill her ... he would take her by
+that long, fair throat&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>At that the coldness and calmness of moonlight fell
+upon him like a pall; his brain cleared; he reflected on
+the inflamed, furious face opposite him, surveying it
+deliberately, insultingly, with stony, arrogant eyes. Slowly
+his handsome lips took on a curve of incomparable insolence
+and contempt&mdash;a look no woman could ever forgive.
+In that moment Sophie Cornell knew what she was. The
+colour left her face, and her lips and tongue went dry;
+She had no words.</p>
+
+<p>His voice was almost gentle.</p>
+
+<p>"It would be scarcely fair to expect a woman of your"
+(he paused) "<i>inducements</i>&mdash;to understand that Miss
+Chard's reasons for&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No," she sneered, hissing like a cobra. "No&mdash;of
+course not&mdash;a <i>saint</i> like that! But I know well enough
+what sort of a man Luce Abinger is&mdash;and so do you. His
+name isn't spelt L-o-o-s-e for nothing."</p>
+
+<p>That arrow quivered in Carson, but he gave no sign,
+going on deliberately:</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;For knowing Mr. Abinger might be different to
+your reasons&mdash;or shall we say inducements?"</p>
+
+<p>She hated him with her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"You would scarcely credit, perhaps, but there <i>are</i>
+other things of interest in the world besides&mdash;inducements.
+And that the side of Mr. Abinger's character
+which appears to be so well known to you, is one that he
+reserves specially for ladies of your&mdash;distractions."<span class="pagenum">[419]</span></p>
+
+<p>He smiled and added:</p>
+
+<p>"I'm afraid you hardly realise how distracting you are.
+Here am I, for instance, with a number of pressing matters
+waiting for my attention"&mdash;he put his hand into the breastpocket
+of his coat and brought out a bundle of letters
+and papers&mdash;"neglecting them to indulge in a fascinated
+contemplation of you. But if you will be good enough
+to release me&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Miss Cornell damped her lips with her tongue.</p>
+
+<p>"I hate Rosalind Chard," she said hoarsely, "but I
+am sorry for her, all the same, if she gets you. I think you
+are the worst devil I've ever met in my life. Talk about
+the three bad men! Abinger and Charlie Bramham are
+angels compared to you."</p>
+
+<p>"I will let 'Charlie' know of your favourable opinion
+of him&mdash;he will be flattered. Pray excuse me!" He
+looked apologetically at the papers in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh! go to hell!" she screamed. Carson bowed, and
+with that insolent smile still lingering on his lips, gave
+his attention to his letters.</p>
+
+<p>At Inchanga he stepped out of the carriage and looked
+about him with careless interest, lighted a cigarette, and
+presently lounged down the platform. Incidentally he
+went into the telegraph-office and sent off a wire, requesting
+Bramham to meet him at the station or be at home
+waiting for him. When he came out of the little office
+he was still smoking placidly, but the writing on the telegraph-form
+resembled the writing of a drunken or palsied
+man.</p>
+
+<p>On his return to the carriage he found that Miss Cornell
+had been good enough to remove her distracting presence
+to some other part of the train.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[420]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIII</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">IT was the night of the Club ball, the first and chief
+event of the Durban season, and all the fashionable
+world was busily pranking itself for the occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham had dressed early, for he had been elected
+by Mrs. Portal to be one of the wild-geese who were to
+escort her house-party to the Town Hall. Just as he
+was choosing some cigars for the night at the dining-room
+table, Carson's telegram arrived. He whistled,
+meditating upon it for a while.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, this Carson!" he called out to Abinger, who
+was in a neighbouring room, also arraying himself for the
+festival. "Wants me to meet him at the station, I thank
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>"Meet him! What for? He ought to get a maid!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't do it, anyway," said Bramham, and sitting
+down, hastily scribbled a note, saying that he could not
+possibly wait on account of his engagement with Mrs.
+Portal, but suggesting that Carson, on arrival, should
+dress and come down to the Town Hall. He left this note
+on the table, with instructions to the <i>boys</i> to see that
+Carson got it as soon as he arrived; then jumping into
+his carriage, he set off for the Portals' house.</p>
+
+<p>On his way up he had an impulse to call at the Caprons',
+to see what arrangements Mrs. Capron had made for
+going to the ball. He was aware that Nick had been
+away for a week, and was not in the way of returning yet
+a while. A man called Lessing had pitched a camp out<span class="pagenum">[421]</span>
+beyond Inanda, to try some experiments in coursing
+with six pedigree dogs he had imported from home, and
+several other men had joined him, to see the sport and
+incidentally get a little late fishing. Bramham had
+received a note from Lessing that morning, asking him
+to come out for a few days before they broke camp, and
+mentioning that he should not be in for the ball, because
+Capron, having put in a week's steady drinking without
+anyone particularly noticing the fact, was now in the
+uproarious stage and couldn't possibly be left. Whether
+Mrs. Capron was aware of the state of affairs Bramham
+did not know, but he thought that a friendly thing to do
+would be to find out if she had arranged for an escort,
+and, if not, to offer to call for her with Mrs. Portal's
+party.</p>
+
+<p>At the sound of the carriage she came out into her
+verandah, looking supremely lovely, as white-skinned,
+red-haired women have a way of doing in a black setting.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought I'd just look in to make sure that you
+were coming, Mrs. Capron," said Bram, his eyes shining
+with the delight and excitement he always felt at the sight
+of a pretty woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm coming, though Nick isn't," she said gaily.
+"He is out at George Lessing's encampment, you know.
+I've lent my carriage to Mrs. Portal for some of her party,
+but Mrs. Lace is going to call for me&mdash;she will be here any
+moment now."</p>
+
+<p>"Good! I heard that Nick was still away, and thought
+I might be of some use. When do you expect him back?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I don't know," she said carelessly. "I haven't
+heard from him for several days. I expect he'll stay until
+Mr. Lessing breaks up his camp."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must bustle on. I'm afraid I'm late, as it is
+... but that's Carson's fault with his telegrams&mdash;"
+He was off towards the gate.<span class="pagenum">[422]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Is he back, then?" called Mrs. Capron after
+him.</p>
+
+<p>"No, coming back to-night&mdash;should be in by eleven,"
+said Bram, getting into his carriage.</p>
+
+<p>At the Portals' he found that some of the party had
+already gone. Mrs. Portal was not quite ready, but Miss
+Chard was in the drawing-room. She was resting in a
+big chintz chair, with her white chiffon skirts foaming all
+round her, and her hands holding a great bunch of shining
+orange leaves that gave out a faint, crushed scent. She
+had them held to her face when Bramham came in, and
+her eyes were closed. She looked like a woman praying.
+At the sound of him she started up, and the leaves dropped
+rustling to the floor.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!" she cried in a wild, odd voice that Bramham
+did not recognise. He looked at her in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>"Did I startle you? I'm sorry!"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;oh no ... not at all ... only I thought&mdash;"
+She regained her composure rapidly and sat down again,
+arranging her draperies.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I must have been asleep, and you woke me
+up," she smiled. Her face was as white as her gown,
+but her eyes were dark and dilated, as if she were under
+the influence of a drug. Bramham thought she looked
+like death, until she smiled, and then he decided that he
+had never seen her more alluring.</p>
+
+<p>"Unlucky man! you will have to ferry three of us
+down!" she said. "Mrs. Portal is insisting on Miss
+Allendner coming too. The poor soul has been so depressed
+ever since the fire&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Good," said Bramham. "The carriage will hold a
+quartette easily, but if you want more room for your
+skirts, I'll sit up aloft."</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all. You will come in with us or I shall sit
+up aloft too."<span class="pagenum">[423]</span></p>
+
+<p>They laughed, and he asked if he might secure a dance
+or two from her now.</p>
+
+<p>"I know it's no use asking for the first waltz," he
+ventured.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, yes ... you can have it, if you like."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>What?</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, really&mdash;and whichever others you like." Bramham
+seized her card blithely.</p>
+
+<p>"Now this comes of getting ahead of pirates like Abinger
+and Carson&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"But ... <i>he</i> ... has not returned?" she asked
+quickly. It occurred to Bramham to be wily in the
+interest of his dances. Carson is big enough and ugly
+enough to look after himself, was his thought.</p>
+
+<p>"No ... not yet. But he <i>might</i> run in, mightn't
+he? You're not thinking of going back on me, are you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not!" She turned away.</p>
+
+<p>He dotted his initials thickly on her card, for he had
+discovered at a little informal affair that she danced
+delightfully. When he gave it back, her hands were
+trembling violently. Even the mention of Carson's
+return had power to shake her whole being.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Portal came in, looking thin and worn, but with her
+little gay air that carried everything along and made
+people forget to observe that her eyes were ringed, and
+her cheeks drawn, or what colour she was dressed in.
+Laughing and apologising, she implored Poppy to give
+a glance at the back of her gown to see if it was all right.</p>
+
+<p>"Really, I believe I laced it with my toes," she said.
+"My hands haven't had a moment since daybreak....
+Come along, or we shall be late, and have to sit glued to
+the wall all night.... Miss Allendner, you simply take
+the shine out of us all in that gown ... you are <i>all</i>
+shine ... I never saw any one so shamefully magnificent....
+Come along, good peoples." She pushed the<span class="pagenum">[424]</span>
+pleased old soul gently out of the room before her, and
+Bramham and Poppy followed. Miss Allendner was,
+indeed, at her best in a shining sequined gown, which
+Mrs. Portal had been at some pains to reconstruct and
+bring up-to-date.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually they set off&mdash;Poppy still carrying her bunch
+of orange leaves, faintly scenting the carriage. Sometimes
+when the others were absorbed in talk, she secretly
+pressed them against her heart. She felt as though she
+had gone back again to the days of her childhood, when
+misery claimed her, and there was no hope of comfort,
+or strength, or kindness, from anything but trees and
+green leaves. She was glad that she wore her mother's
+old green brooch and that there were great pieces of green
+malachite in the high Empire comb she had stuck in her
+piled-up crown of black, black hair; she needed all the
+strength that green things could give her to-night.</p>
+
+<p>One of the first people they saw on entering was Mary
+Capron, standing in the centre of the ball-room, a little
+crowd of people about her, supremely beautiful in black
+lace and diamonds. She came over to them at once with
+a little loving pat of welcome for Clem and a brilliant smile
+for the others. She half extended her hand to Poppy, in
+friendliness; but Poppy turned away from her. She
+could not welcome the touch of a hand that had smitten
+happiness out of her life. They all moved down the big
+ball-room together. There were little groups everywhere
+of laughing men and women, and the seats that ran all
+round the room were all occupied. The bandsmen up on
+the stage, massed with palms and flags and greenery,
+were making quivery-quavery sounds on their instruments.</p>
+
+<p>Other women came up and greeted them.</p>
+
+<p>"What a crush!... we shall have the gowns torn
+off our backs when the dancing begins ... don't you<span class="pagenum">[425]</span>
+think it was a mistake to have the ball so early?... so
+hot still!"</p>
+
+<p>Behind her Poppy heard one of the Maritzburg women
+say to the other in a low voice:</p>
+
+<p>"Clem's got paint on again.... She never used to
+do it ... I wonder if Bill has been badly hit in the
+slump? There's <i>something</i> wrong!"</p>
+
+<p>"I hear that Nick came in from the camp at the last
+moment. Do you think it could possibly be true, Clem?"
+said Mrs. Capron.</p>
+
+<p>"That depends on who told you."</p>
+
+<p>"Young Head. He said he heard someone say that
+Nick and your Billy were both at the Club. Perhaps they
+are going to surprise us by appearing." Mrs. Capron's
+voice did not express much enthusiasm. Clem's eyes
+flashed like lightning round the room, in search of young
+Head, and she saw him immediately, busily collecting
+dances. She had an inclination to rush straight over to
+him, but she curbed it. Another inclination that almost
+overwhelmed her was to fly from the hall, and take a
+rickshaw to the Club; but she curbed that too, though to
+do so cost an effort that threw up her rouge-spots more
+clearly by reason of the increased pallor of her cheeks.
+She continued to talk easily.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get here, Mary?"</p>
+
+<p>"I drove down with Mrs. Lace. How do I look, darling?
+This is my <i>Machinka</i> gown ... you haven't seen it
+before, have you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Perfect, dear. I never saw you look more beautiful....
+Isn't Poppy wonderful to-night, too? ... she looks
+like a woman who has stepped out of a dream ... no
+wonder the men crowd round her. If I could only catch
+her eye, we'd move on."</p>
+
+<p>When Poppy's card was all but full, a voice said at her
+elbow:<span class="pagenum">[426]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Don't forget <i>me</i>." Nothing could have looked more
+out of place in that gay ball-room than Abinger's
+scarred, sardonic face. But he stood there, cool and
+irreproachably dressed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sorry. I'm afraid there are none left."</p>
+
+<p>"I am unfortunate." He shrugged and turned away,
+and Poppy, looking round for the others, caught Clem
+Portal's face with the mask off for one moment. With
+that sight her faltering, fainting purpose changed to firm
+resolution. Softly she called after Abinger, but when he
+reached her again she seemed breathless.</p>
+
+<p>"I have a dance ... number five&mdash;" She held
+out her card, and while he wrote upon it she spoke again,
+swiftly and low. The preliminary soft bars of the first
+waltz were already floating down the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Will you please be where I can see you&mdash;and reach
+you <i>instantly</i> ... if I should want you?"</p>
+
+<p>A slight, bitter smile came to his lips.</p>
+
+<p>"Certainly! The middle of the room would be a good
+place, I should say."</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. Then a subtle,
+alluring look crossed her face, for all her lips were the lips
+of a ghost. She half whispered to him:</p>
+
+<p>"Do you want me&mdash;<i>Luce</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes looked into his for one short instant before she
+veiled them quickly, and her heart seemed to turn over
+within her, for desire stalked, naked and unashamed,
+in the eyes of Luce Abinger.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I want you. By God!" he said, under his breath.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;to-night&mdash;I think I may come&mdash;<i>home</i>," she
+faltered; then without another word or look she turned
+away, and took Bramham's arm for the first waltz.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger did not approach her again; neither did he
+dance. He lounged conspicuously in a doorway, and if
+anyone spoke to him, he snarled at them and they went<span class="pagenum">[427]</span>
+hastily away. When the fifth dance came, he waited
+until the music began; then walked across to where Poppy
+was sitting, offered his arm nonchalantly, and they took
+the floor together. When they had been dancing for a
+few moments he spoke:</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy ... <i>to-night</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"To-night," her pale lips gave back answer. Her feet
+moved in time to the waltz, but she lay half fainting in
+his arms. He had the daring to bend his head and touch
+her face with his burning lips. Amid the flashing lights
+of jewels, and the whirling faces, it was almost safe to have
+gone unnoticed; everyone was too busy to watch what
+others were doing.</p>
+
+<p>But there happened to be a man standing in a doorway,
+hiding his grey travelling tweeds behind two or three
+immaculates, who were trying to persuade him that it
+would be quite a remarkable joke if he would come in
+as he was, and pirouette amongst the dancers.</p>
+
+<p>"Come on now, Carson ... give us a taste of the old
+Karri of old, mad days," a Rand man was saying; and
+Carson, though listening and laughing, was watching two
+people in the room. So it happened that he saw the kiss&mdash;and
+the woman's face almost lying on Abinger's shoulder.
+How could he know that she was dazed, half unconscious,
+not knowing what she did, or caring? Abruptly he
+pushed through the laughing group and stood full in the
+doorway. For an instant he was on the verge of trampling
+over everyone in the room to get to those two and tear
+them apart; for an instant the other men thought they
+were going to have a return of mad Carson with a vengeance,
+and were sorry they had spoken; one of them laid a hand
+on his arm. But in that instant a woman's eyes had
+met Carson's&mdash;long, topaz-coloured eyes, full of eager
+welcome and tenderness. The next moment he had flung
+away from the other men, and was striding through the<span class="pagenum">[428]</span>
+wide vestibule, down the Town Hall steps towards a rickshaw,
+to take him God knew where. As he put his foot
+on it a hand fell to his shoulder, and Brookfield's voice to
+his ear&mdash;full of relief.</p>
+
+<p>"Carson! By gad! I'm glad you're back; Capron's
+cut his throat, and they say he's dying at the Club. Come
+on!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson stared at him with a stunned air.</p>
+
+<p>"Capron!" he stammered.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; sliced his head off nearly. He was too drunk
+to go home, so they hid him in Ferrand's room at the Club
+with Portal in charge. But while Portal was out of the
+room for a moment, Nick found Ferrand's best razor."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can't come," said Carson roughly, after a pause.
+"I have business of my own."</p>
+
+<p>"You've <i>got</i> to come, Karri. He's raving for you.
+Someone said you'd arrived, and Ferrand told me to find
+you, or he'd have another h&aelig;morrhage. Come on, now.
+He won't keep you long; he's booked!"</p>
+
+<p>Carson cursed and muttered, but eventually they got
+into the rickshaw and went off together.</p>
+
+<p>Five minutes later a woman shrouded in a long, black
+satin cloak, her head muffled in veils, slipped down the
+steps and beckoned a rickshaw. In a whisper she directed
+the <i>boy</i> and told him to hurry.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>At about an hour after midnight Clem came to Poppy,
+who was sitting out a dance with a peaceful partner, and
+drawing her aside said:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear, something awful has happened to Nick Capron
+and Mary can't be found. I fancy she must have been
+feeling ill and gone home without telling anyone. Anyway,
+Mr. de Grey and I are going to see. I've asked<span class="pagenum">[429]</span>
+Bramham to take you home as soon as you would like
+to go.... the others will want to dance until dawn....
+Billy is at the Club, too, it appears."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll come now," said Poppy quickly, forgetful of
+everything in the momentary excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"No; I can't wait for you, dear, as I'm ready. Better
+come on with Mr. Bramham or Mr. Abinger. Suppose
+you and Miss Allendner wait at Sea House for me?...
+It's an easy drive from the Club.... I'll call for you
+there, and we'll all go up home together.... it will probably
+be painful, breaking the news to poor Mary. I'll
+come as soon as I can afterwards." She hurried away,
+and Poppy, excusing herself to her partner, went to the
+dressing-room for her wraps. On her way she met Abinger,
+told him swiftly what had happened, and asked him to find
+Miss Allendner. But when she emerged from the dressing-room
+Abinger and Bramham were waiting for her, minus
+the companion.</p>
+
+<p>"She was dancing so happily for the first time to-night,
+that I hadn't the heart to drag her away," said Abinger,
+with unheard-of benevolence. The truth was that Miss
+Allendner did not at all enter into his plans for the
+evening, and so he had not bothered to look for her.</p>
+
+<p>The three of them left the hall together and reached
+Bramham's carriage, which had been sent for. Afterwards
+they drove away in the direction of Sea House. Bramham,
+with permission, smoked moodily out of a window, and
+Abinger, without permission, under cover of the uncertain
+light, took Poppy's hand; but it lay like a smooth, cold
+stone, and gave no response to his hot hold. His hands
+were as bad as his eyes; by just holding a woman's hand
+for three seconds, he could tell her things which for her
+soul's sake she had avoided knowing all her life.</p>
+
+<p>They were a silent party when they arrived at Sea
+House. In the dining-room they sat down and Bramham<span class="pagenum">[430]</span>
+drummed his fingers on the table, wondering where
+Carson was. Luggage was lying in the verandah, and
+Bramham's note was open on the table; but of Carson
+himself no sign.</p>
+
+<p>Inspiration came to Abinger to go and rout out the
+servants to make coffee and sandwiches, for there was
+a distinct chill in the air, and as none of them had partaken
+of any supper to speak of, they felt weary and collapsed.
+As it happened, the servants had not gone to bed, so the
+coffee soon made its appearance, and at Poppy's suggestion
+a further supply was ordered to be ready for Mrs.
+Portal and de Grey. They sat at the table, and Poppy
+poured out the coffee; but Bramham was restless and
+began to walk the room, staring out at the night, and then
+into Carson's room, which led from the dining-room,
+and the door of which stood ajar. Once he sniffed the
+air, and then stopped and listened.</p>
+
+<p>Abinger smiled sourly at him.</p>
+
+<p>"Whose trail are <i>you</i> on, Bram?"</p>
+
+<p>"There's something odd in the air&mdash;some unusual
+scent," was the answer.</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps Miss Chard can account for it," suggested
+Abinger. Bramham ventured near her, sniffing still.</p>
+
+<p>"I never use scent," said she, "but I, too, seem to smell
+some heavy scent."</p>
+
+<p>"Someone's been here," said Bramham, convinced,
+and thereupon called in the <i>boys</i> again and questioned
+them in Zulu.</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;no one had been," they said, "excepting only
+<i>Intandugaza</i>, who had remained but a little while and gone
+away very angry."</p>
+
+<p>Both Abinger and the white woman in the white gown
+who sat by the table understood Zulu, and heard for
+the first time now of Carson's arrival that evening. To
+Abinger the fact did not mean much. But Poppy sat<span class="pagenum">[431]</span>
+staring with frozen lips at her bunch of orange leaves which
+lay now upon the table. Also, she was listening intently.
+It seemed to her that the sea, rustling and whispering on
+the beach at the foot of the garden, had a message for her
+that she had often heard before, but had never understood.
+Dimly, for the first time, the meaning of its mysterious
+sighing was creeping into her weary brain.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rest, rest, rest&mdash;peace&mdash;rest</i>," it whispered and sang.</p>
+
+<p>Bramham came to the table, took another sandwich,
+and ate it walking about the room.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I can smell something," he averred, as though
+making a new statement. "Can't you, Abinger?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have some more coffee, Bram. Your nerves
+have gone back on you."</p>
+
+<p>Poppy poured him out another cup.</p>
+
+<p>"We are all odd to-night," she said, with a wan
+smile.</p>
+
+<p>"It must be the news about poor Nick Capron," Bram
+said, and was just taking his coffee-cup from her hand
+when they thought they heard a sound. They looked at
+each other. It was a gentle little sound, and might have
+been anything imagination suggested&mdash;a groan, or a cough,
+or an exclamation. They waited intently to hear it
+repeated, but it never came again. Abruptly Bramham
+caught up a lamp&mdash;the lamp with Mrs. Brookfield's little
+pink-silk shade upon it, and walked towards the only door
+of the room that was open. It was the door of Carson's
+bedroom&mdash;Poppy's eyes saw that in a moment. She
+and Abinger had risen and followed Bram, and stood
+behind him in the doorway. Her eyes took in every
+detail of the wide, breezy room; the long, green curtains
+at the windows, the heavy oak furniture, the guns, and
+whips, and rods standing about, the books&mdash;and a big
+photograph of Mrs. Portal's gay-sad face, smiling, on
+the mantelpiece.<span class="pagenum">[432]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then she went back to her chair and listened once more
+to the whispering sea:</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rest, rest&mdash;peace, rest.</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"I swear I heard someone say 'Oh!'" said Bramham
+angrily.</p>
+
+<p>"Look under the bed," mocked Abinger.</p>
+
+<p>"Look under it yourself, my dear fellow!"</p>
+
+<p>They returned to the dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>"What a beast of a night!" continued Bramham explosively.
+"What is one to do? I've a good mind to take
+a run up to the Club and see whether I can do anything,
+or where the others are ... shall I? Will you people
+come too?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Poppy quietly. "We'll stay here. I have
+something to say to Mr. Abinger."</p>
+
+<p>At any other time Bramham might have found this
+remark surprising, but on this upside-down night, when
+nothing had happened as it should have done, and the air
+was full of odd scents and sounds, he merely thought it in
+keeping with the rest of things, so he departed, without
+even taking his hat.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[433]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXIV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">NICK CAPRON lay on a bed in one of the bedrooms
+of the Club&mdash;a sobbing, raving, blaspheming figure,
+fearful in bandages sodden with blood, his arms strapped
+to the sides of the bed to keep him from tearing at his
+throat. The doctor and Portal stood by, regarding
+him, one with a calm, professional eye, the other with a
+wet forehead. Carson sat on a chair at the foot of the
+bed with a face like a stone wall, staring straight before
+him, his hands in his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>The injured man spoke continuously in a gurgling,
+guttural way, half of his words intelligible, the other half
+maniacal. His main plaint was for the sight of Carson,
+whom he had not recognised.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd fetch Carson ... there's no one like
+old Karri ... he's worth the whole damned boiling
+of you ... besides, I have something to say to him
+... if I am booked for the last stretch I'd like Karri
+to see me off.... Oh, blazes! what the&mdash;&mdash;is this at
+my throat? Carson! Karri&mdash;where is my devoted wife,
+too? <i>She</i> ought to be here to speed the parting guest ...
+Mary&mdash;a damned iceberg ... but I'd like some ice....
+Give me some ice, Karri&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>After a time the narcotic administered began to take
+effect, and the watchers were relieved from the strain of
+listening to these ravings. Ferrand and Portal took drinks
+and sat down to wait for the coming of Mrs. Capron.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;And an infernal long time she is about it," said
+Ferrand. "What do <i>you</i> think, Karri?"<span class="pagenum">[434]</span></p>
+
+<p>If Carson had an opinion on the subject he did not state
+it, but he roused himself and looked at the time. It was
+nearly half-past one.</p>
+
+<p>"I must get home," he muttered. "If you want me
+Ferrand, you can telephone to Bramham's house. I want
+to see Bramham," he added absently.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrand cocked a professional eye at him.</p>
+
+<p>"You're used up, Carson. Go home and sleep, but first
+see if you can find Mrs. Capron, there's a good chap. We
+can't have this over again when he comes to. She <i>must</i>
+be here and that's all there is to it. You can use my
+cart if you like, to get home in. Get a rest, old man ...
+you look just about <i>peleela</i> ... take my cart."</p>
+
+<p>Carson accepted the offer and went out, followed by
+Portal through the silent rooms of the Club to the front
+verandah.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrand's red-wheeled dog-cart, with its coolie-driver,
+usually formed part of the street furniture, for the doctor
+had a happy habit of leaving it outside the Club door,
+going in and settling down to poker and forgetting all
+about it. But at the moment it was nowhere to be seen,
+the fact being that the man, tired of sitting still, had begun
+to walk the horse, and was now out of sight at the far end
+of the street.</p>
+
+<p>There was not a rickshaw to be seen; they were all
+waiting for revellers outside the Town Hall. Fatigue was
+beginning to tell on Carson: he rapped out a bad and
+bitter word.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up!" said Portal blithely. "You'll soon be
+dead!"</p>
+
+<p>It was a well-worn expression, and Carson was accustomed
+to it, but upon this occasion it jarred. Something
+in Portal's voice was jarring, too. Now that Carson
+came to remark it, for the first time that evening there was
+something wrong with Portal's appearance as well as his<span class="pagenum">[435]</span>
+voice. Instead of being in evening-dress, he had on a
+brown tweed morning-suit, in which, to judge by its
+appearance, he might have been knocking about the veldt
+for several weeks. On the other hand, his face was as
+bloodless and sallow as if he had been shut in a cellar for a
+month, and his eyes were sunk deep in his head. Withal,
+he was cheerful, full of suppressed excitement&mdash;almost it
+might be said that he was gay. After many years in
+Africa, Carson was accustomed to all kinds of moods and
+tenses in his friends; also, being an intimate of Portal's,
+he was aware that the latter possessed a troublesome liver.
+But somehow, none of these things could quite account for
+the extraordinary aspect and manner of Portal to-night.
+Under the powerful rays of a street light which fizzled and
+hummed close by, Carson observed him intently.</p>
+
+<p>"What's the matter with you, Bill? You look queer.
+Anything wrong? ... besides Capron, I mean...?"</p>
+
+<p>The other responded with apparent composure.</p>
+
+<p>"No, nothing. I'm only glad to see you, Carson, that's
+all. I'd no idea you were back from the Rand. I had
+arranged to go up there after you, but&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"When? What for?" asked Carson in surprise. He
+was unable to make head or tail of Portal's speech.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing; just wanted to see you. You're a
+fascinating chap."</p>
+
+<p>Carson gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>One of Portal's hands spasmodically gripped and ungripped
+the verandah rail. With the other he appeared
+to be holding something stiff in the right pocket of his
+coat. He continued to talk in parables.</p>
+
+<p>"I went as far as Maritzburg, but I came back to-night
+to put my affairs into shape and write a few letters&mdash;then
+those fellows came in and asked me to take charge
+of Capron ... I left him asleep, I thought ... I was
+writing a letter to&mdash;well, never mind who to&mdash;when I<span class="pagenum">[436]</span>
+heard a row ... and there was Capron ... <i>he'd got
+ahead of me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"But, good Lord! what do you mean?" Carson burst
+out. "What's wrong with you? Have your finances
+gone smash?" he brought an iron hand down on the restless
+one gripping the verandah railing. The stiff article
+in Portal's pocket twitched. Carson's career had been
+adventurous and dangerous, but he had never been nearer
+death than at that moment. Entirely unconscious of the
+fact, he went on speaking.</p>
+
+<p>"If you've had a smash-up, Bill, everything I've got is
+at your disposal.... I've just made a good turn-over
+in the market.... I thought I should need it, for ...
+but <i>my</i> castle is in ruins.... You can have it if it's any
+good to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks, Carson&mdash;my finances are all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Then what in thunder's the matter with you?&mdash;haven't
+you got the only good woman in this filthy
+country I'd like to know! I could swear to <i>two</i> until
+to-night. <i>Now</i>, if it were not for your wife, I should say
+they were all rotten to the core ... false as&mdash;Oh, well,
+what's the use?" he turned wearily away.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you spoken to my wife since you got back?"
+asked Portal. He had come closer and was staring intently
+into Carson's odd eyes as if searching for something there.
+His gay air was gone; he breathed heavily.</p>
+
+<p>"I haven't spoken to any woman&mdash;except a devil in
+the train to-day&mdash;for nearly three weeks. And after
+to-night I think I'll be able to exist without 'em forever.
+But I saw Mrs. Portal from the door of the Town Hall;
+and she looked to me remarkably ill. Is <i>that</i> your trouble?"</p>
+
+<p>Portal did not answer at once, and Carson turned on
+him austerely and keenly. "If it's any other woman,
+don't expect <i>me</i> to sympathise with you&mdash;I could forgive
+any man that but you&mdash;bah! but it couldn't be ...<span class="pagenum">[437]</span>
+impossible!... Look here, Bill, I may as well tell you
+something now ... you can take it how you like ...
+I'm not ashamed of it ... I was in love with your
+wife for years ... she has never known it for one moment
+... but I loved her crazily&mdash;everything and everyone
+else went by the board ... until I met her I was&mdash;well,
+I needn't tell <i>you</i> what I was&mdash;no follower of Plato,
+anyway&mdash;and you can take this how you please, too&mdash;I
+am not going to pretend that there was anything
+platonic about my feeling for her ... there was <i>not</i>....
+But, because she never turned her eyes my way ... or
+stepped down once in all the years I've known her and
+you from her shrine ... it got finer and finer until it
+got to be the highest, finest thing in my life, and anything
+decent that I've ever done was because of it."</p>
+
+<p>Portal had turned his head away before Carson had
+finished and appeared to be looking at something down the
+street. The thought came to Carson that he was either
+indifferent or not listening.</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, well!" said he, angry to have wasted his confidence
+and yet too weary to be angry long. "I daresay
+this doesn't interest you much ... you know, of course,
+that dozens of men have been in love with your wife ...
+she's one of the women men can't help loving with all
+that's decent in them&mdash;any more than one can help
+loving one's mother. A love like that is like a star in
+the sky of a man's life ... a star that shows the way
+to the east.... And if <i>you</i> are one of those fellows that
+don't know when a star has come down to you, why&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Portal turned a shaken, strange face to the other
+man.</p>
+
+<p>"Carson, you must excuse me; I'm queer to-night
+... I've been listening to Capron's ravings until I'm
+nearly raving myself ... but I think I understand
+... I begin to see through it all.... Women do and<span class="pagenum">[438]</span>
+say strange things in the name of Love!... But I
+<i>know</i> that what you say is true&mdash;I believe in you, Karri."</p>
+
+<p>Carson could not pretend to understand the meaning of
+this, and moreover, Ferrand's cart was at the door, and
+the sickening remembrance of his own broken hopes was
+upon him.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, good-night, old man.... I must go home.
+If anything I've got can be of any use to you, let me
+know." He held out his hand and Portal gripped it.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night, Karri&mdash;I'm going home, too." His face
+was transformed.</p>
+
+<p>Carson never solved the problem of that conversation
+with Portal; never knew how near death he had been,
+never knew how his accidental confidence had saved his
+life and given back her husband to Clem Portal. Indeed,
+he never remembered much about his interview with
+Portal at all. The memory of it was lost amongst the
+crowded events of that phantasmagorial night.</p>
+
+<p>Ferrand's coolie spun the cart along at a great rate
+behind the doctor's best polo pony. Just as they turned
+into West Street a flying rickshaw passed them, but though
+Carson heard a man's voice hailing he did not respond.
+Mrs. Portal and de Grey were in the rickshaw returning
+from long and vain seeking for Mrs. Capron, and it was
+de Grey who shouted, thinking he recognised the doctor's
+cart in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>But even if Carson had known, he would not have
+stopped. He had been too long delayed from his own
+affairs, and he was driving now to get ease from the torture
+burning in his brain and searing his heart. His thoughts
+were fixed on one thing now&mdash;an interview with Bramham.</p>
+
+<p>"He's the only honest man amongst us, by Heaven!"
+he said loudly, so that the coolie driver gave him a nervous
+glance, and drew away. "The only one I'd take the
+trouble to believe."<span class="pagenum">[439]</span></p>
+
+<p>He stopped the cart at the gate of Sea House, and told
+the man to go back to the Club, then strode away up the
+sea-sanded path. Lights gleamed brilliantly from the
+dining-room, but silence reigned, and every other part of
+the house was dark as death. Walking through the
+verandah with light, swift feet and into the dining-room,
+he came upon Poppy and Abinger sitting there, facing
+each other across a corner of the table. There were tears
+on her face, and one arm was flung out before her with
+the gesture of one who has thrown the dice on a last
+and desperate venture. Abinger's hand lay on hers.</p>
+
+<p>They stood up as Carson sped into the room, his eyes
+blazing light in his dark face, and before anyone could
+speak he reached Abinger and without word or warning
+struck him a tremendous blow between the eyes, felling
+him to the floor, where he lay quite still. Then he took
+the girl by the throat&mdash;the long, white throat that shone
+in the darkness.</p>
+
+<p>"By God! I must kill you!" he said, and his voice
+was whispering like the sea's. She heard him; but she
+made no movement upward of her hands, though the
+pressure on her throat was terrible to bear. She closed
+her eyes and prepared to die. The thought slipped into
+her mind then that it would be good to have rest at last
+from the ache and storm of life. That was the message
+the sea was whispering.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Rest, rest ... peace ... rest!</i>"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>After a long while she opened her eyes and found that
+she was sitting in the same chair she had previously risen
+from. Bramham's broad back was before her, but she
+could see Evelyn Carson leaning heavily against the wall
+like a drunken man, and Abinger seated in another chair
+delicately wiping his lips. His scar had opened, and blood<span class="pagenum">[440]</span>
+was trickling down it. The silence was broken by
+Bramham's voice&mdash;quite calm and pleasant.</p>
+
+<p>"If you want to kill each other, take a brace of revolvers
+and go out and do it decently somewhere in the open, where
+it won't make a mess&mdash;killing Miss Chard, however, is
+quite another matter."</p>
+
+<p>Again silence prevailed. Later, Carson said collectedly:</p>
+
+<p>"She can live&mdash;<i>if she wants to</i>"&mdash;he gave her a look
+that lashed across her face like a whip, leaving it distorted.
+"Let them both live, and be damned to them!"</p>
+
+<p>The tone and expression of bitter pleasantry Bramham
+had adopted, died away.</p>
+
+<p>"Well! <i>you</i> fellows from home&mdash;!" he began, and
+looked from face to face. Abinger continued to wipe
+blood delicately away, but he did not wipe the sneer from
+his lips. The girl had the face of a little tired, weeping
+child: the sight of it turned Bramham's heart to water.
+He put out a hand to Carson, appealingly:</p>
+
+<p>"God! Karri, what is it?"</p>
+
+<p>The paleness of Carson under his tan had once more
+given place to an inartistic-grey tint, and his eyes were dull;
+but he appeared strangely composed.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing, Bram," he said. "Only to find the girl you
+love&mdash;less than nothing."</p>
+
+<p>A cry broke upon their ears, and all started and stared
+about them, especially at the open door of Carson's room,
+from whence that muffled, involuntary sound had come.
+A stiffness came over them; their masks slipped on.
+What unknown person had listened to the wild words that
+had been spoken?</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Bram remembered the sensations and scents
+that had assailed him earlier in the night; catching up the
+same pink-shaded lamp, he once more entered Carson's
+room. He gave one searching glance about him, and then
+instinct took him to the only possible cover&mdash;a narrow<span class="pagenum">[441]</span>
+curtained recess in which to hang clothes. He thrust his
+hand between the curtains. Mary Capron spared him
+further trouble&mdash;she swept out from the recess, and from
+the room, giving him one burning glance of hatred as she
+passed.</p>
+
+<p>In the dining-room she stood still, the centre of attraction
+for the second time that night. Her cloak had fallen
+from her shoulders, and her beautifully-<i>coiff&eacute;</i> hair was
+ruffled and limp, her eyes were long gleams of topaz light
+in a carved-stone face. And for some reason she poured
+the full measure of her rage and scorn upon poor Bramham,
+who had dazedly followed her, stepping carefully
+to avoid her train, and standing there now with the little
+pink lamp in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Have you peered and pried enough?" she asked,
+piercing him with her eyes. "Is your curiosity satisfied&mdash;now
+that you have dragged me out? I came here to speak
+to Evelyn Carson&mdash;hearing voices, I foolishly hid....
+Is your taste for scandal appeased?"</p>
+
+<p>Poor, gallant, woman-loving Bramham! He paled and
+started, like a man who has unexpectedly been struck in
+the face; then, turning, still dazed, he walked away with
+the lamp in his hand from the room, and from the house&mdash;<i>his</i>
+house! In the pathway he discovered the lamp in his
+hand and put all his strength and disgust into flinging the
+hapless thing with a crash into a bush.</p>
+
+<p>In the room the girl, still sitting in her chair, but with
+an awakening look of amazement and hope upon her face,
+said some words very softly to Mary Capron:</p>
+
+<p>"So you lied! ... false woman! ... and <i>base friend</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>But Mary Capron turned from her. Shaking with rage
+and defeat, she flung a torrent of low, rushing words at
+Carson.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> love this girl ... girl! ... her confessions to
+Luce Abinger here to-night were not very girlish ... I<span class="pagenum">[442]</span>
+could not hear all that she said to him, but I heard enough....
+She told him that she gave herself to some man
+in a garden three years ago ... that she belonged <i>only</i>
+to that man and could never love any other&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"No more," broke fiercely from Carson's white lips.</p>
+
+<p>"But you <i>shall</i> hear!" she cried, flinging out a hand and
+catching his arm. "<i>She has had a child</i> ... she boasted
+of it ... <i>the child of the man in the garden</i>.... Do you
+deny it? Do you deny it?" she cried, turning to Poppy.
+But Poppy did not deny, did not speak: only lifted
+her head proudly and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>"There ... there ... you see?... let her deny it
+if she can!"</p>
+
+<p>Stiffly Carson turned his head now and looked at Poppy;
+his lips twisted like a man's who is tasting poison; his
+eyes demanded.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I have borne a son," she said simply.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment there was such a silence as is found in
+rooms where the dead are lying. Then Mary Capron
+broke it again:</p>
+
+<p>"She is proud of it!... You <i>see</i> ... you see what
+you love? Is it possible that for a woman like <i>that</i> ...
+that for <i>her</i> you can turn from my love, I who would let
+men brand me in the face for you&mdash;who&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, for God's sake!&mdash;are you mad?... be silent."
+Carson caught her hands roughly and made to draw her
+away. But she was beyond herself. "And now Nick is
+dying ... I have heard them saying it ... and they
+are looking for me to go to him, but I will not ... I
+will not!... I will stay here with you, Eve&mdash;I am
+terrified of blood&mdash;I&mdash;" she finished on a high note that
+was almost a shriek, for Abinger had risen quietly from
+his chair in the corner and was before her with his scarred,
+bleeding face. Then at last she was silent. What there
+was to be said, Abinger said&mdash;blandly, softly.<span class="pagenum">[443]</span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh! I think you had b-better come, Mary. It will
+not be the first t-time you've seen a man cut about. You
+remember the night this was done?" He touched his face
+and she shrank away blenching. "The night Carmen
+punished me for <i>our</i> sins. You were quite brave then.
+You saw the whole performance without uttering a scream
+or a cry that might have brought people to the scene and
+discovered you. No one should blame you for that, but&mdash;I
+think you could be brave enough to see Nick." He held
+out his hand to her. She shrank from him, wilting with
+shame, her eyes frozen in her face; but he was inexorable.</p>
+
+<p>"I think you had better come. It seems to me that
+you have said enough for one night to Carson and Miss
+Chard. She is free of me for ever&mdash;I have told her so.
+And Carson is free of you. Is not that plain to you?
+They love each other ... let us leave them to settle
+their affairs. You and I&mdash;have many old memories to
+discuss&mdash;unless you would rather discuss them here?"</p>
+
+<p>She went at that, with hurrying feet; and the man with
+the bleeding, smiling face followed her.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Carson and Poppy were left alone. They stared into
+each other's eyes with an agony of love and longing and
+fear. Anger was all gone from Carson's face; only fear
+was there&mdash;fear that was terror. It was the girl who
+stood now; he had fallen into a chair, wearily, desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Is it true?" he muttered; "is it true, after all?&mdash;<i>a
+child!</i>" His own sins were forgotten in this overwhelming,
+bitter revelation.</p>
+
+<p>She went over to him, and kneeled between his knees.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes; it is true, Eve ... <i>your</i> child! ... child of
+the night you dreamed that poppies grew upon the eternal
+hills.... <i>I am Poppy!</i> Do you not know me?" He
+sat up straight then and looked down at her, looked down<span class="pagenum">[444]</span>
+deep into the glimmering eyes. "I am Poppy," she said,
+and her voice was wine in a crystal beaker. She dragged
+the malachite comb from her hair, and it came tumbling
+down upon her shoulders in long black ropes. "I am
+Poppy who gave you all her gifts."</p>
+
+<p>The sea helped her; it sent into the room a strong,
+fresh wind that blew the veils of her hair across his face
+and lips. He breathed sharply. God! What strange
+scent of a lost dream was here? What sweet, elusive
+fragrance of a most dear memory!</p>
+
+<p>He took hold of her hair as though he would have torn
+it from her head. A light was in his face&mdash;he drew her to
+him, staring into her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy? ... <i>Poppy!</i> ... <i>not</i> a dream?... <i>Not</i> the
+ravings of fever?... Poppy!" He held her hair across
+his face as though smelling some wonderful flower.</p>
+
+<p>"Eve ... did you not say to me, '<i>If I were stricken
+blind in this hour</i>&mdash;'" she stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"'&mdash;<i>from ten thousand women I could search you out
+by the scent of your hair</i>,'" he finished.</p>
+
+<p>Again they stayed long, staring into each other's eyes.
+Staring&mdash;glance falling to glance and rising again; staring
+with the brave, shame-stricken looks that women give
+to men they adore and endow, and men to women they
+rob, and bless&mdash;and rob again. Strange that two people
+who love each other cannot for long bear the ardent flame
+of each other's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Part of it is lost&mdash;for ever," he said at last.... "Gone!
+... only fragments remain. But there never was a
+dream like the dream we dreamt on that lost night."
+And after a long time:</p>
+
+<p>"Poppy&mdash;where is my son?"</p>
+
+<p>She lifted her eyes to him. The tears which she could
+never shed for herself would always come rushing forth
+for that sweet memory.<span class="pagenum">[445]</span></p>
+
+<p>"All my love could not keep him, Eve."</p>
+
+<p>She pulled a child's framed face from her bosom and
+held it up to his eyes. He saw the little familiar face he
+had looked at once before, pictured in a field of corn and
+poppies, and trembled. He gave it one swift, sorrowful
+look and then he wrapped his arms about her, and she lay
+on his breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Do you regret?" he asked. "Have you ever regretted?
+Oh, God! how can I ask?"</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," she cried, but her voice was faint. Even
+while she spoke she knew&mdash;none better than she&mdash;how
+vain were denials against the truth of the past. How
+all their memories and all their gladness to come must
+ever be salted with pain and tainted with the bitter gall
+of regret. How, when she laid a child in his arms, their
+thoughts would terribly fly to that lost son of a lost dream
+lying far from them in an alien land. They were transgressors&mdash;and
+the reward of transgressors must ever be
+theirs!</p>
+
+<p>Not much more was said. Only enough to chase the
+shadows of others from the road of life they meant to
+take together and make it clear before them. For the
+rest&mdash;they had all the years to come in which to understand
+and suffer and forgive.</p>
+
+<p>He thought of the turmoil and transgression and "tremendous
+disarray" of his life&mdash;and of dark, still nights
+far away in Borapota, with this woman of his dreams by
+his side&mdash;and his heart sent up a cry that was not unworthy
+of it.</p>
+
+<p>"O, Lord God&mdash;forgive me my sins!"</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When Bramham came into the room long after, she
+was still kneeling there in her white gown and her loosened
+hair, and she thought it no shame for him to find her so.<span class="pagenum">[446]</span>
+She rose to her feet and gave him her hand, and he held
+it closely, preciously&mdash;for he, too, loved this woman.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank God that out of this jumble and carnage comes
+one good thing!" he said. "<i>Your</i> ship is home in port.
+Take her out to the gate, Carson. Mrs. Portal is waiting,
+and they're going to pick up Portal at the Club. Capron
+will recover, Ferrand says."</p>
+
+<p>When Poppy had hastily fastened her hair, and Carson
+had wrapped her in her cloak, they went down to the gate
+where Clem waited half in and half out of a carriage
+window. Her face was radiant, too. She drew Poppy
+in beside her.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you two happy?" she whispered. "So am I."
+But she told nothing of the golden moment that had been
+hers within the past hour, when, in the darkness of the
+Club verandah, a big, sullenly handsome man had taken
+her in his arms and just whispered:</p>
+
+<p>"Forgive!&mdash;<i>Loraine!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>She was that lovely thing, a close woman.</p>
+
+<hr class="chapter" />
+
+<p><span class="pagenum">[447]</span></p>
+
+<h2>CHAPTER XXXV</h2>
+
+<p class="dropcap">THE quay at the Point was crowded with people to see
+the sailing of the <i>Tunis</i>. The English Government
+had chartered the vessel specially to take Sir Evelyn
+Carson, his men, stores, horses, guns, mining and agricultural
+machinery, and all the other quantities of things
+needed in the great business of opening up and civilising
+the latest possession of the Empire&mdash;to Borapota.</p>
+
+<p>The sailing of the ship was, of course, an event of great
+public interest, but Sir Evelyn had, at the last moment,
+provided a further and electrifying sensation by being
+quietly married that morning to the distinguished African
+authoress, <i>Eve Destiny</i>; and his wife was accompanying
+him to Borapota on the <i>Tunis</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Durban considered itself badly treated in not having
+been invited <i>en masse</i> to witness the ceremony; also, in
+being cheated of introspective discussion of the match,
+by having no faintest prenotion of it. But it was not
+to be done out of at least a parting glimpse of the principals
+in this unexpected <i>d&eacute;nouement</i>. And so it happened
+that the quay was crowded, for the fashionable world had
+come down like the Assyrians, and everyone with the
+slimmest claim to the acquaintance of Carson or his wife
+made occasion to visit the <i>Tunis</i> before the hour of sailing.
+The rest of the world was obliged to be content with
+lining the docks and blackening the Breakwater.</p>
+
+<p>Just after twelve, with the tide at full, preliminary
+sirens and scrunching of chains began to be heard, and<span class="pagenum">[448]</span>
+word was given for people to leave the <i>Tunis</i>. That was
+a sign for everyone to come on deck, and the curious
+watchers ashore got a chance at last of seeing the special
+object of their curiosity. She appeared in the companionway
+door, smiling, with her hand through the arm of her
+great friend, Mrs. Portal; behind were a little group of
+men with Eve Carson towering in their midst.</p>
+
+<p>Lady Carson was still wearing the gown she had been
+married in, and she looked vividly beautiful. Shimmering
+leaf-green draperies swept the decks, under a long coat
+of pale-grey velvet, and her poem face was shadowed by
+a plumed, grey hat. Her husband thought that she
+looked like the incarnation of Ireland&mdash;and than the
+beauty of <i>that</i> imagination could no further go.</p>
+
+<p>She and Clem Portal, alone together for the first time in
+all that busy, eventful day, walked a little apart to make
+their farewells, and the eyes of the men followed them,
+resting naturally on the vivid glowing woman in the
+shimmering green-and-grey. Her husband's were the
+only eyes that did not follow her. He had given her one
+deep, long glance at the altar; and since then had not
+looked her way. His tanned face wore the impassive,
+almost cataleptic expression that men assume when they
+wish to conceal deep emotion from the eyes of the world.
+But he walked as one whom the gods have chosen to
+honour. Bramham strongly suspected him of suffering
+from what is known among men as&mdash;a swagger in the
+blood!</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he feels tall enough to pull the sky down
+to-day," was the loyal fellow's thought, and he smiled
+affectionately and put an arm on Karri's shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>Clem and Poppy walked along the deck together. They
+did not say much. Only, under cover of a big, grey velvet
+sleeve, and a stole of delicate lace Clem wore, their hands
+were tightly clasped together. The Portals would be<span class="pagenum">[449]</span>
+gone from Africa before Eve Carson's five years' work
+in Borapota was over; and where, or when, the two women
+would meet again was a matter that lay upon the knees
+of the gods. Neither wished to let one word of regret
+mar the gladness of the day; but each knew how deeply
+the other felt the parting.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Clem!" Poppy said at last, with something like a
+sob in her voice. "It is all so wonderful&mdash;to be out of
+the 'tangled wild' at last, with the clear, open land before
+us! Can it be true? I have had so many blows in the
+face, and I am so undeserving of this great happiness&mdash;<i>can
+it be true</i>?"</p>
+
+<p>"Chance is more just than we are!" Clem softly quoted.
+"Poppy, before we part I must tell you something ...
+about my name&mdash;<i>Loraine</i>. Bill wants me to tell you ...
+and he says <i>you will know why</i>. It is my own name, dear&mdash;but
+I have never allowed anyone to call me by it but
+Bill. When people love each other very much <i>you know</i>&mdash;they
+give each other little secret gifts that no one else must
+know of&mdash;this was one of mine to Bill. All the world
+can call me Clem&mdash;but <i>Loraine</i> was only for him. Others
+came to know of it by accident, but I never gave anyone
+the right to call me by that name but Bill&mdash;&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Poppy held the little brown, thin hand more tightly.</p>
+
+<p>"I know, I know, darling," she fervently said. She
+could not at this time tell Clem how much else she knew&mdash;all
+that Carson had told her of the secret love he had borne
+for Clem for many years; but she had no feeling of bitterness
+now, or anger concerning that love. Clem went on,
+a little hurriedly, for time was flying:</p>
+
+<p>"I had another reason too&mdash;under my mask I am dreadfully
+superstitious and primitive. All the Loraines in my
+ancestral history have lost those whom they loved&mdash;in some
+tragic way. I am afraid of history. Oh, Poppy! when
+one loves ... when one loves ... one is afraid of <i>every<span class="pagenum">[450]</span>thing</i>."
+She turned white and began to tremble. "How
+<i>fearful</i> one is! I have been so fearful always for Bill ...
+that I have never even dared show <i>him</i> how much I care.
+I always think if I am silent, silent, silent ... never
+bragging, never telling of my soul's idolatry, God will
+be merciful to me." She was trembling like a leaf, and
+stammering with pallid lips&mdash;this calm, well-masked,
+self-possessed woman of the world. Never before had
+any woman's eyes seen past the barriers into the inmost
+chapel of Clem Portal's heart. And Poppy, overwhelmed,
+could only tenderly say:</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Clem ... thank you.... God bless you!"
+Bramham bustled up.</p>
+
+<p>"We've got to clear out, Mrs. Portal ... they're
+going to haul up the gangway!" He turned to Poppy.
+"And the siren is hooting us out of your paradise. Well,
+Lady Carson! the world will expect wonderful things from
+your pen up in the silences of Borapota!"</p>
+
+<p>She smiled at him with radiant, misty eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Let it expect. I shall never be able to write any
+more, Charlie. I can never do anything again but live.
+I know how to <i>live</i>."</p>
+
+<p>The others joined them then, and the whole group
+moved gangwaywards, individual remarks swamped in
+general farewells, jests, laughter, good wishes. All were
+ashore at last, leaving Poppy and Carson standing alone,
+side by side, with the keen winter sunlight bright upon
+them.</p>
+
+<p>When they could no longer recognise friendly faces to
+wave to, they turned and looked at each other. Catalepsy
+disappeared from Carson's face&mdash;it grew boyish, ardent,
+gay.</p>
+
+<div class="inset" style="width:12em">
+<p>"'The Lord is debonair,<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 1em;">Let sinners not despair,'"</span></p>
+</div>
+
+<p class="noin">said he, and they smiled into each other's eyes.<span class="pagenum">[451]</span></p>
+
+<p>And so their ship swept out to sea.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Ashore, one or two acrid things were said. In a little
+detached group, of which Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re, Mrs. Lace, and
+Cora de Grey were the central figures, Brookfield thought it
+interesting to say:</p>
+
+<p>"There's a rumour that she's as wicked as her books&mdash;if
+so, Carson is not to be envied."</p>
+
+<p>Cora de Grey, who was sometimes also called <i>Cobra</i>
+de Grey, bit into him swiftly:</p>
+
+<p>"If she's wicked, she's clever beyond the cleverness of
+any woman, for none of her men friends have ever given
+her away."</p>
+
+<p>"Her <i>men</i> friends&mdash;that's a new story!" retorted the
+surprised Brookfield.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, no; quite an old story amongst married women,"
+said Cora, with her Karoo smile. "When a woman is
+<i>really</i> wicked, some renegade will always tell his dearest
+friend, or his wife, and then&mdash;short shrift for <i>her</i>."</p>
+
+<p>Brookfield retired.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re said:</p>
+
+<p>"It's a scandal that he didn't marry May Mappin.
+And I <i>know</i> Charles Bramham was in love with <i>her</i>. What
+will he do now, I wonder?"</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re's voice was so penetrating that it often
+reached the ears of her victims. Bramham, coming up,
+answered her cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, haven't you heard?" said he, grinning. "My
+dear Mrs. Haybittel is arriving from Paris to pay Durban
+a visit. Everyone is sure to make her as comfortable as
+they can&mdash;for fear she should make them as uncomfortable
+as <i>she</i> can. She says she's bringing out twelve trunks full
+of French gowns."</p>
+
+<p>This was terrible news for Mrs. Gruy&egrave;re, who only<span class="pagenum">[452]</span>
+feared two things on earth&mdash;French gowns and the malicious
+pen of Mrs. Haybittel. But she preserved a brave front.</p>
+
+<p>"Let us hope that she has had her face enamelled to
+wear with them," was her last barb.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>Driving home, Clem said to her husband:</p>
+
+<p>"Will they be happy, think you, Billy-Bill?" And he,
+with the deep wisdom vouchsafed only to true lovers,
+answered her:</p>
+
+<p>"Happy? Of course not! But they will count unhappiness
+with each other the best that Life can give."</p>
+<br />
+<br />
+<p class="cen">FINIS.</p>
+
+<p class="spacer">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="trnote">
+
+<p class="centered">Transcriber's Notes:</p>
+<br />
+<p class="noin">p. 22 corrected doubled "she"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 68 "unwittingy" changed to "unwittingly"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 72 "eared" changed to "cared"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 110 "relasped" changed to "relapsed"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 146 "widow" changed to "window"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 178 "quater" changed to "quarter"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 183 "champange" changed to "champagne"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 272 "aways" changed to "always"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 356 "whatver" changed to "whatever"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 361 "knowlege" changed to "knowledge"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 377 "found" changed to "round"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">p. 449 "love each very much" changed to "love each other very much"</p>
+
+<p class="noin">Minor punctuation corrections left unnoted.</p>
+
+<p class="noin">Words with multiple spellings left as in original.</p>
+
+
+</div>
+
+</div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
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+</body>
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Poppy
+       The Story of a South African Girl
+
+Author: Cynthia Stockley
+
+Release Date: May 18, 2011 [EBook #36138]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPPY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Garcia, Matthew Wheaton and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+  [Illustration: "IN HIS LOOMING ABOUT THE ROOM HE HAD STOPPED DEAD
+  BEFORE WATTS'S PICTURE 'HOPE' OVER THE MANTELPIECE"
+
+  From the painting by G. F. Watts, R.A.
+
+  (_See p. 336_)]
+
+
+
+
+  POPPY
+
+
+  THE STORY OF A
+  SOUTH AFRICAN GIRL
+
+  BY
+
+  CYNTHIA STOCKLEY
+
+
+  G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
+  NEW YORK AND LONDON
+  The Knickerbocker Press
+  1910
+
+
+  Published, March, 1910
+  Reprinted, March, 1910; May, 1910
+  July, 1910 (twice); August, 1910
+  September, 1910; October, 1910
+
+
+  The Knickerbocker Press, New York
+
+
+
+  To
+  Em
+
+
+
+
+PART I
+
+
+  "... and some do say of poppies that they be the tears of the moon
+  shed in a land beyond the seas: and that they do bring forgetfulness
+  and freedom from pain."
+
+                                     (_From an old Irish Legend_.)
+
+
+
+
+POPPY
+
+
+Nothing more unlike a gladsome poppy of the field was ever seen than
+Poppy Destin, aged nine, washing a pile of dirty plates at the kitchen
+table.
+
+Pale as a witch, the only red about her was where she dug her teeth into
+her lips. Her light lilac-coloured eyes were fierce with anger and
+disgust. Her hair hung in long black streaks over her shoulders, and her
+dark hands, thin and bony as bird's claws, were each decorated with a
+bracelet of greeny-yellowy grease.
+
+There had been curry for dinner. Horrible yellow rings floated on the
+top of the water in the _skottel_ and Poppy hated to put her hands into
+it.
+
+She was hating her work more than usual that day because she was hungry
+as well as angry. She had slapped her little cousin Georgie for throwing
+a heavy hammer at her which had cut a gash in her leg; and her
+punishment for this crime had been two stinging boxes on the ear and
+sentence to go without food all day. Fortunately the incident had
+occurred after breakfast.
+
+Once or twice she looked longingly at the scraps on the plates, but she
+did not touch them, because her aunt had eaten from one and she was not
+sure which, and she knew that to eat from anything her aunt had touched
+would choke her.
+
+So she threw the scraps to Nick the black cat, under the kitchen table,
+and went on hating her aunt, and washing up the plates. She would have
+liked to smash each plate on the floor as she took it out of the water,
+and to have thrown all the greasy water over the freshly-scrubbed white
+shelves and dresser. And she would have done it too, only that she did
+not like boxes on the ear.
+
+Presently she tried to fill her bitter little heart and her empty little
+stomach by going on with the story inside her head. She always had a
+story going on inside her head, and it was always about just two
+people--a beautiful lady and a man with a face like Lancelot. She used
+to begin at the end to make sure they should be quite happy, and when
+she had married them and they were living happily "ever after," she
+would go back to the beginning--how they met and all the sad things they
+had to go through before they could be married. Afterwards she would
+make a little song about them.
+
+That day she had a heroine with red gold hair for the first time,
+because she had seen such a beautiful red-gold-haired lady in the street
+the day before, dressed in brown holland with a brown hat trimmed with
+pale green leaves. Poppy dressed her heroine in the same fashion,
+instead of the usual white velvet with a long train and a wreath of
+white roses resting on her hair. Just as Lancelot was telling the
+heroine that her eyes were as beautiful as brown wine, a harsh voice
+called out from the dining-room:
+
+"Porpie! Haven't you done that washing-up yet? Make haste there! You
+know you got to smear the kitchen before you clean yourself and take the
+children up to the Kopje."
+
+Poppy gritted her teeth and furious tears came into her eyes; her aunt's
+voice always seemed to scrape something inside her head and make it
+ache; also, she detested taking the children up to the Kopje. It was
+such a long way to carry Bobby--all up Fountain Street in the broiling
+sun--and she _had_ to carry him, because if she put him into the pram
+with his twin, Tommy, they kicked each other and screamed, and when the
+children screamed, Aunt Lena always got to hear of it and boxed Poppy's
+ears for ill-treating them.
+
+Listlessly she dried the plates and stuck them up in lines on the
+dresser, soaked the _fadook_ and washed all round the edges of the bowl,
+making the water swirl round and round so that the grease would not
+settle again, then, while the water moved swiftly, carried the basin to
+the back door and emptied it with a great "swash" into the yard. The
+fowls flew shrieking in every direction and the water ran down in little
+rivers to where old Sara was doing some washing under the shade of the
+biggest acacia tree. When the little stream reached her bare black feet
+she clicked her teeth, crying, "Aah," and moved round to the other side
+of the stones on which she banged the clothes to make them white.
+
+Poppy dried her basin out with the _fadook_, wiped the table dry, and
+put the bowl upside down upon it. Then she went into the yard again and
+approached an old pail which stood in the forage-house. It was full of
+an atrocious mess, slimy and thick, giving out a pungent odour that made
+her nose wrinkle in disgust. Nevertheless she took it up and carried it
+down to old Sara to get some soapy water. The old Basuto in her red
+_kop-dook_, rolled the whites of her eyes sympathetically and muttered
+in her native tongue as she watched Poppy stir the green slime with a
+stick. She was sorry for the child. She knew it was Kaffir's work to
+smear floors. Black hands are hard, and the little thorns and stones to
+be found in the wet cow-dung do not hurt them; neither does the pungent
+smell disgust black noses.
+
+"But the _old missis_ had strange ways! Clk! It seemed she liked the
+_klein-missis_ to do Kaffir's work!" Old Sara shrugged her fat, wobbly
+shoulders, and flopped over her wash-tub once more.
+
+Poppy went back to the kitchen. She had swept it just before dinner, now
+she sprinkled it heavily with water, then kneeling down on a folded sack
+beside the bucket, she rolled up her sleeves, closed her eyes, and
+plunged her hands into the sickening mess. Quickly she withdrew them,
+flinging two handfuls on to the floor and began to smear it with the
+flat of her right hand.
+
+Kitchens and verandahs (or stoeps) in old-fashioned South African houses
+always have what are called "mud floors," which means that they are just
+mother-earth with all the stones picked out and the surface kept smooth
+and level by constant smearing in or pasting on of wet cow-dung once or
+twice a week. Smearing is a disgusting business, but joy comes after.
+When freshly dry the floor looks cool and green and fresh, and no longer
+does the _mis_ smell vilely; rather, there is a soft odour of grasses
+and flowers, as though some stray veldt wind had blown through the room.
+
+But Poppy had no time to enjoy the result of her labour. After she had
+spread sacks upon the floor to prevent feet from marking her work until
+it was dry, she stopped for a moment to dig out a thorn from her thumb
+with a needle, but immediately her aunt's menacing voice could be heard
+from the front stoep, where now she sat drinking her after-dinner cup of
+coffee with her husband, admonishing the slowness of Poppy's
+proceedings, and demanding that she should "makaste."
+
+Poppy ran into the bedroom which she shared with her two elder cousins,
+and cleaned herself of all traces of her recent occupation. Later she
+appeared on the front stoep, in a print pinafore over her grey linsey
+dress, and an old straw hat much bitten at the edges shading her pale
+fierce little face.
+
+"My word, that child looks more like an Irish Fenian every day!" was her
+aunt's agreeable greeting.
+
+Weak, good-looking "Uncle Bob," who was really no more than a second
+cousin of Poppy's, laughed in a deprecating kind of way. He was cutting
+a twist of tobacco from a great roll that hung drying from the stoep
+roof.
+
+"Och, you're always going on at the girl, Lena!"
+
+"And good cause I have," retorted Mrs. Kennedy. "Stand still, Ina, while
+I tie your cappie."
+
+Poppy said nothing, but if having black murder in your heart makes you a
+Fenian, she knew that she was one.
+
+Silently she assisted her aunt to put their pinafores upon the
+struggling twins, and to array Ina in her cape and bib--all starched to
+stand about them like boards, to their everlasting misery and
+discomfort. Mrs. Kennedy gloated upon the fact that all the neighbours
+said, "How beautifully kept Mrs. Kennedy's children are!"
+
+At last Tommy was in the pram; Bobby pranced astride on Poppy's small
+bony hip, and Ina, who was just four, clung toddling to her skirt. Thus
+Poppy set forth, pushing the pram before her.
+
+"And mind you bring them in before sun-down, and don't let them sit on
+the damp grass--" was Mrs. Kennedy's last word shouted up the street
+after the procession.
+
+A little lane lined with syringa trees led from the house and was shady
+and sweet to loiter in, but Fountain Street glared and blazed under the
+afternoon sun. Poppy was pale and sadly-coloured as some strange
+cellar-plant when at last she brought her charges to a halt by the
+Kopje. She put Bobby down from her hip with a bump, tilted the pram and
+let Tommy scramble out the best way he could, then sat down on a rock
+and covered her face with her hands.
+
+Bobby was a heavy-weight, and though she changed him from one hip to
+another all the way up the street, she never got to the Kopje without a
+pain in her stomach and a feeling of deathly sickness.
+
+Nearly all the children of the town came to the Kopje in the afternoons.
+It was only a slight hill, but it had bushes and clumps of mimosa trees,
+and little quarried-out holes and masses of rocks, and other fascinating
+features dear to children. The Kaffir-girl nurses squatted under the
+trees jabbering amongst themselves, and the children congregated in
+small herds. Poppy was the only white-girl nurse to be seen. She had a
+little circle of trees and stones where she always took her brood, and
+if she found anyone else in possession, she threw stones at them until
+they retreated.
+
+When she had spread a rug for them to sit on, the children were left to
+amuse themselves in whatsoever fashion seemed good unto them. Poppy sat
+dreaming to herself, wrapped in the veils of poetry and romance. Near
+the Kopje was St. Michael's, a high school for girls kept by an English
+sisterhood, and when Poppy and her brood reached their haunt before
+three o'clock, she would see all the girls coming out of the gates,
+passing by in their nice dresses and hats with bags of books in their
+hands. They would stare at Poppy, and sometimes laugh; then the pain in
+her stomach would come into her throat and almost choke her. No one ever
+spoke to her. They knew quite well who she was, but she did Kaffir's
+work, and her clothes were old and ugly, and she was altogether a person
+to be despised and laughed at.
+
+But sometimes a little ray of human friendliness would break through the
+hedge of snobbery. On this summer day a girl called Edie Wyllie, who
+used to sit next to her in Sunday-school, called out in quite a jolly
+way as she passed:
+
+"Hullo, Poppy Destin!"
+
+But her sister pulled at her arm at once and rebuked her.
+
+"Edie! You know mother doesn't let us speak to Poppy Destin."
+
+"Pooh!" called out Poppy with the utmost scorn and derision. "Who wants
+to speak to you? I hate you."
+
+She made fearful faces at them; but when they had all gone past, she
+rocked on her stone and wept.
+
+"I hate them! I hate them!" she sobbed. "And I hate God! God is a
+beast."
+
+Ina stood by and listened, with her pinafore in her mouth.
+
+"I'll tell mother that, what you say," she remarked gravely.
+
+"'Tell-tale-tit, your tongue shall be slit.' Go away from me, else I'll
+beat you," shouted Poppy, and Ina ran for her life and hid behind some
+rocks. Poppy continued her weeping, dry-eyed now, but sobbing
+spasmodically.
+
+Suddenly a voice behind her!
+
+"What's the matter little girl?"
+
+Turning round she saw that the beauteous lady in the holland dress was
+sitting on a stone opposite her, smiling kindly. Her hair was like
+sovereigns shining in the sunlight, Poppy thought.
+
+"Do tell me what is the matter!"
+
+"Nothing's the matter," said Poppy defiantly.
+
+The lady laughed long and merrily as though she found something
+refreshing in the child's sulky misery.
+
+"Well, but how silly of you to cry and make your eyes red for nothing!
+You've got such pretty eyes, too!"
+
+Poppy stared at her, gasping.
+
+"Oh! If I only thought I had pretty eyes--" she said breathlessly.
+
+"Well, you have indeed. And they are most uncommon too--just the colour
+of lilac, and 'put in with a smutty finger' like an Irish girl's. Are
+you Irish?"
+
+Poppy was about to inform her that she was a Fenian, but she thought
+better of it.
+
+"I was born here in Bloemfontein," she answered.
+
+"Well, perhaps your mother came from Ireland, for you have _quite_ an
+Irish face: only you're so thin, and you look so cross--are you?"
+
+"Yes. I am always cross. I hate everybody."
+
+"Good heavens! What a little savage! but you shouldn't. It makes one so
+ugly to hate."
+
+"Does it?" Eagerly. "Do you think if I was never cross I'd get
+beautiful?"
+
+"You are much more likely to," said the other encouragingly, thinking in
+the meantime that nothing could ever make harmonious and beautiful that
+small tormented face.
+
+"Is that why you are so beautiful?" was the next question.
+
+The beauty smiled: a little complacently perhaps.
+
+"I expect so. I am never cross and never unhappy, and I never mean to
+let anyone make me so." She opened her brown holland sunshade lined with
+sea-green silk and got up to go.
+
+"Now be sure and remember that," she said pleasantly. "Never cry, never
+be unhappy, never hate anyone, and never be cross and--you'll see how
+beautiful you'll become."
+
+"Oh, I will, I will," cried Poppy ardently.
+
+"Now I must go," said the beautiful one. "I want to take one last walk
+round your pretty Bloemfontein, because I am going back to Cape Town
+to-morrow."
+
+"Have you any little girls in Cape Town?" asked Poppy, wishing to detain
+her a little longer. She laughed at that.
+
+"You funny child! Why I'm not even married. But I'm going to be, and to
+the most fascinating man in Africa."
+
+"Is his name Lancelot?"
+
+"No. His name is Nick Capron. How old are you, child?"
+
+"Nine."
+
+"Only nine! You look about thirteen, you poor little thing. Well,
+good-bye, I must really go."
+
+"Good-bye; and thank you so much for speaking to me," Poppy stammered.
+She felt that she could adore the beautiful study in brown holland, who
+only laughed at her again and went on her way.
+
+But Poppy, sitting on her rock had a gleam of hope and happiness; for at
+last she knew the secret of being beautiful; _and_--it had been told
+her--her eyes were pretty.
+
+She sat thinking for a long time and making resolutions. She even
+determined to strive to hate Aunt Lena less. Minor resolutions were--not
+to be unkind to the children when they made her angry and told tales on
+her; not to quarrel with her two elder cousins, Clara and Emily; not to
+scratch them and beat them with her fists when they called her
+_Foelstruis_,[1] because her legs were so long and thin; not to fly into
+awful rages in which she could not speak, only shake all over and bite
+her hands and lips till the blood came; not to sit and think of Aunt
+Lena's ways until a red curtain came down before her eyes and her heart
+felt like a red-hot coal burning her to death.
+
+  [1] Ostrich.
+
+These were a few of the terrible obstacles in the path to beauty which
+she set herself to overcome. There were other arts, too, she would
+practise to the same end. She would brush her hair until it sprang into
+waves, even as the hair of the beautiful one in brown. She would cut her
+eyelashes, as Clara did, to make them thick and long. She would run and
+jump, even when she was tired, to make her body strong and her cheeks
+pink. She would walk upright, even when she had the pain in her stomach,
+so that she might grow tall and graceful. Furthermore, she would find
+out from old Sara where that wonderful milky cactus grew, which the
+young Basuto girls gathered and rubbed upon their breasts in the
+moonlight to make them grow round and firm as young apples.
+
+Last, but most important of all, she evolved from her dreamings and
+devisings a promise to herself that she would never, _never_ do mean
+things, for meanness she surely knew to be the friend of hideousness.
+Meanness showed in the face. Could not anyone see it in Aunt Lena's
+face? The traces of mean thoughts and deeds showed in the narrow space
+between her eyebrows, in the specks in her pale eyes, were brushed into
+her sleek, putty-coloured hair and crinkled her coarse thick hands. If
+you only looked at the freckles and loose skin all round her wrists, her
+fat fingers and the way her ears stuck out, you must see how cruel and
+hateful she could be, thought Poppy. Whereupon, forgetting the greatest
+of her resolutions in a moment, she fell to hating her Aunt Lena again
+with a particular malignancy. But presently she noticed that the trees
+were casting long giant shadows towards the town, pansy-coloured clouds
+were in the sky, and a certain dewiness had come into the air. Hastily
+collecting the children she departed with them. In the same order as
+they came, they returned home down the long white street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was hard in the house of Aunt Lena Kennedy to attain beauty
+through virtue.
+
+On Saturdays Poppy even forgot that she had ever made resolutions to
+that end. Upon that day of days, Mrs. Kennedy subjected her house and
+all that therein was to a scrubbing in which there was no niggardliness
+of what she termed "elbow grease." Poppy was not exempt; her turn came
+at ten o'clock at night; and that was the hour of shame and rage for
+Poppy. When all the rest of the children were comfortably in bed,
+sucking their weekly supply of _lekkers_, Mrs. Kennedy would roll up her
+sleeves and approach in a workmanlike manner the big pan-bath in the
+middle of the kitchen, wherein stood Poppy, lank, thin-limbed, and
+trembling--but not with cold--under the scrutiny of the speckled eyes
+she hated so well.
+
+"Ah! you bad-tempered little cat!" was the usual preliminary; "why can't
+you be grateful to me for taking the trouble to keep you clean? It isn't
+every aunt by marriage who would do it, I can tell you. I suppose you'd
+like to go about with the dirt ingrained in you! What are you shivering
+and cringing like that for? Are you ashamed of your own body?"
+
+"It is horrible to be naked, aunt," she would retort, striving to keep
+tears from bursting forth and full of apprehension that someone might
+come into the wide-open kitchen doors.
+
+"Horrible! what's horrible about it, I'd like to know, except in your
+own nasty little mind? A body like a _spring-kaan_,[2] that's what
+you've got ... and don't want me to see it, I suppose! Dirty pride! the
+ugliest child _I've_ ever seen ... the longest legs ... and the
+skinniest arms ... look what nice fat arms Clara and Emily's got! ...
+one would think you never got enough to eat ... pass me that other arm."
+
+  [2] Grasshopper.
+
+With a rough flannel and blue mottled soap she scoured Poppy's body and
+face as if it had been the face of a rock; scrubbing and rubbing until
+the skin crackled like a fire beneath her vigorous hand. Later came a
+scraping down with a bath towel made of something of the same fibre as a
+door-mat. At last Poppy crept to her bed, her eyes like pin-points in
+her head from the scalding of the strong soap; her hair strained back
+from her sore, glazed face and plaited as tightly as possible into two
+pig-tails behind her ears.
+
+On such nights she was far enough from the beauty she so much coveted.
+To herself she appeared hideous--_hideous_. It gave her pain to look at
+herself in the glass. And she believed that her aunt made her hideous
+with malignant intent. Her cousins had their hair loosely plaited, and
+it hung nicely over their faces, and they had frills to their
+nightgowns. Poppy's nightgown of unbleached calico had a tight narrow
+neck-band that nearly strangled her when buttoned with a linen button
+the size of a small saucer.
+
+Those were the nights when a thousand devils ate at her heart and fought
+within her, and she knew she could never be beautiful. She would lie
+awake for hours, just to loathe her aunt and concoct tortures for her.
+In imagination she cut slits in that hated body and filled them with
+salt and mustard, or anything that would burn; dug sharp knives into the
+cruel heart; saw the narrow hard face lying on the floor and beat into
+it with a hammer until it was red, red, red--and everything was red.
+
+"Scorpion! Scorpion!" she would rave.
+
+Worn out at last and half asleep she would choke and groan and bite her
+pillow, thinking she had her enemy under her hands, until her cousins in
+their big bed across the room would call out:
+
+"Ma! I wish you would come and speak to Miss Poppy here. She's calling
+you a 'scorpion'!"
+
+The chances were that Mrs. Kennedy, in no pleasant temper after all her
+exertions, would fly into the room, tear down the bedclothes, and
+administer two or three stinging slaps on Poppy's bare body, crying out
+upon her for an ungrateful, vile-tempered little fagot.
+
+"You want a _sjambok_ round you, that's what you want, my lady, and
+you'll get it one of these days. I shan't go on with you in this patient
+way for ever."
+
+"I won't have a _sjambok_ used on a child in my house," Uncle Bob would
+mutter in the dining-room, asserting himself in this one matter at
+least.
+
+But Clara and Emily would jeer from their beds, calling her _Miss_ Poppy
+in fine derision.
+
+"_Now_ you've got it! How did you like that, hey? _Lekker_, hey?"
+
+Some time after midnight Poppy would weep herself to sleep.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Once Poppy used to go to St. Gabriel's Infant School, where she had
+learned to read and write; but when the twins arrived in the world, Aunt
+Lena could no longer spare her from home, and her education languished
+for three years. But at last there came a letter from her god-mother in
+Port Elizabeth saying that she had sent five pounds to St. Michael's
+Home, asking the Sisters to give Poppy as much education as possible for
+that sum.
+
+Poppy was wild with delight. It had been beyond her wildest dreams to go
+to St. Michael's and learn all sorts of wonderful things with all the
+_grand_ children of Bloemfontein. She could not believe that such joy
+was to be hers. Mrs. Kennedy made great objections to the scheme, and
+seemed likely to get her way until her husband took the trouble to
+insist. So Poppy went off one morning full of hope and high ambition, in
+a clean, very stiffly starched overall of faded galatea, her old straw
+hat freshly decorated with a yellow pugaree that hung in long tails down
+her back.
+
+But school was only the beginning of a fresh era of misery. The girls
+stared at her old boots and sneered at her pugaree, and no one would be
+friends with her because she wore white cotton stockings, which were
+only sixpence a pair, and sold to Kaffir girls to wear on Sundays.
+
+Poppy gave back sneer for sneer and taunt for taunt with great
+versatility; but her heart was sometimes near bursting under the galatea
+overall. It seemed to her that even the teachers despised her because of
+her shabbiness and ugliness, and that when she worked hard at her
+lessons she got less praise than the pretty girls. "Yes! it's because
+I'm ugly, and everything I wear is ugly," she whispered to herself as
+she walked home alone every day, hurrying because she knew the children
+would be dressed and ready, waiting to be taken to the Kopje as soon as
+she had bolted her cold dinner. Clara's and Emily's dinner was always
+kept hot. They went to the Dames' Institute, another school of some
+importance where all the nice high Dutch Boers sent their children: and
+they got home at two o'clock. Mrs. Kennedy said she would keep no dinner
+hot later than that hour, so that Poppy, arriving at three, found her
+stewed mutton cold in a dish of fatty gravy, and sometimes a bit of cold
+suet pudding. She would always have "filled up" contentedly enough with
+bread, but Mrs. Kennedy grumbled when too much bread was eaten, as she
+only baked once a week.
+
+Sometimes, when Poppy had been very unhappy at school, she used to stop
+at the Kopje instead of hurrying home, so that she could cry without
+being spied on by Ina or the twins. She would lie down among the rocks
+and the kind green leaves, and moan and cry out against God and
+everybody in the world. Her little songs and stories seemed to have died
+in her heart and been buried. She would call out to God that He _might_
+have let her have _something_--a kind mother, or golden hair, or brains,
+or a white skin, or a happy home, or _something_; it wouldn't have hurt
+_Him_, and it would have made all the difference to her. Later she
+passed from argument to anger and from anger to frenzy; shouting at the
+sky because she was ugly and poor and horrible within as well as
+without, so that no one loved her and she hated everyone.
+
+At last, tired out, hopeless, sick with bitter crying, she would lay her
+head against an old mimosa tree that had a curve in its trunk like the
+curve of a mother's arm, and the soft odour of the fluffy round yellow
+blossoms would steal over her. Later, a land of peace and strength
+seemed to come out of the tree to her, and she would have courage to get
+up and go on her way.
+
+One of the teachers, Miss Briggs, was always scolding her about her
+hands. She would draw the attention of the whole class to them, covering
+Poppy with shame. They were not big hands like Clara's and Emily's but
+they were rough and coarse with housework and through being continually
+in the water washing stockings and handkerchiefs and plates; and in the
+winter they got horribly chapped, with blood marks all over them, so
+that the teachers couldn't bear to see them and the girls used to say
+"Sis!" when she reached for anything. Her nails, too, were often untidy,
+and her hair. She never had time in the mornings to give it more than
+just one brush and tie it back in her neck, and she used to have to
+clean her nails with a pin or a mimosa thorn while she was hurrying to
+school, learning her lessons on the way. It was the only time she had to
+learn them, except in the afternoons when she took the children out. If
+they were good and would stay happy, she could get out her books from
+under the pram seat and learn; but almost immediately Ina would want to
+be played with, or Georgie would fall down and hurt himself and whimper
+in her arms for half an hour. The fact was that the children had been
+brought up to believe that Poppy was in the world entirely for their
+comfort and convenience, and they could not bear to see her doing
+anything that was not for them.
+
+"I'll tell ma," was their parrot cry: and that meant boxes on the ear.
+
+"I up with my hand" was a favourite phrase of Aunt Lena's.
+
+In the evenings Ina must always be sung to sleep, and sometimes would
+not go off for more than an hour. Then Mrs. Kennedy would say briskly:
+
+"Now get your lessons done, Porpie!"
+
+But by then Poppy's head would be aching and her eyes would hardly keep
+open, and what she did learn would not stay in her head until the next
+morning.
+
+And after all, none of the teachers seemed to care much whether she
+learned them or not. If by accident she did them well, she got no
+praise; if she did them ill she was scolded and the lesson was
+"returned"--that meant being kept in on Friday afternoons until the
+lesson had been learnt or rewritten. But when Friday afternoon came,
+Poppy could not stay; there were the children to be taken out, and her
+ears would be boxed if she were too late to do that; she would get no
+tea, and the whole house would be thoroughly upset. So the "returned"
+lessons had to go to the wall. She would slink home when supposed to be
+taking recreation in the play-ground before the "returned" bell rang.
+That meant bad conduct marks, unpopularity with the teachers, and as the
+deserted Fridays mounted up--all hope lost of gaining a prize. After a
+while the teachers said she was incorrigible, and gave her no more
+attention.
+
+"I wonder you bother to come to school at all, Poppy," was the favourite
+gibe of Miss Briggs.
+
+When examination days came she did badly, except in history and
+geography, which she liked and found easy.
+
+Break-up day was the worst of all.
+
+The girls all came in their pretty soft white frocks and looked sweet.
+Only Poppy was ugly, in a pique frock, starched like a board, her hair
+frizzed out in a bush, her pale face looking yellow and sullen against
+the over-blued white dress; her long legs and her narrow feet longer and
+narrower than ever in white stockings and elastic-sided boots.
+
+There was never any prize for her.
+
+She knew there never would be. She used to keep saying inside herself:
+
+"_Of course_ there isn't a prize for you"; and yet she was so silly,
+her ears were cracking and straining all the time to hear her name read
+out of the list. And her heart used to feel like a stone when the list
+came to an end without her name being called; and her pale face would be
+strangely red and burning like fire. Sometimes a little extra piece
+would be read, that Poppy Destin's historical essay or geography paper
+was the best, but the prize had been passed on to the second best on
+account of this girl's disobedience, untidiness, and the number of
+undone returned lessons against her name. Then everybody would look at
+Poppy Destin, and her heart would stop so still that she believed she
+must fall down dead in one minute.
+
+But the entertainment would go on. The girls fetched their prizes from
+the table covered with lovely books, and curtseyed to Lady Brand, who
+spoke and smiled to each one of them. Afterwards would come the
+recitations and songs that everyone joined in but Poppy. She had been
+turned out of the singing-class because she sang off the key. Also,
+Sister Anna said, she moaned instead of singing; though Poppy was aware
+that she had lovely tunes going on inside her head all the time. It must
+have been true about the moaning, for Ina used to say when Poppy sang to
+her at nights:
+
+"Your songs always sound just's if you are crying all the time, Poppy."
+
+She loved music, but was not allowed to learn it. Clara learned and
+Emily could have if she had liked, but Aunt Lena said she couldn't
+afford those "frills" for Poppy. Once a lady named Mrs. Dale offered to
+teach the child if she could be spared two afternoons a week, and Poppy
+begged her uncle to let her go. He shook his head.
+
+"You must ask your aunt if she can spare you, Poppy."
+
+"Spare her!" shrieked Mrs. Kennedy. "Isn't she away all day now? What
+help do I get from her, I'd like to know? and now she wants to go
+gadding off in the afternoons, the only time she can be of a little use
+to take the children off my hands. Music indeed! Gadding with Nellie
+Dale is more like it."
+
+"Only twice a week, uncle," pleaded Poppy.
+
+"My girl, you must do what your aunt thinks best. Can't you spare her
+two afternoons a week, Lena?"
+
+"Oh, let her go ... fine musician she'll make, _I'm_ sure," said that
+lady. And for two weeks Poppy went. Then Mrs. Kennedy, storming and
+raving, refused to let her go again. She missed her slave; so Poppy went
+back to the old life of weariness; but she had something new to think
+over. Mrs. Dale had known her mother quite well, and remembered Poppy as
+a baby.
+
+"You were a sweet little thing," she said. "So beautifully kept, and the
+apple of your mother's eye."
+
+This was most wonderful and shining news. Any illusions Poppy might have
+had about her mother had long since been scattered by such remarks from
+her aunt as:
+
+"Your mother ought to be alive. She'd have skinned you for your
+dirtiness--your deceit, your laziness" (whatever the crime might be).
+
+Or:
+
+"It's a good thing your mother's lying cold in her grave, my girl--she
+would have had murder on her soul if she had had _you_ to deal with."
+
+Now, to hear that her mother had been a gentle and kind woman, not
+beautiful, but with wonderful Irish eyes and "a laugh like a bird's
+song!"
+
+"Clever, too," said Mrs. Dale. "Though she was only a poor Irish girl
+and came out here with the emigrants, she had a lot of learning, and had
+read more books than anyone in Bloemfontein. I think the priests must
+have educated her."
+
+"But why has no one ever told me before?" asked Poppy in amazement. "No
+one speaks of her, or of my father, to me! Why?"
+
+Mrs. Dale shook her gentle head.
+
+"Ah well, my dear, she's at rest now and your wild Irish father too. Her
+heart broke when he broke his neck somewhere down on the diamond
+diggings, and she didn't want to live any longer, even for you--her
+Poppy-flower she always called you. One day, when I went to see her, she
+said to me, looking at you with those eyes of hers that were like dewy
+flowers: 'Perhaps my little Poppy-flower will get some joy out of life,
+Mrs. Dale. It can't be for nothing that Joe and I have loved each other
+so much. It must bring some gift to the child.' And she told me that the
+reason she had called you Poppy was that in Ireland they have a saying
+that poppies bring forgetfulness and freedom from pain; but then she
+took to weeping, that weeping that is like lost melodies, and that only
+the Irishry know.
+
+"'But I see,' she wailed, 'that she's marked out for sorrow--I see it--I
+see it.' And three nights after that she died."
+
+This was Mrs. Dale's story. Poppy treasured it in her heart with the
+verbal picture of her mother, "eyes like a dewy morning, black, black
+hair, and a beautiful swaying walk."
+
+"It must have been like hearing one of those old Irish melodies played
+on a harp, to see her walk along the street," was the thought Poppy
+evolved from Mrs. Dale's description.
+
+After that she never found life quite unlovely again. But she longed to
+hear more, and whenever she could, even at the risk of curses and blows,
+she would steal to kind Mrs. Dale for another word. How ardently she
+wished her mother had lived. How unutterably beautiful to be called
+Poppy-flower! instead of _Porpie_! Her mother would have understood,
+too, the love and craving for books which had seized her since she had
+more learning. She would not have been obliged to creep into the fowls'
+_hok_ or the forage-house when she wanted to read some book she had
+borrowed or found lying about the house, or the old Tennyson which she
+had rescued from the ash-heap one day and kept hidden under the
+chaff-bags in the forage-house.
+
+"There's that Porpie with a book again!" was her aunt's outraged cry.
+"Lazy young huzzy! For ever squatting with her nose poked into a book
+reading some wickedness or foolishness I'll be bound.... Anything rather
+than be helpful ... no wonder your face is yellow and green, miss ...
+sitting with your back crooked up instead of running about or doing some
+housework ... more to your credit if you got a duster and polished the
+dining-room table or mended that hole in the leg of your stocking." Oh,
+the thousands of uninteresting things there are to be done in the world!
+thought Poppy. The dusters and damnations of life!
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She used to long to be taken ill so that she might have a rest in bed
+and be able at last to read as much as she liked. But when she broke her
+arm she was too ill to care even about reading, and when she got scarlet
+fever she could not really enjoy herself, for Ina sickened of it too,
+and was put into bed with her, and was so fretful, always crying unless
+she was told stories or sung to. So they got better together and _that_
+was over.
+
+Before she was twelve Poppy's schooldays came to an end. The five
+sovereigns had been spent and there was no more to come. Wasted money,
+Mrs. Kennedy said, and wrote and told the god-mother so. The fact that
+never a single prize had been won was damning evidence that the culprit
+was both idle and a dunce. It was quite true that she had learnt
+nothing much in the way of lessons. History and geography or anything
+with a story in it, or poetry, were the only things that interested her.
+Grammar and arithmetic were nothing but stumbling-blocks in her path,
+though she never spoke bad grammar, being quick to detect the difference
+in the language of her teachers and that of her aunt, and profiting by
+it, and she learned to use her voice as they did too--softly and
+low--never speaking the half-Dutch, half-English patter used by Mrs.
+Kennedy and her children to the accompaniment of "Och, what?" "Hey?" and
+"Sis!" Her Uncle Bob had a sweet way of turning his words in his lips,
+which made even the kitchen-Dutch pleasant to the ear, and with great
+delight Poppy discovered one day that she also had this trick. Not for
+years however, did she realise that this was Ireland in her tongue; her
+country's way of marking Bob Kennedy and Poppy Destin as her own, in
+spite of Africa.
+
+Her ear was fine for beautiful sounds and her aunt's voice scraped the
+inside of her head more and more as time went on, and whenever the
+latter dropped an "h" Poppy picked it up and stored it in that dark
+inner cupboard of hers where was kept all scorn and contempt.
+
+She never made a remark herself without _thinking_ it first and deciding
+how it was going to sound, so afraid was she of getting to speak like
+her aunt. Often she used to practise talking, or recite to herself when
+she thought no one was listening, but when overheard, fresh sneers were
+thrown at her.
+
+"Was she going daft then? ... speaking to herself like a crazy
+Hottentot ... concocting impudence, no doubt ... the lunatic asylum
+was _her_ place ... and don't let me hear you again, my lady, or I'll
+up with my hand ... etc."
+
+One day Ina fell very ill, and Mrs. Kennedy sent a messenger flying for
+the doctor. When he came he shook his head gravely, and after a week or
+two announced that the child had dropsy. It sometimes followed on
+scarlet fever, he said ... especially if the child had taken cold ...
+probably she had been sitting on the damp ground. At once Mrs. Kennedy's
+imagination conjured up a picture of Ina sitting on a damp stone on the
+Kopje while Poppy amused herself reading a book. That was quite enough
+to convince her as to who was the cause of the child's illness.
+Thereafter she never ceased to reproach Poppy with this new crime.
+
+"If it hadn't been for _your_ wicked carelessness, my child wouldn't be
+lying at death's door now," was her eternal cry, followed by a long list
+of all the sins and offences committed by Poppy since first the
+affliction of her presence had fallen upon the Kennedys' home.
+
+"A thorn in my side, that's what you've been ever since I first set eyes
+on your yellow face.... I don't know what God lets such beasts as you go
+on living for ... no good to anyone ... dirty, deceitful little slut ...
+nose always in a book ... muttering to yourself like an Irish Fenian ...
+ill-treating my children.... Your mother ought to have been alive,
+that's what ... _she_ would have learned you ... etc."
+
+A fresh offence was that little Ina would have no one else with her but
+the despised and evil one. The cry on her lips was always, "Poppy,
+Poppy--come, Poppy!"
+
+She lay in her cot, white and swollen, and marbly-looking, and at first
+the doctor steamed her incessantly; a wire cage covered with blankets
+over her body, a big kettle, with its long spout stuck into the cage,
+boiling at the foot of the bed. She would moan and fret at the heat and
+Poppy had to be singing to her always; even fairy tales she would have
+sung to her. One day the doctor cut three slits in the instep of each
+poor little foot while she lay in Poppy's arms, clinging and wailing,
+and Poppy, quivering and sick, watched the sharp little knife and the
+water spouting out almost up to the ceiling--no blood came. After that,
+all Ina's marbly look was gone, and it was plain to see that she was
+nothing but a little white skeleton; and so weak she could hardly
+whisper to Poppy to sing to her--"There's a Friend for little children,"
+and "Snow-white and Rose-red"--her favourite hymn and her favourite
+fairy-tale.
+
+It had never occurred to Poppy that the child would die; but one day the
+doctor stood a long time watching her as she lay staring straight at the
+ceiling with her pretty brown eyes all glazy, and her little ghost hands
+clutching the bars of her cot, and presently he shrugged his shoulders
+in a hopeless way and turned to Mrs. Kennedy.
+
+"I thought we might save her as she was so young, but----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Then he went away and did not come so often after. And day by day Ina
+grew thinner and whiter, and her eyes got bigger and shone more, and she
+never made a sound except to whisper, "Poppy--sing, Poppy."
+
+Poppy's voice had gone to a whisper too, then, and she could only make
+strange sounds in her throat; but Ina did not notice that.
+
+The whole family used to creep into the room and stand round the cot,
+while Poppy sat there with Ina's hand in hers, whispering songs between
+the bars of the cot, while her head felt as though there were long sharp
+needles running through it, and her throat and body were full of
+horrible pains. Sometimes the room seemed all cloudy and she only
+faintly saw dead faces through the dimness; Ina and she whispering
+together seemed to be the only alive people in the world.
+
+Even Aunt Lena's tongue was still those days, and forgot to abuse, but
+sometimes when Ina turned away from her, moaning for Poppy, the mother's
+eyes could be seen gleaming malignantly across the cot. Poppy glared
+back, for she had come to love little Ina so passionately that she could
+hardly bear anyone else to come near. No one had ever wanted Poppy and
+loved her before, and from her gratitude sprang a deep love for the sick
+child. All through the day she sat by the cot, even taking her food
+there, and at night she slept wrapt in a blanket on the floor or sitting
+in a chair by the bed.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One evening at nine o'clock Ina died.
+
+Poppy had been singing a little Boer love song to her in a dreadful
+rustling voice, with face pressed against the cold bars and eyes shut,
+when she heard a gentle sigh that seemed to pass over her face like soft
+white feathers. She left off singing and peered down into the cot. The
+room was very dim, but she could see the little white face with the soft
+damp rings of hair round it, lying very still and with eyes closed.
+
+"Ina," she whispered with a dreadful fear. "Ina, speak to Poppy--open
+eyes, darling."
+
+But Ina never opened eyes or spoke again.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Immediately Mrs. Kennedy filled the house with her lamentations, and
+mingled with them were cursings and revilings of Poppy. She would kill
+her, she shrieked, even as her child had been killed by that cursed
+Irish Fenian. She was raving mad for the time, and no doubt she would
+have killed Poppy, or attempted it, if her husband had not been there to
+keep her by main force from violence. But that Poppy should be driven
+from the house she insisted.
+
+"She shall not sleep under my roof with that innocent little corpse,"
+she screamed. "Go, go out of the house, brute and beast and devil." And
+breaking loose from her husband's hands she caught hold of the
+ghost-like child and flung her into the yard.
+
+When Poppy got up from the ground it was late and the door was shut for
+the night. The world was black save for a few pale stars. She wondered
+heavily where she could go and lie down and sleep. She was like a man
+who has walked unceasingly for hundreds of miles. She could think of
+nothing but sleep. She groped for the forage-house door, thinking how
+sweet it would be to rest there on the bundles of forage, with the smell
+of the pumpkins coming down from the roof, where they were ripening; but
+the door was locked. The fowl-hok swarmed with lice in the summer; even
+in her weariness her flesh crept at the thought of spending the night
+there. She remembered the Kopje and her old friend the mimosa tree, but
+there was a certain gloom about the Kopje on a dark night. At last she
+thought of the poplar trees by the Big Dam; they were her friends--all
+trees were her friends. When her heart hurt her most and her eyes seemed
+bursting from her head because she could not cry, if she could get close
+to a tree and press against it, and put the leaves to her eyes, some of
+her misery seemed to be taken away: thoughts and hopes would come into
+her mind, she could forget what had made her unhappy and her little
+songs would begin to make themselves heard.
+
+When she broke her arm she used to cry all night for them to put green
+leaves on the place to stop the aching, but they would not. Only the
+doctor, when he heard about it, brought her a bunch of geranium leaves
+one morning. She put them quickly under her pillow and when no one was
+there laid them down by her side, because she could not get them under
+the splints, and they eased the pain, until they were withered and "Aunt
+Lena" found them in the bed and threw them away: then the pain was as
+bad as ever.
+
+The poplar trees grew in a long line of thirty or so by the side of the
+Big Dam which lay just outside the town past the Presidency. Poppy was
+sometimes allowed to take the children there, when Clara and Emily went
+to help mind the children, in case they climbed up the dam wall and fell
+into the water. They were tall, grand trees, that never ceased rustling
+in the breeze that crept across the big expanse of water, even on the
+hottest days. Poppy had climbed every one of them, and she never forgot
+the moment of pure gold joy that she felt when she reached the top of
+each and sat there silent and afar from the world, cloistered round by
+the mysteriously whispering leaves. But the seventh tree was her
+specially loved friend. It belonged to her--and she had climbed to its
+very tip, higher than anyone ever had before, and cut her name in the
+soft pale bark.
+
+And this was the friend she turned to on that night of dreadful
+weariness when Ina died.
+
+She never knew how she got through the town, silent and dark, and over
+the little hill thick with _bessie_ bushes and rocks that lay between
+the Dames' Institute and the Presidency. She did not even remember
+climbing the tree, which had a thick smooth trunk and was hard to get up
+for the first six or seven feet. But at last she was in her seat at the
+top between two branches, cuddling up to the mother-trunk with her arms
+round it and her eyes closed.
+
+Then, even though her heart took comfort, the darkness and strange
+sounds of the night terrified her, and filled her with dread and
+despair. There were wild ducks flying and circling in long black lines
+against the pallid stars over the dam, wailing to each other as though
+they had lost something they could never, never find again. And the wind
+on the water made a dreary pattering that sounded like the bare feet of
+hundreds of dead people who had come out of the graveyards close by, and
+were hurrying backwards and forwards on the dam. Then there would be a
+mysterious rushing through the trees and all the leaves would quiver and
+quake against each other, like little ghosts that were afraid to be out
+in the dark night. Poppy wondered if Ina's little ghost was with them.
+
+In the highest windows of the Dames' Institute there were still a few
+lights showing, and a dim red glow came from a window at one end of the
+Presidency, and when Poppy opened her eyes these seemed like friends to
+her. But they went out one by one, and with the last, light seemed to go
+out of her mind too. She shut her eyes again, and pressed her heart
+against the poplar tree, and called through the darkness to her mother.
+She did not know whether she really called aloud, but it seemed to her
+that a long thin shriek burst from her lips, as a bullet bursts from a
+gun, piercing through the air for miles.
+
+"Mother! Mother! Mother, my heart is breaking." She sobbed, and sobbed,
+and sobbed, gripping the little ghostly leaves and pressing them to her
+eyes. But her mother did not come, of course. No one came. Only the
+little ghostly leaves shivered more than ever and the dreary dead feet
+came pattering over the water. At this time a sweet, sad cadence of
+words streamed into Poppy's head and began to form a little song.
+Strange, that though its burden was misery and wretchedness, it
+presently began to comfort her a little.
+
+"My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea"--it ran.
+
+Yet Poppy had never seen the sea.
+
+Everyone in the world seemed to be sleeping except the dead people and
+Poppy. Even the clock in the Government buildings struck as though
+muffled up in blankets, speaking in its sleep. When it was striking she
+raised her head to listen and count the strokes, and forgetting the
+horror of the night opened her eyes--and beheld a terrible, shroudy
+vision creeping over the world. It came very slowly and stealthily, like
+a grey witch in a tale of horror, and ate up little patches of darkness
+as it came, swelling larger as it ate. Oh! the dead people swaying to
+and fro on the water! She prayed they might be gone back to their graves
+before the grey witch reached them with her long, clutching fingers; she
+prayed in a frenzy of fear for herself, calling to Christ and Mary
+Mother of God, to save her from the grey witch. She rocked herself
+backwards and forwards, praying and moaning, and almost falling from the
+tree, and at last in reckless desperation opened her eyes, and glared
+out over the dam--and saw that the dawn had come. The grey witch had
+turned into a lovely lady, all decked in palest pink, with her arms
+spread wide in the sky, trailing long veils of sheeny lavender cloud
+behind her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A man and a boy with guns in their hands were creeping along under the
+dam wall, trying to get near a covey of wild duck on the water.
+Presently they stopped, and crouching, took aim and fired. The birds
+rose in a swarm and flew shrieking in long black lines, leaving two poor
+little black bodies on the dam--one flapping the water with a feeble
+wing, trying to rise, and falling back every time. The boy threw off his
+clothes and went in after them, while the man drew under the shadow of
+the dam wall, and began to run, making for the far side of the water,
+where the ducks seemed likely to settle again.
+
+Presently the lady of the sky grew brighter and streaks of gold came
+into her pink and lavender veils; the grass was all silvery with the
+heavy dew, and the earth gave up a sweet and lovely smell. God seems to
+go away from Africa at night, but He comes back most beautiful and
+radiant in the morning. Birds began to chirrup and twitter in the trees
+and bushes, and take little flying journeys in the air. The clock
+struck five--clear and bell-like strokes now, that sang and echoed out
+into the morning.
+
+Poppy felt cold and stiff and hungry, and very tired, as though she
+should fall down and die if she stayed in the tree any longer.
+
+There was nothing to do, and nowhere to go but home. After all, Aunt
+Lena could only kill her once. Then she would join Ina and see her
+mother, and hear Irish melodies, and be where it was not cold or lonely
+any more. She got down from the tree almost cheerfully and made her way
+through the grass, plucking a few _crase bessies_ by the way and
+munching them as she walked. There was hardly anyone about the town,
+except a few _boys_ carrying pails of water from the fountain. When she
+reached home, she found that the house was still shut and locked, with
+all the blinds down. So she sat on the kitchen step and waited until old
+Sara, coming out to get wood for the fire, nearly fell over her.
+
+"Tch! Tch! Tch!" she clucked. "_Arme kentze! War vas sig gisterand?_"
+(Poor child! Where were you last night?)
+
+"_Dar bij de dam. Ge koffi O'Sara. Ik is freeslik kow._" (Up by the Big
+Dam. Give me some coffee, Sara. I am very cold.)
+
+"Jah! Jah!" said old Sara, and hurried away, clucking and muttering, to
+make the fire and get the morning coffee. Poppy went in and warmed
+herself, and presently got down the cups and beakers and stood them in a
+row on the kitchen table. Cups and saucers for aunt and uncle and Clara
+and Emily, and beakers for the children. Old Sara poured them full of
+steaming black coffee, added milk and sugar and a home-made rusk in each
+saucer, and carried them away to the bedrooms. Poppy sat down with a
+beaker full, dipping a rusk into the coffee and eating it sopped,
+because the rusks are too hard to eat any other way. Presently old Sara
+came and squatted on her haunches by the fire too, drinking her coffee
+from a white basin with a blue band round it (blue that it gave Poppy a
+pain to look at, it was so cold and livid), and making fearful
+squelching noises, she sopped and ate. Rolling her big black and white
+eyes at Poppy, she whispered all that had happened after she had gone.
+Aunt Lena had screamed and cried for hours, raving that she would not
+have her child's murderess in the house again. She could go and live in
+the fowls' _hok_, or the forage-house, until another home was found for
+her, but if Poppy came into her sight again, she would tear her limb
+from limb. Afterwards she had coughed and spat up blood. Old Sara wagged
+her head, giving this piece of information as one who should say: "Serve
+her right, too." The doctor had come and said that "something was broken
+inside." Old Sara patted her wobbly stomach. "She must go to bed and not
+move for a month or she would go too." Old Sara pointed sanctimoniously
+upwards.
+
+It was even so. Aunt Lena lay for weeks on her bed, but still ruling her
+house from it. Poppy was not allowed to eat or sleep under the house
+roof. A blanket was given to her, and she slept on the bales of chaff in
+the out-house with a bundle of forage for a pillow. Old Sara brought to
+her there such meals as she was allowed to receive.
+
+The twins were not allowed to speak to her: a strange girl was hired to
+take them out--Poppy did not mind that. Clara and Emily passed her in
+the yard as though she was a jackal or some unclean beast--she minded
+that even less. The only thing she minded at all, was not being allowed
+to see Ina before she was buried.
+
+On the day of the funeral, the little cold form in the coffin was not
+more cold and numb than one lying out in the out-house between two bales
+of chaff. Despair of mourning had Poppy by the throat. She could have
+wailed like a banshee. Indeed, if her voice had not gone from her, it
+is probable that she would have relieved the pressure on her heart and
+brain in this fashion. As it was, she was the only person in the place
+who gave no outward sign of mourning. Her old blue galatea overall, with
+the pattern worn faint in front, and the sleeves in rags, might have
+grown to her back. But old Sara was given a dark dress of Aunt Lena's,
+and a new black _dook_ to wear on her head. Clara and Emily had new
+black alpaca dresses, with tucks round the bottom and black ribbon
+sashes. Eight little girls came dressed in white, with their hair down
+and long floating white muslin veils hanging behind, and bunches of
+white flowers in their hands. They were to carry the coffin in turns,
+four carrying and four walking behind, because it was a very long way to
+the graveyard. Mr. Kennedy and Georgie and Bobby walked behind them, and
+then a great many men. But the saddest mourner of all watched from the
+crack of the forage-house door, and thought how sad and beautiful it all
+was, and how it would have been spoilt if she had gone out and joined it
+in her blue overall; and after the procession was out of sight, lay
+there on her face on the chaff, and could not cry; and seemed to have
+swallowed a stone, that stuck in her throat and gave her dreadful pains
+all across her chest; and whose heart kept saying: "I hate God! I hate
+aunt!" And when she tried to scream it aloud, found that she had no
+voice.
+
+In the evening when the sun was set, but before it was dark, a figure
+stole out of the back yard, crept through the empty _spruit_, slipped
+through a private garden and came out by the cathedral steps; then up
+past the big church bell that tolled for the dead, and so to the
+graveyard.
+
+All the way she gathered wild flowers and grasses--rock-maiden-hair,
+_rooi gras_, moon-flowers, and most especially shivery-grass, and the
+little perky rushes with a flower sprouting out of them, which the
+children call _tulps_. Ina had always loved these. Some "four o'clocks"
+too, stolen from a front garden as she passed, were added, and even a
+_stink bloem_ graced the great bunch with which Poppy entered the
+churchyard.
+
+She found a new little heap of red earth that she knew must be Ina's
+grave, for it was all covered with wreaths and the bunches of flowers
+the eight girls had carried. Scraping them all to the foot of the grave,
+Poppy laid hers where she thought Ina's hands would be, whispering down
+through the earth:
+
+"From Poppy, Ina--Poppy who loves you best of all."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Some nights old Sara would come sneaking softly over to the
+forage-house, to sit a while with Poppy; sometimes she had a rusk to
+give the prisoner; most often she had nothing but an end of candle, but
+that was very welcome. Lighting it, and sticking it on a side beam, she
+would squat on the floor, and taking off her _dook_, proceed to comb her
+wool. Poppy was glad of company, and interested in the frank way old
+Sara attended to the business of catching and killing her
+_chochermanners_; besides, there were a lot of interesting things in old
+Sara's wool besides _chochermanners_: there was a little bone box full
+of snuff, and a little bone spoon to put it in the nose with; and a
+piece of paper with all old Sara's money in it; and a tooth belonging to
+old Sara's mother, and several small home-made bone combs and pins and
+charms.
+
+Old Sara's Dutch was poor, and Poppy could not speak Basuto, so that
+much conversation did not ensue, but black people can tell a great deal
+without saying much.
+
+Once Poppy asked her why she did not go to her _kraal_ and live with her
+children instead of working for white people.
+
+Old Sara took snuff and answered briefly:
+
+"_Ek het ne kinders, oor Ek is ne getroud._" (I have no children,
+because I am not married.)
+
+This was good, but not infallible logic, as Poppy even in her few years
+had discovered.
+
+"Why didn't you get married when you were young, old Sara?" she queried.
+
+Old Sara rolled her eyes mournfully at the child, and muttered some
+words in her own language. Then slowly she undid the buttons of many
+kinds and colours which adorned the front of her dress. From the left
+bosom she took a large bundle of rags, and placed them carefully on the
+floor, then opening her bodice wide, she revealed her black body bare to
+the waist. Poppy's astonished gaze fell upon a right breast--no object
+of beauty, but large and heavy; but where the left breast should be was
+only a little shrivel of brown skin high up out of line with the other.
+
+That was old Sara's only answer to Poppy's question. Afterwards she
+quietly replaced her bundle of rags, and rebuttoned her dress.
+
+As for Poppy, she pondered the problem long. At last she made a little
+song, which she called:
+
+"The woman with the crooked breast."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One night old Sara brought news.
+
+Poppy's box was being packed. In two days she was going to be sent away
+in the post-cart. Poppy thrilled with joy, and had no foreboding until
+next day when she overheard Clara and Emily whispering together in the
+yard. It transpired that though they envied Poppy the journey to Boshof
+in the post-cart, they did not envy her subsequent career under the
+protection of their mother's sister, Aunt Clara Smit.
+
+"Do you remember that time ma sent us there when Ina had the diphtheria?
+We never got anything but bread and dripping, and she was eating chops
+and steaks all the time."
+
+"Yes," said Clara, "and remember how she used to beat _Katzi_, the
+little Hottentot girl, in bed every night for a week until the blood
+came, just because she broke a cup."
+
+"Ha! ha!" they chirruped, "won't Miss Poppy get it _just_!"
+
+"Yes, and mammer's going to give her something before she goes, too. She
+sent me to buy a _sjambok_ this morning, because pa's hidden his away,
+and when he's gone out to the 'Phoenix' to-night, she's going to have
+Poppy across the bed in front of her. You're to hold her head and me her
+feet."
+
+"Tlk! Won't she get it!"
+
+This interesting piece of news determined Poppy on a matter which had
+long been simmering in her mind. She decided at last that she would take
+no more beatings from Aunt Lena, and neither would she sample the
+quality of Aunt Clara Smit's charity. She would run away.
+
+All that afternoon she lay turning the matter over, and later she took
+old Sara into her confidence for two reasons: old Sara must commandeer
+some food for her, and must also get for her the only thing she wanted
+to take away with her--a round green stone brooch which had belonged to
+her mother, and which Aunt Lena kept in her top drawer.
+
+Poppy felt sure that with her mother's brooch on her she need fear
+nothing in the world; it was green, and therefore kindly disposed, as
+all green things were, being akin to trees.
+
+It took a long while to beguile old Sara to obtain the brooch, for the
+old woman was very honest and she thought this looked too much like a
+stealing matter. Eventually she was persuaded, and a little after seven
+o'clock she brought it stealthily to the forage-house, together with a
+pocketful of food-scraps saved from her own portion of the evening meal.
+
+After this, Poppy did not dare wait another instant. She knew that as
+soon as he had finished his supper, her uncle would light his pipe and
+stroll off to spend a cheerful evening in the billiard-room of the
+"Phoenix Hotel"; then they would come to fetch her indoors!
+
+With a hasty farewell to old Sara, her only friend, she slipped out
+through the dark yard and ran swiftly up the street. Her direction was
+towards the _Uitspan_, a big bare place about half a mile from the town
+where wagons halted for a night before starting on a journey, or before
+bringing their loads into town in the morning. There was a big _Uitspan_
+out beyond St. Michael's, and she made for that one, remembering there
+were always plenty of wagons there.
+
+When she stole near it in the darkness, she counted eight wagons, four
+of which were loaded to depart, since their dissel-booms were turned
+away from the town.
+
+There were several fires burning, and the fume of coffee was on the
+night air. Someone was making _as-kookies_ (ash-cakes) too, for a
+pleasant smell of burnt dough assailed Poppy's nose. Four Kaffir _boys_
+were sitting round a three-legged pot, dipping into it and jabbering
+together, and by the light of another fire a white woman and three
+children were taking their evening meal. The wagon behind them was
+loaded with furniture and boxes, and by this Poppy was sure that they
+were a family on the move. She crept nearer to them, keeping in the
+shadow of the close-growing bushes. The dull red fires and the stars
+gave the only light there was.
+
+"Ma," said one of the children at the fire, "I see a spook over there by
+the bushes." The mother's response was: "Here, you make haste and finish
+your coffee and get into the wagon. It's time you children were asleep.
+They're going to inspan at eleven and you'd better get a good sleep
+before the wagon starts creaking and jolting."
+
+This was useful information to Poppy. Her plan was to follow the wagon
+when it started and keep near it until late the next day, when too far
+from Bloemfontein to be sent back.
+
+She crouched lower among the bushes, and presently began to munch some
+of her oddments of food, while still she watched the family she meant to
+adopt. When they had finished their meal they first washed up their tin
+beakers and plates with water from a small _fykie_ which hung under the
+wagon; then everything was carefully put away into a wooden locker, and
+they prepared to retire for the night. The mother was a round-faced,
+good-natured-looking, half-Dutch colonial, evidently. She climbed
+sturdily into the tented wagon by the help of the brake and a little
+_reimpe_ ladder. Across the tent was swung a _cartel_ (thong mattress)
+and atop of this was a big comfortable mattress with pillows and
+blankets arranged ready for use. By the light of the lantern which the
+woman fixed to the roof of the tent, Poppy could see that the sides of
+the tent were lined with calico bags with buttoned-over flaps, all
+bulging with the things that would be needed on the journey. The woman
+proceeded to store away more things from a heap in the middle of the
+bed, some she put under the pillows, some under the mattress, and many
+were tied to the wooden ribs of the tent so that it presently resembled
+a Christmas-tree. Meantime the children clustered on the brake and the
+_reimpe_ ladder, fidgeting to climb into the snug-looking nest. The
+mother talked while she worked:
+
+"Here, Alice! I'll put this pair of old boots into the end bag, they'll
+do for wearing in the veldt----"
+
+"Oh, sis, ma! I hate those old boots, they hurt me--" expostulated
+Alice.
+
+"Nonsense, how can they hurt you? You keep your new ones for Pretoria,
+anything'll do on the veldt. Now you all see where I'm putting the
+comb--and this beaker we'll keep up in your corner, Minnie, so we don't
+have to go to the locker every time we're thirsty. I hope that boy will
+hang the _fykie_ where we can reach it. Begin to take your boots off,
+Johnny. I'm not going to have you in here treading on my quilt with
+those boots; no one is to get in until they're _carl-foot_."
+
+"I'll get _deviljies_ (thorns) in my feet if I take them off out here,"
+says Johnny. "Can't I sit on the edge of the bed?"
+
+"All right then, but keep your feet out. Minnie, take off that good
+ribbon and tie your hair with this piece of tape," etc.
+
+Eventually they were all in the tent, lying in a row crossways, the
+mother by the opening as a sort of barricade. They did not undress--only
+loosened their clothes.
+
+Everyone wanted to lie across the opening. They couldn't see anything at
+the back of the tent, they complained; only had to lie and stare at the
+things bobbing overhead.
+
+"You never mind that," said the mother, arguing. "You've got three or
+four weeks to see the veldt and the oxen in. I'm going to lie here so
+that I can keep you children from falling out while we're trekking. Why
+I knew a woman once who let her baby lie on the outside, and in the
+middle of the night she woke up and heard an awful crunching under the
+wheels, and when she felt for the baby it wasn't there!" This story
+caused a great sensation, but presently Johnny asked how the baby's
+bones could crunch under the wheels "if it fell out behind the wagon!"
+
+The mother considered for a moment, then said:
+
+"It was the wheels of the wagon behind, of course, _dom-kop_."
+
+But Johnny pointed out that a whole span of oxen would come before the
+wheels of the next wagon, and that the baby would be all trodden to bits
+before the wheels reached it.
+
+"Oh, _Kgar! Sis!_" cried the sisters; and at this his mother told him
+amiably to shut his mouth and go to sleep.
+
+But though she put out the lantern the talk still went on intermittently
+until replaced by snores.
+
+The _boys_ and the transport-drivers all lay wrapped in their blankets,
+snoring too. Only afar the oxen could be heard moving as they grazed,
+and the bell on the neck of one of them clanked restlessly. The fires
+had died down to dim red spots. The watcher in the bushes was the only
+one awake in the camp. She feared that if she slept the family in the
+wagon might be up and away. Her mind was made up to accompany that
+good-natured-looking woman and her family to Pretoria, since that was
+where they were bound for. She would follow the wagons and join them
+when a long way from Bloemfontein, and her tale would be that she
+belonged to a wagon which had gone on in front. She would pretend that
+she had got lost, and ask to be taken on to rejoin her relations in
+Pretoria.
+
+At about eleven o'clock the moon rose, but no one stirred in the camp.
+Suddenly the figure of a man arose, took a long whip from the side of a
+wagon, unwound it, walked a little way from the camp, swung it whistling
+softly round his head for a moment, then sent a frightful report ringing
+across the veldt. Afterwards he lay down again until a great crackling
+and trampling and shouting told that the oxen were in the camp with
+their herders hooting and yelling round them. In a moment other still
+figures were on their feet; a clamour arose of voices shouting, wooden
+yokes clattering, dissel-booms creaking; bullocks were called at by
+their names and sworn at individually:
+
+"_Rooi-nek! Yoh Skelpot! com an da!_" (Redneck! You tortoise! come on
+there!)
+
+"_Viljoen! Wat makeer jij?_" (Viljoen! What's wrong with _you_?)
+
+Loud blows and kicks were heard and demands for missing oxen.
+
+"_Jan, war is de Vaal-pans?_" (John, where is the yellow-belly?)
+
+"_Ek saal yoh net now slaan, jou faarbont._" (I'll strike you in a
+minute, you baseborn.)
+
+"_De verdomder Swart-kop!_"
+
+Each wagon had a span of eighteen or twenty oxen, and as soon as the
+last pair was yoked, a small black boy, the _voerlooper_, would run to
+their heads, seize the leading _rein_ and turn them towards the road.
+Then came a tremendous crack of the driver's whip, a stream of oaths and
+oxen's names, intermingled and ending in:
+
+"_Yak!_"
+
+One by one the four wagons took the road, raising clouds of red dust,
+the drivers and boys running alongside.
+
+Usually passenger-wagons go first in the line, but the wagon with
+Poppy's adopted family in it, started last, because _Swart-kop_, a big
+black-and-white ox, had been particularly fractious, and had delayed the
+operation of inspanning, putting the driver into a terrible passion.
+Poppy waited until his cursings and revilings were only faintly heard on
+the air, then slipping quietly through the camp which had returned to
+peaceful sleeping, she plunged into the clouds of dust.
+
+Throughout the night hours she padded along, her throat and ears and
+mouth filled with the fine dirt, her eyes running and sore; afraid to
+get too near the wagons for fear of being seen; afraid to be too far
+behind for fear of she knew not what.
+
+Towards dawn they passed through a narrow _sluit_. The water was filthy
+at the _drift_ when all the wagons had gone through it, but she left the
+road and found a clean place higher up where she thankfully drank and
+laved her begrimed face. As the dawn broke she could see that the veldt
+was well-bushed with clumps of rocks, and big ant-heaps here and there;
+there would be plenty of hiding-places when the wagons stopped.
+
+Presently there were signs of a coming halt. The oxen slackened pace,
+the drivers began to call to each other, and the man who was evidently
+the _Baas_ of the convoy went off the road and inspected the ground.
+
+Then a long loud:
+
+"_Woa! An--nauw!_" passed along the line, each wagon took to the veldt,
+drawing up at about fifty yards from the road.
+
+Thereafter came the outspanning, with the identical accompaniments of
+the inspanning. When the oxen had gone to seek water and food in charge
+of their herders, the _voerloopers_ departed to gather wood and _mis_
+(dry cow-dung) for the fires, and the drivers unrolled their blankets
+and lay upon them resting, but not sleeping, until a meal had been
+prepared; someone began to play a concertina at this time. Afar from the
+encampment Poppy had found a big dry hole in the heart of a clump of
+bushes. The thorns tore her face and her clothes as she struggled
+through them, but in the hole at last she fell down and succumbed to the
+passion for sleep which overwhelmed her. She lay like a stone all
+through the day, hearing nothing until the loud clap of a whip pulled
+her out of her dreams.
+
+"_Yak--Varns!_"
+
+Half dead with weariness--stiff, wretched, hungry--she crept from her
+hiding-place and stumbled on her way, wrapped once more in the
+impenetrable dust.
+
+On the night of the second day she discovered herself to the family in
+the tented wagon. Staggering from the bush at the side of the road she
+climbed on to the brake of the slowly moving wagon and appeared before
+the comfortable contented occupants--a filthy, tattered, unkempt vision;
+her face peaked and wan under the dirt, her eyes glazy. "Give me food
+and water," she whispered--her voice had never returned since Ina's
+death.
+
+After one long stare, and amidst screams from the children, the woman
+pulled her up into the tent, bade the children make room, and quickly
+found water and biscuits.
+
+Poppy ate and drank ravening, then lay back and cried weakly, the big
+hot tears washing white streaks down her cheeks. The woman with an eye
+to her clean bedclothes, proceeded to sponge her face with water in a
+tin beaker, and told Alice to take off the tattered boots and stockings.
+She questioned Poppy the while, but Poppy cared for nothing but sleep.
+She lay back and slept even as they washed her. About noon she awoke and
+found herself still lying on the big bed, and the woman was standing on
+the brake with coffee and a plate of stew.
+
+"Wake up and eat this, girl; and now you are better tell me where you
+come from and where you're going, hey?"
+
+Poppy, between eating and drinking, recited her tale: she was travelling
+with her father and brothers and sisters to the Transvaal; had wandered
+away from the wagons and got lost on the veldt--believed she had been
+wandering for a week; her name she fancifully gave as Lucy Gray (it
+seemed to wake no echoes in the minds or memories of her listeners); no
+doubt, she said, these wagons would catch the others up in a few days.
+She begged the woman to take care of her in the meantime. She would
+help with the cooking and the children--she wouldn't eat much.
+
+The woman regarded her suspiciously once or twice, but she was stupid as
+well as good-natured and had not the wit to find flaws in the
+well-thought-out tale. She consented to fall in with Poppy's request--in
+common humanity she could do little else--found some clean clothes for
+her and a pair of old boots, and gave her _fat_ to smear on her wounds
+and sore feet.
+
+But first Poppy had to be passed before the _Baas_ of the wagons--the
+big fierce-looking Boer who fortunately was not at all fierce, only very
+stupid, and although he refused to believe her tale, turning to Mrs.
+Brant and remarking briefly: "_Sij le!_" (she lies!) he could not offer
+any suggestion as to what the truth might be; nor did he make any
+objection to Mrs. Brant's plans; so Poppy was outcast no more. She
+became one of a family, and speedily made herself so useful to Mrs.
+Brant that the good woman was glad to have her.
+
+Followed many long happy weeks. Happy even when the wet-season swooped
+down on them and they had to wait on the banks of swollen rivers
+fireless for days; or remain stuck in a mudhole for hours, until their
+wheels could be dug out or pulled out by three spans of oxen combined,
+while mosquitoes bit and swarmed over them, leaving a festering sore for
+every bite they gave; even under the heavy sweltering _sail_ that was
+flung over them at nights to keep rain out, and which also kept the air
+out and made the small tent like a pest-house; even when the food gave
+out and they had to rely on what they could get at the scattered farms.
+
+In spite of all the mishaps, everyone was kind and good-natured. No one
+offered blows or taunts to Poppy, and her starved heart revived a little
+and began to hold up its head under the gentle rain of kindliness and
+friendliness. Then, the glamour of travel was upon her for the first
+time. Never before had she seen the hills, the mountains, the great
+rolling spaces of veldt, the rivers sweeping and boiling down their wide
+ravines. It was most wonderful and beautiful, too, to wake every dawn
+and step out of the wagon to a fresh world. Where last night had been a
+hill, to-morrow would be a rushing river, befringed with mimosa, whose
+odour had been sweet on the breeze all the day before. The next day
+would find them on a bare plain, with no stick or stone to give shelter
+from the burden of the sun or the rain, and the next they would lie in
+the purple shadow of a mountain, on which were scarlet geraniums as tall
+as trees, and strange flowers shaped like birds and insects grew
+everywhere.
+
+And oh! the fresh glory of the morning dews! The smell of the wood smoke
+on the air! The wide open empty world around them and the great silence
+into which the small human sounds of the camp fell and were lost like
+pebbles thrown into the sea! Happy, rain-soaked, sun-bitten days!
+Bloemfontein and misery were a long way behind. Poppy's sad songs were
+all forgotten; new ones sprang up in her heart, songs flecked with
+sunlight and bewreathed with wild flowers.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But a cloud was on the horizon. The convoy of wagons drew at last near
+its destination. Poppy began to be haunted at nights with the fear of
+what new trouble must await her there. Where would she go? What would
+she do? How could she face kind Mrs. Brant with her tale of parents and
+friends proved false? These frightful problems filled the nights in the
+creaking wagon with terror. The misty bloom that had fallen upon her
+face during the weeks of peace and content, vanished, and haggard lines
+of anxiety and strain began to show.
+
+"Child, you look peaky," said good Mrs. Brant. "What'll your ma say? I
+must give you a Cockle's pill."
+
+But Poppy grew paler and more peaky.
+
+Two days' _trek_ from Pretoria she was missed at inspan time. Long
+search was made. The wagons even waited a whole day and night for her;
+the _boys_ called and the drivers sent cracks of their great whips
+volleying and echoing for miles, as a signal of their whereabouts in
+case she had wandered far and lost her bearings. At night they made
+enormous fires to guide her to their camping-places. But she never
+returned. It was then and for the first time that two little lines of
+verse came into the memory of Alice, the eldest girl, who had been at a
+good school. She recited them to the family, who thought them passing
+strange and prophetic:
+
+               "But the sweet face of Lucy Gray
+               Will never more be seen."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Unfortunately, after leaving the wagons and hiding herself in a deep
+gulch, Poppy had fallen asleep, and that so heavily after her many
+nights of sleepless worry, that she did not awake for more than fourteen
+hours. When she did wake she found that some poisonous insect or reptile
+had stung one of her feet terribly: it was not painful, but enormously
+swollen and discoloured, and she found it difficult to get along. The
+wagons had gone and she could never catch up with them again, even if
+she wished. On the second night she heard, many miles away, the cracking
+of the whips and saw little glow-worms of light that might have been the
+flare of fires lighted to show her the way back to the wagons; and her
+spirit yearned to be with those friendly faces and kindly fires. She
+wept and shivered and crouched fearsomely in the darkness.
+
+The next day it rained: merciless, savage, hammering rain. Sometimes she
+wandered in it, fancying herself wandering in a forest of trees, all
+with stems as thick as a rain-drop; sometimes it was so strong she could
+lean against it; sometimes she thought she was a moth beating against
+glass, trying, trying to get out.
+
+Another night came.
+
+Through most of that she lay prone on her face,
+thinking--believing--hoping that she was dead and part of the earth she
+lay on.
+
+And, indeed, the greater part of her was mud.
+
+She had long ago lost the road. She supposed she must be in the
+Transvaal somewhere; but at this time, half-delirious from pain, hunger,
+and terror, she believed herself back near Bloemfontein--seemed to
+recognise the hills outside the town. Terrified, she took another
+direction, falling sometimes and unable to rise again until she had
+slept where she lay. Whenever she saw bushes with berries or fruits on
+them she gathered and ate.
+
+Sometimes from her hiding-places she could see Kaffirs pass singly, or
+in small parties; but after searching their faces, she let them pass.
+Even in her delirium something warned her not to make herself known.
+
+One night, it seemed to her weeks after she had left the wagons, she was
+suddenly dazzled by the sight of a red light shining quite near her. She
+gathered up her last remnants of strength and walked towards it; she
+believed she urged and ran--in reality she merely drifted by the help of
+a friendly wind that happened to be blowing that way. At last she saw
+that it was not one--but many lamps and candles shining through the
+windows of a house. But the windows themselves could be only dimly seen
+through the leaves of a tree, which overhung the house and threw long
+claw-like shadows everywhere. Next, her broken feet knew gravel under
+them: white walls were before her, too--and green doors and green
+window-shutters, all laced and latticed with the shadows of one great
+tree that stood like a monster in the path by the big door. The lights
+that shone out and dazzled showed her that the tree was very, very
+green, with a myriad strange scarlet eyes glowing in it; eyes that
+glowed with an alert brightness that was not friendly. Poppy had always
+loved trees and believed them to be her friends, but this tree
+frightened her. Nevertheless she crept closer to the biggest, brightest
+window of the house, and peered in through the glass panes, a little
+dulled and dimmed by the ever-beating, everlasting rain. She saw a man
+sitting at a table spread with beautiful shining vases of flowers,
+dishes of food, plates and glasses that glittered, fruit--two black
+_boys_ waited on him, dressed in white uniforms, and through an open
+doorway a tan-skinned old woman with a white _dook_ could be seen
+speaking to one of the _boys_--handing him a dish that flamed with
+little blue flames. The man at the table leaned back in his chair and
+faced the window. If it had not been that she believed herself dying, or
+perhaps already dead, Poppy would rather have gone back to the veldt
+than into the house where that face was master, for it terrified her
+even as the faces of the Kaffirs on the veldt had done. The man was not
+ugly; but his mouth was cruel and bitter, and his eyes were of the same
+hard, cold blue as the stripe on old Sara's coffee-basin. And across his
+face, from the left eye to the corner of his mouth, was a long, raw,
+newly-healed scar.
+
+It seemed to Poppy that while she stood watching this man, something
+inside her shrivelled up and blew away from her like a leaf in the wind.
+It came into her head then that, after all, she would not stay here at
+this house; it would be better to go back to the veldt. Wearifully she
+stepped down from the high steps she had climbed, reached the green
+door, and then her hobbling feet would go no further.
+
+She sank on the steps and her head knocked against the door. At once
+dogs barked inside, voices came near, the door opened, letting strong
+light fall across the face of Poppy, now lying on the floor. She saw
+black faces around her and heard native voices crying, "Wha!" in
+astonishment. Then someone lifted her up very strongly and held her
+under a hanging lamp and looked at her. She saw through failing eyes
+that it was the man with the scar.
+
+"Who are you, child?" he asked, and his voice was quite kind and
+friendly.
+
+Again the feeling of terror and panic swept over the child's heart; but
+she was very tired. She believed she was already dead. Her head fell
+back.
+
+"My soul is like a shrivelled leaf," is what she answered.
+
+
+
+
+PART II
+
+
+  "I never saw anything like the way a poppy lives with its heart and
+  soul every second of the day.
+
+  "It is the most joyful flower in the world. Not a joy of strength, for
+  it is fragile, but just sheer delight in existence and devil-may-care.
+  I would much rather have poppies on my coffin than stupid affected
+  lilies and white roses.
+
+  "Then the sheer cheek of a poppy, and the way it dies quickly,
+  without any bother, when picked! It is such a definite vivid thing,
+  whether it is braving the sun, or sleeping folded under the stars. A
+  wild, fresh individuality; not a banal neutral-tinted affair out of
+  the garden, or something with a smile on its face and a claw
+  underneath, like a rose."
+
+                                          (_Extract from a letter._)
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+
+The girl, with a little curling motion, leaned back in the rickshaw and
+gazed with fascinated eyes at the moving picture before her, seen
+through the hazy heat of a summer day.
+
+Above the wide main street of Durban the sun blazed and glared like a
+brazen image of itself in the high ardent blue. Men in loose white ducks
+and flannels sauntered along, or stood smoking and talking under the
+shop awnings.
+
+Carriages and rickshaws flew past, containing women in light gowns and
+big veils, with white and sometimes scarlet sunshades. Black boys at the
+street corners held out long-stalked roses and sprays of fragrant mimosa
+to the passers-by, beguiling them to buy. Coolies with baskets of fish
+on their heads and bunches of bananas across their shoulders, shambled
+along, white-clad and thin-legged. One, with a basket of freshly-caught
+fish on his arm, cried in a nasal sing-song voice:
+
+"Nice lovely shad! Nice lovely shad!"
+
+Two water-carts, clanking along in opposite directions, left a dark
+track behind them on the dusty road, sending up a heavy odour of wet
+earth which the girl snuffed up as though she had some transportingly
+sweet perfume at her delicate nostrils.
+
+"I'm sure there is no smell in the world like the smell of wet Africa,"
+she cried softly to herself, laughing a little. Her eyes took on a misty
+look that made them like lilac with the dew on it.
+
+Her black hair, which branched out on either side of her forehead, had a
+trick of spraying little veils of itself over her eyes and almost
+touching her cheek-bones, which were pitched high in her face, giving it
+an extraordinarily subtle look.
+
+She was amazingly attractive in a glowing ardent fashion that paled the
+other women in the street and made men step to the edge of the pavement
+to stare at her.
+
+She looked at them, too, through the spraying veils of her hair, but her
+face remained perfectly composed under the swathes of white chiffon
+which she wore flung back over her wide hat, brought down at the sides
+and twisted round her throat, with two long flying ends.
+
+The big Zulu boy between the shafts, running noiselessly except for the
+pat of his bare feet and the "Tch-k, tch-k, tch-k" of the seed bangles
+round his ankles, became conscious that his fare was creating interest.
+He began to put on airs, giving little shouts of glorification, taking
+leaps in the air and tilting the shafts of the rickshaw backwards to the
+discomfort of its occupant.
+
+She leaned forward, and in a low voice spoke a few edged words in Zulu
+that made him change his manners and give a glance of astonishment
+behind him, crying:
+
+"_Aa-h! Yeh--boo Inkosizaan!_" behaving himself thereafter with decorum,
+for it was a disconcerting thing that an _Inkosizaan_ who had come
+straight off the mail-steamer at the Point should speak words of reproof
+to him in his own language.
+
+Presently he came to the foot of the Berea Hill, which is long and
+sloping, causing him to slacken pace and draw deep breaths.
+
+A tram-car dashed past them going down-hill, while another climbed
+laboriously up, both open to the breeze and full of people. The road
+began to be edged with fenced and hedged-in gardens, the houses
+standing afar and almost hidden by shrubs and greenery.
+
+The girl spoke to the rickshaw-puller once more.
+
+"The _Inkos_ at the Point told you where to go. Do you know the house?"
+
+He answered yes, but that it was still afar off--right at the top of the
+Berea.
+
+She leaned back again content. It delighted her to be alone like this.
+It was quite an adventure, and an unexpected one. A malicious,
+mischievous smile flashed across her face as she sat thinking of the
+annoyance of the _Inkos_ left behind at the docks. He had been furious
+when he found no closed carriage waiting for them.
+
+There was one on the quay, but it was not theirs, and on approaching it
+and finding out his mistake, he stood stammering with anger. But she had
+flashed into a waiting rickshaw, knowing very well that he could not
+force her to get out and go back to the ship without making a scene.
+
+Nothing would induce him to make a scene and attract the attention of
+people to himself. He had indeed told her in a low voice to get out and
+come back with him to wait for a carriage, but she merely made a mouth
+and looked appealingly at him, saying:
+
+"Oh Luce! It will be so lovely in a rickshaw. I have never ridden in one
+like this yet."
+
+"Well, ride to the devil," he had amiably responded, and turned his back
+on her. She had called out after him, in an entrancingly sweet voice:
+
+"Yes, I know, Luce; but what is the address?"
+
+"It was a shame," she said to herself now, still smiling; "but really I
+don't often vex him!"
+
+A man and a woman passed, as she sat smiling her subtle smile through
+her spraying hair, and looked at her with great curiosity.
+
+Afterwards the man said excitedly:
+
+"That girl takes the shine out of Mary----"
+
+The woman, who looked well-bred with a casual distinguished manner,
+agreed with him, but did not tell him so. She said:
+
+"Her eyes look as though they were painted in by Burne-Jones, and she is
+dressed like a Beardsley poster; but I think she is only a girl who is
+glad to be alive. Mary, however, is the most beautiful woman in Africa."
+
+The girl heard the words "Burne-Jones eyes," and knew they were speaking
+of her.
+
+At last she arrived at the gates of her destination. Big, green iron
+gates, that clanged behind her as she walked quickly forward down a
+winding path into a deep dim garden. There was no more to be seen but
+trees and tangles of flowering shrubs and bushes and stretches of green
+grass, and trees and trees and trees. Some of the trees were so tall and
+old that they must have been growing there when Vasco da Gama first
+found Natal; but there were mangoes and sweetly-smelling orange arbours,
+that could only have been planted a mere twenty or thirty years. The
+magnolia bushes were in bud, and clots of red and golden flowers were
+all aflare. Cacti, spreading wide prickly arms, and tall furzy grasses.
+Cool wet corners had grottos frondy with ferns; other corners were like
+small tropical jungles with enormous palms trailed and tangled over with
+heavy waxen-leaved creepers and strangely shaped flowers.
+
+At last, deep in the heart of this wild, still garden, she found the
+house. A tall rose-walled house, its balconies and verandahs, too, all
+draped and veiled with clinging green. One lovely creeper that clothed
+the hall-porch was alive with flowers that were like scarlet stars.
+
+She broke one of them off and stuck it in the bosom of her gown, where
+it glowed and burned all day.
+
+Then she rang the bell.
+
+After a minute, someone came bustling down the hall and the door opened,
+discovering a stout and elderly coloured woman in a tight dress of
+navy-blue sateen with large white spots. Upon her head she wore a snowy
+_dook_. At the sight of the girl she shrieked, and fell back into a
+carved oak chair that stood conveniently at hand.
+
+"Poppy!" she cried; "and no carriage sent for Luce! What time did the
+steamer come, in the name of goodness me?"
+
+"It's no use asking that question now, Kykie," said the girl grimly.
+"The only thing to do is to send a carriage down at once."
+
+Kykie departed with amazing alacrity, while the girl examined the hall,
+and opening the doors that gave off it, peeped into several rooms.
+
+"Most of the old furniture from the farm!" she commented with a look of
+pleasure. Presently she came to a flight of three stairs, and directed
+by the sound of Kykie's voice, she stepped down them and found herself
+in a large white-washed kitchen lined with spotless deal tables and
+broad shelves. An enormous kitchen range, shining and gleaming with
+steel and brass, took up the whole of one side of the kitchen. Wide
+windows let in a flood of cheerful sunshine.
+
+Kykie, having loaded three Zulu boys with imprecations and instructions
+and driven them forth, had sunk into a chair again, panting, with her
+hand pressed to her heart, and an expression of utter misery on her
+face.
+
+"Don't be so excited, Kykie," said the girl. "You can't escape the wrath
+to come; what is the use of making yourself miserable about it
+beforehand?"
+
+Kykie rolled her big eyes heavenwards; the whites of them were a golden
+yellow.
+
+"His first day home!" she wailed. "They told me at the shipping office
+the steamer wouldn't be in before three. May their mothers----"
+
+Poppy walked round the kitchen, looking at everything.
+
+"You've got all the same nice old copper things you had at the farm,
+haven't you, Kykie? But it is a much bigger kitchen. Which table will
+you let me have to mix the salads on?"
+
+Kykie's face became ornamented with scowls.
+
+"My salads are as good as anyone's," she asserted.
+
+"Nonsense! you know Luce always likes mine best. Come upstairs now and
+show me my room."
+
+"Me? With the lunch to get ready!" screamed Kykie, and jumping up she
+ran to the stove and began to rattle the pots.
+
+"Well, I will find it myself," said Poppy, going towards the door, "and
+I think you're very unkind on my first day home."
+
+But Kykie gave no heed. As a rule she was of a sociable turn of mind and
+under other circumstances would have hung about Poppy, showing her
+everything and bombarding her with questions; but now she was in the
+clutches of despair and dismay at the thought of her neglect of her
+adored master, Luce Abinger, and her very real fear of the storm that
+would surely break over her head when he arrived.
+
+Kykie called herself a "coloured St. Helena lady," but by the fat
+gnarled shape of her, it is likely that she was more than half a
+Hottentot. Also the evidence of her hair was against her: it was crisp
+and woolly, instead of being lank and oily as a proper "St. Helena
+lady's" should be. However, she always kept it concealed beneath a
+spotless _dook_. Her real name, as she often informed Poppy in aggrieved
+accents, was Celia Frances Elizabeth of Teck Fortune; but Luce Abinger
+had brutally named her Kykie, and that was all she was ever called in
+his house. By way of retaliation it was her agreeable custom to address
+her master and Poppy Destin by their Christian names; but Luce Abinger
+only laughed, and Poppy didn't mind in the least. The old woman was
+quite ignorant and uneducated, but she had lived all her life as a
+servant amongst civilised people, and she spoke correct and fluent
+English, tacking many curious expressions of her own to the tails of her
+remarks with an air of intense refinement.
+
+She was often crabbed of temper and cantankerous of tongue, but the
+heart within her wide and voluptuous bosom was big for Luce Abinger and
+all that pertained to him. She had served him during the whole of his
+twenty-five years of life in South Africa; and she was a very pearl of a
+cook.
+
+Poppy found her room without any difficulty. On opening the first door
+on the first landing and looking in, she recognised her books, and the
+faded yellow silk counterpane with the border of red poppies worked by
+Kykie in past days. She took off her hat and surveyed the room with
+contentment. Her cushions were in her chairs; her books in their
+accustomed book-shelves; her long mirror with the slim gilt frame hung
+between two windows that gave upon the balcony; her writing-table stood
+opposite the mirror where she could look up and see herself as she
+wrote. Her brown print of _Monna Lisa_ was above her dressing-table, and
+her silver cross with the ivory Christ nailed to it hung over her head--
+
+                       "To keep a maid from harm!"
+
+There were no pictures on the pale gold walls: only three wonderful
+drawings of herself, done in grey and blue and scarlet chalk on sheets
+of rough-edged common brown paper and fastened up by drawing-pins. These
+were the work of Luce Abinger.
+
+She observed that all the bowls and vases were filled with green
+leaves--no flowers. Kykie and the _boys_ knew that green leaves were
+dearer to her than flowers.
+
+Presently she rose and went to the mirror on the wall. Her hair did not
+quite please her, so she took out two little gold side-combs and ran
+them through it, until it branched out characteristically once more. She
+performed this ceremony on an average of twenty times a day, and always
+with a look of the frankest pleasure at the sight of herself.
+
+"How nice my hair is!" she thought, "and how glad I am that it branches
+out in that fascinating way that just suits my face! If it were any
+other kind of hair, sleek, or smooth, or curly, I should not look nearly
+so charming."
+
+Later she stepped into the balcony. The sun still glared, but the place
+was full of dim coolness, for its roof was massed with clematis and
+Virginia creeper, and heavy curtains of creeper hung from roof to rail;
+but long openings had been cut in the greenery to afford a view of the
+town and sea. Over the tops of the trees, far away below, beyond many
+white houses and gardens and a shining beach, was the Indian Ocean. It
+lay very still and splendid: a vast sheet of Sevres enamel with a
+trivial frill of white at its edges, like the lace froth at the bottom
+of a woman's ball-gown. When storms sweep the Natal coast, that still
+shining sea can boom and roar and flash like a thousand cannons
+bombarding the town; but on the day that Poppy Destin first looked at it
+from her balcony, it was as still and flat as a sea on a map.
+
+Long, long thoughts were hers as she stood gazing there; and the best of
+them all was that she was back once more in the land where the roots of
+her heart were planted deep.
+
+While she stood lost in her reveries, Luce Abinger passed through the
+garden below, walking noiselessly across the green lawns. He saw her
+dreaming there, in her white gown with the scarlet flower flaming at
+her breast, and his tormented face became even less lovely. At that time
+his mood resembled the mood of Job when he desired to curse God and die.
+
+Poppy, becoming hungry, went down to look for lunch. She found the
+master of the house already seated, beating and jangling his forks
+together, a habit of his when he was impatient. He never touched his
+knives. Poppy had come to the conclusion that, like James I, he had some
+reason to hate and fear naked blades.
+
+"The g-gong has been sounded twice for you," he began agreeably. "Were
+you afraid the view wouldn't be there after lunch?"
+
+"I beg your pardon, Luce. I didn't know you were in, and I never heard a
+sound of the gong. Kykie, you should beat it louder."
+
+Kykie was at the sideboard decanting whiskey. She resembled a person who
+had recently taken part in a dynamitic explosion. Her _dook_ was pushed
+to the back of her head, her eyes stuck out, and perspiration beaded her
+nose and cheek-bones. Several of the buttons of her tight dress had come
+undone.
+
+"Heavenly me!" she retorted in shrill staccato, "you never hear anything
+you don't want to, Poppy." With that she banged the decanter down and
+floundered from the room.
+
+"What can be the matter with Kykie!" said Poppy in a wondering voice.
+What she was really wondering was, whether the fireworks had all been
+exhausted on Kykie's devoted head or whether there would be a detonation
+in her own direction shortly.
+
+Babiyaan, a _boy_ who had been in Luce Abinger's service for ten years,
+waited upon them with deft, swift hands. Poppy gave an inquiring glance
+at him; but though he had also received a generous share of obloquy and
+vilification, his face was as serene and impassive as an Egyptian's.
+
+Some delicious fish was served, grilled as only Kykie could grill,
+followed by cutlets and green peas, and a salad of sliced Avocado pears,
+delicately peppered, and with a ravishing dressing.
+
+Luce Abinger always preferred Poppy to mix the salads. He said that she
+combined all the qualifications demanded by the old Spanish receipt for
+the maker of a good salad--a spendthrift for the oil, a miser for the
+vinegar, a counsellor for the salt, and a lunatic to stir all up. It
+appeared that she sometimes fell short in the matter of salt, but she
+assured him that he had a fine stock of that within himself to fall back
+on, and acids too, in case of a lack of vinegar.
+
+Kykie's salad was very good, and Poppy told Babiyaan to tell her so.
+Later, she also sent a message of praise concerning the _omelette au
+Kirsch_. Except for these remarks the meal was partaken of in silence.
+Poppy, while she ate, observed and approved the old-rose walls, the few
+beautiful mellowy pictures upon them, the dark polished floor and the
+Persian praying-rugs spread sleekly down the room. She looked everywhere
+but at the face of Luce Abinger, for she knew that his devils were at
+him; and as the possessor of devils of her own, she both felt compassion
+and exhibited courtesy in the presence of other people's. She never
+looked at Luce Abinger's face at any time if she could help it, for the
+sight of unbeautiful things always gave her intense pain; and his face
+had the added terror and sadness of a thing that has once been
+beautiful. Its right side was still strong and fine in line; and it was
+easy to see that the mouth, before it was dragged out of drawing by the
+scar and embittered and distorted by its frightful sneer, must have been
+wonderfully alluring. The scar had left his eyes untouched, except for a
+slight pulling-down of the outer corner of the left one where the
+disfigurement began. They must have been strikingly beautiful blue eyes
+once, but now a sort of perpetual cold fury at the back of them gave
+them an odd and startling light. Apart from that, they were eyes which
+it was not good for women to search in. Poppy sometimes thought of them
+as dark and sinister pools from which it was best to retreat, for fear
+of drowning and strangling in strange waters.
+
+Presently Babiyaan brought in the little silver urn and placed it before
+Poppy, and she lighted the spirit-lamp under it and made the coffee as
+she was always used to do in the old white farm. Cigars and cigarettes
+were put before Abinger.
+
+Abinger drank his coffee as he had eaten, in absolute silence. Then,
+getting up suddenly, he bit off a word of apology with the end of his
+cigar, and left the room, Babiyaan following him.
+
+Poppy immediately helped herself to a cigarette, put her elbows on the
+table and began to smoke. Later, she took her coffee and sat in the
+verandah. It was shady and full of deep comfortable chairs. From thence
+she presently saw Abinger emerge from the front door and depart into the
+garden; the closing clang of the gate told her that he had gone out. The
+heat of the day was oppressive. She lay back, staring at the lacy green
+of the trees against the blue, and considering the horrible affair of
+Luce Abinger's devils.
+
+"It is bad enough for me to have to live with them--what must it be for
+him!" was her thought. She had seen his torment coming upon him as they
+neared Africa. Day by day he had grown more saturnine and unsociable. At
+last he spoke to no one; only Poppy, as a privileged person had an
+occasional snarl thrown in her direction. It was plain to her that
+returning to Africa meant to him returning to purgatory; especially
+since he did not intend to go back to seclusion, but to take up his
+residence in this house in Durban, where he had often lived in past
+years. Poppy had gathered from Kykie that before he "got his mark," as
+she curiously expressed it, and went to live at the old white farm,
+Abinger had kept house in Johannesburg and Durban; had lived for a part
+of the year in each house, and was well known in both places. So that
+coming back would cause him all the torture of meeting old friends who
+had known him before his disfigurement. He would have to run the
+gauntlet of familiar eyes grown curious and questioning.
+
+"Why should he have chosen to come back at all to the place of his
+torment?" Poppy wondered. "It would surely have been simpler and easier
+to have settled in Italy or somewhere where he knew no one, and would
+not be noticed so much. It can only be that Africa has her talons in
+_his_ heart, too; she has clawed him back to her brown old bosom--he
+_had_ to come."
+
+As Poppy sat in the verandah thinking of these things, she heard the
+_boys_ in the room behind her clearing the luncheon-table, and talking
+to each other in their own language. Either they had forgotten her or
+they thought she could not hear.
+
+"Where has _Shlalaimbona_ gone?" asked Umzibu; and Babiyaan answered
+without hesitation:
+
+"He has gone to the _Ker-lub_ to make a meeting with _Intandugaza_ and
+_Umkoomata_."
+
+Few things are more amazing than your Kaffir servants' intimate
+knowledge of your affairs, except it be their absolute loyalty and
+secrecy in these matters outside your own walls. Abroad from home their
+eyes and ears and tongue know nothing. They are as stocks and stones.
+They might be fishes for all the information they can give concerning
+you and yours.
+
+Also, whether they love or hate or are indifferent to him they serve,
+they will infallibly supply him with a native name that will fit him
+like his own skin. Sometimes the name is a mere mentioning of a physical
+characteristic but usually it is a thing more subtle--some peculiarity
+of manner or expression, some idiosyncrasy of speech--a man's secret sin
+has been known to be blazoned forth in one terse Zulu word.
+
+It must not be supposed, however, that South African natives are as deep
+in mysterious lore as the Chinese, or as subtle as Egyptians. The fact
+is merely, that like all uncivilised peoples they have a fine set of
+instincts; an intuition leads them to nearly the same conclusions about
+people as would a trained reasoning power. Only that the native
+conclusion has a corner of the alluring misty veil of romance thrown
+over it, while the trained reason might only supply a cold, hard, and
+perhaps uninteresting fact.
+
+Instances are, where the meaning of a native nickname is too subtle for
+the nominee himself--though any Zulu who runs may read and understand.
+If Luce Abinger had asked his servants why they called him
+_Shlalaimbona_, they would have shrugged shoulders and hung their heads,
+with a gentle, deprecating gesture. Being questioned, they would look
+blank; being told to get out and go to the devil, they would look
+modest. Afterwards they would exchange swift dark glances, and smiling,
+repeat among themselves with a gesture of stabbing: "_Shlalaimbona!_"
+Literally this word means--_stab when you see him_. What they meant by
+applying this name to Abinger, God and themselves knew best. Poppy had
+often pondered the reason, but she had never made any inquiries for fear
+it might have something to do with Abinger's scar. For another thing,
+Abinger desired her never to talk to the _boys_.
+
+"Keep them at a distance: they will be all the better servants," was his
+command; and in this, as in most things, Poppy found it wiser to obey
+him.
+
+Babiyaan continued to give interesting information to Umzibu.
+
+"Just as _Shlalaimbona_ was going to get into the carriage, _Umkoomata_
+came to the docks and fell upon him with great friendliness. Afterwards
+they went to an hotel to drink. Then _Umkoomata_ made a plan for meeting
+at the _Ker-luk_ when _Intandugaza_ would be there and others--_Baas
+Brookifield_, he with the curled hair and the white teeth; and that
+other one, _Caperone_, whose wife is like a star with light around it;
+and _Port-tal_, who is always gay with an angry face."
+
+At this juncture Umzibu missed Poppy's coffee-cup, and coming into the
+verandah to seek it, the presence of Poppy was revealed to him. He
+immediately communicated the fact by sign to Babiyaan, and a silence
+fell. Thereafter no more confidences; Poppy was left to speculate upon
+the identity of the person who wore so fascinating a title as
+_Intandugaza_, which name she translated to herself as _Beloved of
+women_. The word _Umkoomata_, too, had a charm of its own.
+
+"That means someone who is very reliable, literally _Sturdy One_. I
+should like to know that man," she thought.
+
+At about this time it occurred to her that she was tired and would go to
+rest in her room a while. She had risen at five that morning to watch
+the African coast and revel in the thought that she would soon have her
+foot on her own land again. The excitement of the day had tired her more
+than she knew. When she looked in her glass to rake the little gold
+combs through her hair, she saw that she was pale. The only colour about
+her was her scarlet ardent mouth and the flower at her breast.
+
+She flung off her gown and plunged her arms and face into cold water,
+then let down her hair with a rush and pulling her chair opposite her
+mirror, she sat down in company she had never so far found
+uninteresting--the company of her own reflection.
+
+She did not put on a wrapper. For one thing the day was warm, for
+another she found great pleasure in seeing her bare pale arms and
+shoulders, and the tall pale throat above them, so slim and young.
+Indeed, there are few more beautiful things in the world than a young
+throat--be it girl's or boy's, bird's or beast's.
+
+The scarlet flower she had plucked at the door she wore now between her
+breasts. She looked at the girl in the glass a long, long time, and the
+girl looked back at her. But it was not the look of the woman who counts
+and examines her weapons, for Poppy Destin was heart-whole; she had
+never yet looked into her glass to see how she was reflected in some
+man's eyes. Always she looked to wonder. The transformation of herself
+from what she had been only six years ago to what she was now at
+eighteen, never ceased to fascinate and amaze her. When she thought of
+the tormented, tragic features she had feared to catch a glimpse of, and
+looked now into that narrow scarlet-lipped, lilac-eyed subtle face,
+crowned with fronds of black, black hair, she believed she must be
+witnessing a miracle. When she remembered her aching, thin, childish
+body, beaten, emaciated, lank, and beheld herself now, long-limbed,
+apple-breasted, with the slim strong grace and beauty of a Greek boy,
+she could have shouted for joy and amazement at the wonder of it all.
+
+Yet in the old white farmhouse where she had found refuge and a
+remarkable education, she had been able to watch with her own eyes the
+change of the famished, wretched little two-leaved seedling into a
+beautiful flowering plant.
+
+She had often thought of herself as one set alone in an arid waste to
+travel where and how she could, with no help from anyone, and who, in
+her terrible travelling had found hidden gifts by the wayside, and
+little pools of consolation to lave her wounds and her weary heart,
+little patches of flowers to refresh her senses--all left there for her
+by the loving forethought of those who had travelled that way before
+her; her beauty, her voice, the grace of her body, her clear
+understanding, grace of tongue, had come upon her as she travelled to
+womanhood--all so unexpectedly; all wonderful gifts hidden deeply away
+until she came suddenly upon them, one by one.
+
+At last, through long thinking and piecing together of many broken ends
+of memory and disjointed scraps of information concerning her family
+history, she had come very close to realising the truth--that she owed
+much of what she was to the sweet simple Irish-women who had been her
+maternal ancestors. If your grandmother has worn a shawl over her head
+and walked barefoot on the bitter coast of Clare with a smile on her
+lips and a melody in her heart, she had something better to bequeath to
+you than money or possessions: her song and her smile will come down
+through the years and make magic in your eyes; her spirit will trample
+your troubles underfoot. If your mother has laid her heart in a man's
+hands, and her neck under a man's feet, and died for want of his kisses
+on her mouth, she, too, will have had something to bequeath: a cheek
+curved for caresses, lips amorously shaped, and sweet warm blood in the
+veins.
+
+And there was more that Poppy Destin did not know. She was only eighteen
+and could not know all her gifts yet--some women never know them at all
+until they are too old to use them! She had unwittingly left uncounted
+her biggest asset, though it was signed and sealed upon her face--the
+sign and seal of Ireland. Ireland was in the frank, sweet eyes of her;
+in the cheek-bones pitched high in her face; in her branching black
+hair; in her soft sad voice, and her subtly curved lips. Though she had
+never seen that sad, lovely land, she was one of its fair daughters:
+there lay her beauty; that was her magic.
+
+Presently she left her glass and going to the load of trunks which had
+been piled up inside the door, she took her dressing-case from the
+summit of the pile, and unlocking it, extracted a little white
+vellum-covered note-book. Sitting down before her writing-table she
+opened the book at random and kissed its pages with a rush of tears and
+a passion that always surged in her when she touched it. For it
+contained the story of her childhood, sung in little broken, wretched
+songs. Her blurred eyes looked from one heading to another:
+
+             "My heart is as cold as a stone in the sea!"
+             "My soul is like a shrivelled leaf!"
+             "The woman with the crooked breast."
+
+This was the title of old Sara's story made into a little song.
+
+Poppy Destin dreamed of being a great writer some day; but she knew,
+with the sure instinct of the artist, that even if her dream came true
+she could never surpass these little studies in misery; these cries of
+wretchedness wrung from a child's heart by the cruel hands of Life.
+
+Nothing had ever yet been able to wipe from her mind the remembrance of
+those days. For six years she had lived a life in which fresh events and
+interests were of daily occurrence; and like a blighted seedling
+transplanted to a warm, kind climate, she had blossomed and bloomed in
+mind and body. But the memory of those days that had known no gleam of
+hope or gladness hung like a dark veil over her youth, and still had
+power to drive her into torments of hatred and misery. Her soul was
+still a shrivelled leaf, and her heart as cold as a stone in the sea.
+She was very sure that this should not be so; she knew that she was
+incomplete. The instincts of her artist nature told her that somewhere
+in the world there must be someone or something that would wipe this
+curse of hatred from her; but she had never been able to find it, and
+she knew not where to seek it. Art failed her when she applied it to
+this wound of hers that bled inwardly. Despairingly she sometimes
+wondered whether it was religion she needed; but religion in the house
+of Luce Abinger was a door to which she found no key.
+
+Often, abroad, she had stolen away and knelt in quiet churches, and
+burnt candles in simple wayside chapels, trying, praying, to throw off
+the heavy, weary armour that cased her in, to get light into her, to
+feel her heart opening, like a flower, and the dew of God falling upon
+it. She had searched the face of the Madonna in many lands for some
+symbol that would point the way to a far-off reflection in herself of
+
+               "The peace and grace of Mary's face."
+
+She had knelt in dim cathedrals, racking her ears to catch some note in
+gorgeous organ strains or some word from the lips of a priest that would
+let loose a flood of light in her and transform her life. But always,
+when the ecstasy and exaltation had passed off, and the scent of incense
+no longer wrapped her round, she could feel again the cold of the stone
+and the rustle of the leaf in her breast. She could hear without
+annoyance the bitter fleers of Abinger at religion and priests and
+churches, and though they offended her taste, could listen serene-eyed.
+She understood very well what ailed Luce Abinger, for she was touched
+with the blight that lay thick upon him. His nature was warped, his
+vision darkened by hatred and evil memories. His soul was maimed and
+twisted in the same cruel fashion that his face had been scarred and
+seamed, and he terribly hated God. Poppy often thought of it as an
+ironical trick of fate, that she and Luce Abinger--just the two people
+in all South Africa, perhaps, who could do least for each other's peace
+and healing--should be thrown together to live under the same roof for
+many years. In some ways they had served each other well. He had made
+his house a refuge for her from persecution, and had been the means of
+educating and bringing her to fine womanhood. She, on the other hand,
+had come into his life at a time when he was on the verge of madness and
+when it meant everything to him to have some interest that would tear
+his thoughts from himself and his disgust of life.
+
+The solitude of the quiet old farm, chosen for its isolated position,
+was lightened by the presence of the young girl. Abinger had been
+diverted to watch the change and development in the small, shipwrecked
+vagabond. Afterwards it had first amused, then interested him, to feed
+her eager appetite for learning. For three years he had taught her
+himself, in strange desultory fashion it is true, but it happened to be
+the fashion best suited to her needs and temperament. He imported from
+England huge weekly packages of books of both modern and classical
+literature, together with every variety of journal and magazine. He
+allowed Poppy the free run of all; only, always she must recount to him
+afterwards what she had read. A sort of discussion ensued, so dominated
+by his mordant cynicism and biting wit that she certainly ran no danger
+of developing any _mawkish_ views of life. This for two or three hours
+daily. The rest of time was hers to read in or wander for hours in the
+lovely silent country, knowing a peace and tranquillity she had never
+dreamed of in her early wretched years. The part of the Transvaal they
+were in was but thinly populated--a few scattered Boer farms, and a
+native mission-house with a chapel and school instituted by a
+brotherhood of French priests of the Jesuit order. These were their
+only neighbours, and they not close ones.
+
+Abinger had chosen his retreat well.
+
+After three years it had occurred to him to leave the farm and go back
+to the world. He had tired of seclusion, and longed, even while he
+feared, to be amongst his fellows again. He was not yet prepared,
+however, to go back to the African haunts that had known him in the
+past, but made for the big open world beyond the seas; and Poppy went
+with him as his sister. Wherever they went he never allowed her to make
+any friends; only when they reached any city or place where he cared to
+stay for any length of time, he at once engaged masters and mistresses
+for her, to continue the education that he had by now tired of
+superintending, but which, for reasons of his own, he wished to perfect.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+
+At five o'clock Kykie appeared with a tea-tray. She had assumed an air
+of calm, and her afternoon dress, which afforded a fine display of roses
+trellised on a bright blue background, and gave her the appearance of a
+large and comfortable ottoman. She cast an outraged look about the room.
+
+"Haven't you unpacked yet, for gracious' sake, Poppy?"
+
+"No, I haven't. Bring the tea over here, Kykie."
+
+She was lying on her bed, which was long and narrow as the path to
+heaven, and yet seemed to have grown too short for her, since she was
+obliged to perch her feet upon the brass bar across the end.
+
+"Then what have you been doing, in the name of goodness me?"
+
+"Nothing ... just thinking ... pour it out and come and sit by me
+here.... I haven't had a word with you yet."
+
+Kykie poured out the tea, and put some little toasted cakes on a plate,
+using her fat, yellow hands with extraordinary delicacy. Afterwards she
+sat in a chair with the things in her lap, waiting until Poppy should be
+ready.
+
+"What is it like here in Durban, Kykie?... How long have you been here?"
+
+Kykie became very important, waggling her shoulders and rolling her
+eyeballs.
+
+"More than six months getting this house ready for habitation ... men
+working in the garden day and night, for it was a wilderness and the
+poor old place all gone to pot, dearest me."
+
+"It looks all right now; I should think Luce was pleased?"
+
+"Never so much as a thank you extremingly."
+
+"Oh well, you know his ways ... but I am sure he appreciates all you do.
+He has often said to me while we were away that he wished you were with
+us."
+
+Kykie looked well pleased at this, but having passed the tea, she waved
+her hands deprecatingly.
+
+"You're just buttering me up to heaven, Poppy!"
+
+"No, I'm not. And he will eat again now he has you to cook for him.
+Abroad he used to eat frightfully little, but to-day I noticed he made
+an excellent lunch."
+
+Smiles wreathed Kykie's wide and dropsical face, and every tooth in her
+head was revealed.
+
+"Dearest me, now Poppy, really? Well! but then I don't suppose they know
+how to cook very well abroad in London, do they?"
+
+"Not so well as you, of course," said Poppy smiling and munching toast.
+
+Suddenly Kykie's face became dolorous.
+
+"Did they look at his mark much, for heavenly goodness?" she inquired in
+a dismal whisper.
+
+"Not so much. You know, Kykie, the world is full of all sorts of
+strange-looking people--especially France and Italy. In Naples, now,
+they didn't take the slightest notice of him."
+
+"For goodness' sake there must be some sights there!"
+
+"More tea. It is lovely to be home again and have you waiting on me."
+
+"Ah! I expect you liked it best abroad in that London, now Poppy?"
+
+"Never. I _thought_ I should, but I had forgotten that my roots were
+planted out here. As soon as I got out of sight of Africa they began to
+pull and hurt ... you've no idea of the feeling, Kykie ... it is
+terrible ... and it always came upon me worst in cities. I used to be
+sick with longing for a glimpse of the big open spaces with nothing in
+view but land and sky ... for the smell of the veldt, _you_ know, when
+it is baking hot and the rain comes fizzling down on it; and the early
+morning wind, when it has blown across a thousand miles of sun-burnt
+grass and little stalky, stripy, veldt-flowers and stubby bushes, and
+smells of the big black patches on the hill-sides where the fires have
+been, and of the _dorn bloems_ on the banks of the rivers ... and the
+oozy, muddy, reeking, rushing rivers! Oh Kykie, when I thought of
+Africa, in some prim blue-and-gold continental hotel, I felt like a
+caged tiger-cat, raging at the bars of the cage!... In Paris and London
+I couldn't bear to go to the big open parks for fear the sickness would
+come upon me.... It was like being a wild ass of the desert,
+knee-haltered in a walled-in garden."
+
+Kykie might have been an amazingly-arrayed copper idol representing
+Africa, so benign and gratified was her smile.
+
+"Tell me some more, Poppy. Where else did you think of Africa?"
+
+"Well, Palermo nearly drove me wild. It has the same hot moist air as
+Natal, and the flowers have the same subtle scents. The big spotted
+mosquitoes bit like terriers and followed us as high as we could go; but
+I couldn't even hate _them_, Kykie, they were so like the wretches we
+have out here--there's been one biting my instep all the afternoon." She
+pulled up her foot, and began to rub the spot gently through her
+stocking.
+
+"I think Norway was the worst of all. The men there have beards and the
+same calm eyes as the Boers, and the people are all simple and kind,
+just as they were on the farms in the Transvaal ... and sometimes on
+the top of a steep still hill I could close my eyes and pretend that I
+was on a wild mountain krantz and the hush of the waterfalls all round
+one was the hush of the tall veldt grasses waving in the wind.... But
+when I looked, and saw only the still green waters of the fjords and
+afar off a glacier thrust out between two hills like the claw of some
+great white monster ... oh Kykie, I could have torn the heart out of my
+breast and thrown it into the waters below."
+
+"Heavenly me! And were there coloured people there too?"
+
+"Not in Norway; but America is full of them, and I hate them for cheats
+and frauds ... for I was always listening and waiting to hear some
+Kaffir or Dutch word from their lips ... and they never spoke anything
+but mincing, drawling American, through their noses, like this, Kykie:
+
+"'Oh say, would _you_ tell _me_ what time this _kyar_ is due to start?'
+
+"Once I saw a boy in an elevated-railway car, who, though he was
+magnificently dressed in navy blue serge and wore a brimmer hat, looked
+so _exactly_ like Jim Basuto who ran away from the farm, that I said to
+him in Kaffir:
+
+"'You had better make haste and come back to the farm, Jim, and mind the
+sheep!'
+
+"He simply stared at me, and said to another _boy_, who might have been
+a Zulu chief except for his clothes:
+
+"'Say, this one looks to me as if she is dippy. I think she is the new
+star at Hammerstein's that _ky-ant_ speak anything but French.'
+
+"Luce was so furious, he used fearful language at the Kaffir, and made
+me leave the train at the next station, and wouldn't speak to me for a
+week."
+
+Having finished her tea and eaten all the bread-and-butter and cakes,
+the girl lay back on her pillow and closed her eyes.
+
+"For gracious' sake, and so you have seen the world!" said Kykie. "And
+now you have come back to the old quiet life?"
+
+"Not at all, Kykie. I'm going to persuade Luce to go about here, and
+meet people, and let me do the same."
+
+"He'll never do it," said Kykie vehemently. "I can see that he is worse
+than ever about his mark."
+
+"But he knows a lot of people here. I don't see how he can keep them
+from coming to the house; and I heard the _boys_ saying that he had gone
+to the Club this afternoon. Surely that is a sign that he is not going
+to shut himself up again?"
+
+"He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come here. He has given
+me strict orders that no one is to come in the front gates; they are to
+be locked and he will keep the key. Everything is to come by the back
+entrance and that, too, is to be locked."
+
+Poppy's face clouded.
+
+"Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old farm with the free
+veldt all round us; but to be shut up in a house and garden--(and with
+Luce's devils," she added to herself),--"even if it _is_ a lovely
+garden!"
+
+Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she held out no hope.
+
+"You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before, with your music, and
+your reading, and writing, and be a good child," she said.
+
+"But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how I've grown up?"
+
+"I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus to rub on your
+breasts any more," said Kykie, eyeing her with the calm candour of the
+native.
+
+Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw a corner of the
+quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.
+
+"For the sake of grace you needn't mind me," remarked Kykie. "Haven't I
+watched you many a moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the
+old _spruit_?"
+
+The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little side glance at the
+old woman.
+
+"I _did_ so want to be beautiful. I would have dived to the bottom of
+the filthiest hole in that old _spruit_ a dozen times a day to make
+myself the tiniest atom less ugly than I was. Do you remember that deep
+part where the water was so clear and we could see hundreds of crabs
+pulling pieces of flesh off the leg of the dead horse?"
+
+"Oh _sis_ yes! I wondered how you could go and look at the stinking
+thing day after day."
+
+"I used to be pretending to myself that it was my aunt they were eating.
+Oh Kykie! I have some dark caves in my soul!"
+
+"And no wonder, surely to goodness. Never will I forget the night we
+opened the door and you fell into the house, all blood and mud, and your
+eyes like a _mal-meit's_[3] flaring and flickering like the sulphur on a
+match."
+
+  [3] Mad-maid.
+
+Poppy covered her eyes.
+
+"Don't talk about it----"
+
+At this time a telephone bell began to ring somewhere in the house, and
+Kykie on her feet in an instant, flew from the room at top speed. She
+came back later to say that Luce Abinger had called up to tell her he
+would not be home to dinner. Poppy was delighted.
+
+"Oh Kykie! that means that he is dining with old friends; and it will do
+him _so_ much good, and he'll want to be cheerful and sociable with all
+the world again, and we shan't be locked up any more," she cried all in
+one breath. "And now you needn't bother about dinner, but come and help
+me unpack, and I'll show you all my clothes and the nice things I've
+brought back for you."
+
+"For me, gracious saints!"
+
+"Yes, for you, you wicked old thing; silks and satins of every shade of
+the rainbow. You need never dress in anything else any more."
+
+They spent an engrossed hour unpacking, and afterwards Poppy dined
+alone, and betook herself to the garden. She knew that she had the whole
+place and the whole long evening to herself, without disturbance, for it
+was a peculiarity of Kykie's that she could not keep her eyes open after
+nine o'clock at night. As for the _boys_, after they had performed their
+duties in the kitchen and stables, their time was their own, and they
+made the most of it elsewhere than within reach or sight of their
+employers.
+
+It was early still, and though the darkness had fallen, the moon was at
+the full, and showed to advantage the solemn splendour of the trees, the
+long soft stretches of sward, and the festooned jungle-like arbours and
+arcades. In many a winding path she lost her way (for the place was of
+enormous extent), and had difficulty in locating once more the house or
+the gate or any point she was acquainted with. Coming to the gate once
+she tried it, and finding it securely locked she shook it with the
+sudden fury of a wild thing that finds itself caged. Then she stood
+still, and presently two great tears rolled down her face; but
+afterwards her wanderings became curiously systematised. Taking the gate
+as her starting-post she commenced a _detour_ of the wilderness, keeping
+to its outskirts and examining as she travelled every inch of the
+enclosing walls. The part which gave on to the main road she found to be
+hopelessly impregnable; it had first a high stone wall with a cresting
+of particularly sharp and jagged bottle-glass; and further, was backed
+by a species of laurel that grew both tall and bushy, and rattled
+aggressively if anyone so much as looked at it. Then came a long
+side-stretch of thick-set green bushes of what she judged--after
+pinching the leaf and smelling it--to be quince, with an undergrowth of
+pink pepper. After penetrating this, in a weak spot, and discovering
+that the outside rampart consisted of galvanised iron, standing
+lengthways and painted dark green, she did not feel so confident, but
+she went bravely on, until at last she came to a gate; it also was made
+of iron and painted green, but though it was unlocked, Poppy did not go
+through it, for she saw beyond, the stables and iron houses that were
+evidently the quarters of the black servants. She could hear their
+voices and the sound of a concertina. Plainly this was the back
+compound, through which all trades-people must make their way to the
+house. No doubt there was an entrance at the other side--but it was not
+for Poppy! She proceeded. The wall continued of the same quality,
+monotonously familiar; then occurred an impassable jungle that it would
+have taken a herd of buffalo to make any impression upon. After beating
+round this for some time, to the detriment of her trailing white gown,
+Poppy pursued her way with a frowning brow and a quivering under-lip.
+Next came a hedge of prickly-pear; she turned her head away from this in
+disgust. Farmers plant prickly-pears round their gardens to keep out
+cattle. It is the most perfect barrier in the world. Certainly, a human
+being _might_ cut his way through it; but he would spend the rest of his
+life picking from his festering flesh tiny invisible white thorns. On
+and on she marched; it seemed to her that the large pale hands of the
+pear-hedge flapped mockingly at her. Sometimes she was obliged to make a
+wide _detour_ to avoid a clump of trees, or a rockery, or a summer-house
+with a pergola leading to it, smothered with vines and passion-flowers
+and roses. It seemed that she walked miles and miles. Suddenly she saw
+light glimmering through a trellised opening, and ran forward. Her hands
+touched cold wrought-iron. It was the front gate! This time, when she
+shook it, she did not cry. Her gown was torn, her hair was loosened,
+there was a scratch on her cheek and blood on her hands, but she
+laughed.
+
+"Ah, my _very_ dear Luce Abinger," she said, "we shall see if you can
+keep a creature of the veldt behind a padlock."
+
+Immediately she recommenced a fresh tour of the garden, and though the
+long hot day and all its incidents must have told upon her strength, she
+seemed to have suddenly acquired fresh life and buoyancy. She had that
+within which urged her on--a taste for liberty. At that time it seemed
+to her that the whole world was too small a place for a free spirit; and
+that if this were indeed the world, she would somewhere find some
+desperate edge and leap over, even if it should be into the abyss of
+nothingness. On this tour she included the arbours and the summer-houses
+in her itinerary. The third one she came to was only a small hut of a
+place, but it had a long spire to its roof, and from thence trailed and
+hung long lines and stalks of the passion plant--everyone knows it:
+vine-leaved, with great round cream-coloured flowers, a purple outer
+ring divided into ten thousand tiny leaves, signifying the crowd that
+gathered to listen to Christ on the Mount; and in the centre,
+mysteriously arranged, like the dishes upon the table of some oracle,
+the three loaves and the five fishes! They call it the grenadilla in
+Africa, and eat its fruit with port wine and cream. Poppy dived in under
+the trailing vinery, and entered the hut. All round it had a low seat
+running, but everything was old and damp and rotten she could feel by
+the touch, and in one place the wood crumbled under her fingers, and
+thrusting her arm forward, she was able to feel that it was part of the
+wall itself; there was no further barrier beyond.
+
+She had found an exit.
+
+For a time she sat still on the cool mossy floor of the arbour,
+trembling a little at the thought of the spiders and strange beasts that
+might be dropping upon her from above. At last she nerved herself to the
+point of pushing and urging and disentangling the thick partition of
+green that kept her in. Her idea was to make an opening without making a
+gap; something she could re-arrange afterwards, leaving no sign of
+disturbance.
+
+At length she was through, and behold! she found herself in another
+garden. Was it a maze too, she wondered rather drearily? A maze without
+an opening? But no, there was a pleasing openness of view about the
+place. A few bushes and trees, a straggly flower-bed or two. Almost
+immediately she came upon a gravelled path; but she did not walk on it,
+choosing rather to follow its direction by way of the grass and soft
+earth which enflanked it. In the natural course of events a house was
+discovered. Quite a simple affair of galvanised iron, painted green,
+with a verandah running all round it and heaps of shrubs and bushes and
+creepers to hide its nakedness. Its front verandah was full of pale,
+heavenly light that was certainly not contributed by the moon; nor could
+the words that came floating over the bushes into the garden, be, by the
+wildest and most poetic imagination, endowed with a heavenly meaning.
+
+"Oh, damn it, I'm sick of this rotten typewriter and everything else in
+the world. I wish Brookie would type his own beastly law-papers."
+
+Poppy approached with the utmost gentleness, and through the screen of a
+bush covered with tiny pink flowers that smelt of musk she surveyed the
+scene.
+
+The room itself was terrible as an army with banners. It contained
+"gypsy-tables," antimacassars, "what-nots," plush fans upon the walls,
+indescribable villainies of wool and paper, a crewel-worked
+mantel-border, and every atrocity under the moon. In the midst of all
+was a good solid mahogany table, with a typewriting-machine on it, and
+seated before this was a girl. For pity of herself Poppy was glad to see
+another girl; and more especially a girl who, like herself, appeared to
+have reason to be bored with her surroundings and the general management
+of the universe. In the enthusiasm engendered by a fellow-feeling, she
+had an inclination to march in and take the girl to her heart, but after
+a further survey she changed her mind.
+
+In a large, ripe fashion, the girl was very good-looking indeed, with a
+tall and generous figure of the kind that attracts prompt and frank
+attention from the generality of men, but is not deeply admired by other
+women. Her face was of a familiar Colonial type, large-featured but
+well-shaped, with big brown eyes, rather inclined to roll, suggestive of
+what is known as "a dash of colour"; a mouth of the kind that expresses
+nothing at all until the twenties, when by the aid of a _retrousse_
+nose, grown unaccountably coarse it suddenly expresses things which
+should be left unexpressed; a round, rather plump chin, and masses of
+dark hair which had been sadly maltreated by curling-irons, and had a
+dusty appearance. On the whole a handsome girl, probably good-natured
+enough for the ordinary purposes, and of a personality pleasing enough
+for an ordinary acquaintance.
+
+Certainly not a girl to be made a friend of, thought Poppy, and decided
+that she would go no further.
+
+"I'll wait and see first if Luce is going to let me out to meet nice
+people," she thought. "If he doesn't, this girl may help to pass away an
+idle hour sometimes, and she might serve as one of the characters in my
+novel. At any rate she could teach me to use the typewriter, and I
+could teach her not to live in a chamber of horrors."
+
+With these reflections she stole back soft-footed in her tracks, and
+through her little exit-hole, which she covered up with the greatest
+care and skill, for fear that in the future it should prove to be her
+only mode of entrance into the world of men and women she longed to
+know.
+
+For a whole week she refrained from broaching to the tyrant of the house
+the subject which lay uppermost in her thoughts. For one thing she
+thought it would be well to allow him to regain some semblance of good
+humour; for another she wished to give him full opportunity and time to
+make daily excursions into the town and lunch and dine with his friends,
+so that she might have some grounds for the reproaches she meant to
+level at him when she demanded freedom. In the meantime she was absorbed
+in affairs which included the inspection and re-arrangement of every
+room in the house, excepting only Abinger's, which she never ventured
+near. Touches of her personality soon lay upon everything, from the
+chintzes in the drawing-room which she had chosen herself at Waring's,
+and sent out to Kykie for the making, down to the curtaining of Kykie's
+own bedroom windows with some cobwebby snowy muslin she had bought in
+Shanghai. She spent several hours every day at the piano, playing old
+Irish melodies, for which she had a passion, and of which she had made
+an enormous collection; but she always waited until Luce was out of the
+house, for he had a peculiar aversion to melodies of any kind and more
+especially Irish melodies. He said:
+
+"There may have been something in them when the strolling poets played
+them on their harps, but since that fellow Moore made them pretty, I
+consider them damned mawkish."
+
+So Poppy kept her melodies to herself. The rest of her time was divided
+between studying literature, writing, dreaming and wandering in the
+garden, which became dearer to her day by day.
+
+At last, one evening, on hearing from Kykie that Abinger would be dining
+at home, she made herself look as charming as possible in a pale maize
+satin gown with a wreath of green leaves on her hair, and went down
+prepared to do battle.
+
+Luce Abinger was already in the drawing-room, standing at one of the
+French windows, staring out into the garden--a sombre, solitary figure.
+She noticed, as often before, how tall and well-built he was, and the
+fine line of his head under the smooth, fair hair. He always looked
+distinguished and well-born in evening-dress. At the sound of Poppy he
+turned, and the lights shining on his maimed and distorted face, showed
+her that he was entertaining at least seven devils. A mental shiver
+passed through her and hope fell several degrees; but she advanced with
+a serene smile and a gay word. She had long ago learnt to control the
+expressions of her face, so that he might not guess the mingled terror,
+pity, and repulsion he often roused in her; and though she knew that in
+most things he had intuition as cruel as the grave, she believed that in
+this, at least, she was able to deceive him.
+
+The second gong had not yet sounded. She sat down at the piano and ran
+her fingers up and down the keys by way of bracing up her nerves.
+
+"Luce," she began, "I hope you are in a good temper, for I want to talk
+to you very seriously about something."
+
+He gave a croaking sort of laugh.
+
+"Oh certainly. I am at my very b-best. It is only necessary for you to
+p-play an Irish melody to have me p-purring at your feet. _Il ne
+manquerait plus que ca._"
+
+This was inauspicious, but Poppy refused to be daunted; and the gong
+sounding at this moment, she rose and put her hand upon his arm, saying
+cheerfully:
+
+"That's right, come along then, we'll talk it over in the dining-room."
+
+His smile was grim. They sat down to dinner, and Babiyaan and Umzibu,
+arrayed in white, hovered over them like guardian angels. Abinger ate
+little and said nothing. Only when the _boys_ were not in the room he
+fixed his eyes on Poppy in a curious way that caused in her a sensation
+of indescribable discomfort and annoyance. Once, for some unknown
+reason, she found herself remembering how she had covered herself up
+with the bed quilt from Kykie's eyes, and wishing that she had it round
+her now. She had never felt like that in a low gown before, and she
+could not understand it at all. For a time it quite unfitted her for the
+task she had in hand, but the idea occurring to her that this was
+perhaps what Luce intended, she plucked up heart again, and with the
+fruit fired her first shot.
+
+"Luce, what are you going to do about getting me a chaperon?"
+
+He gave a little jerk of his fruit-knife, so that she knew that he was
+taken unawares, otherwise he remained undisturbed by what she supposed
+must be something in the nature of a bomb-shell going off under his
+nose. He did not, however, proceed with the business of peeling his
+peach, and on giving him a swift side-glance, she found that he was
+smiling at her. Now, his smile was at no time an alluring affair, but
+when it was field day for his devils----!
+
+"Am I not a sufficiently p-proper and responsible p-person to have the
+care of your young white s-soul?" he inquired blandly.
+
+She knew _that_ mood. Perhaps, after all, it would be better to postpone
+the discussion; but then, sometimes these fits of fury and rudeness
+lasted for months. It was impossible to wait all that time.
+
+"I am not particularly concerned about my soul," she answered
+carelessly, dipping her fingers in the fine Venetian bowl before her and
+drying them delicately. One of Abinger's devils betrayed itself by
+laughing loudly and with character, but she did not even wince.
+
+"Your young white b-body, then?" He pushed back his chair from the table
+with a horrible scrench on the polished floor.
+
+"You talk like some odious sultan, but you forget that I am not a
+slave," she flashed back at him.
+
+She pushed her chair from the table also, and loosening from her wrist a
+little painted inlaid fan which she had bought from a street-seller in
+Algiers, she essayed to cool her flushed face.
+
+"Cigarettes, Babiyaan!" she said. "It is very hot; I think I will smoke
+out in the garden," she finished coldly to Abinger.
+
+But he had risen too, and lounged in the doorway leading to the
+verandah.
+
+"Oh, p-pray let us finish this interesting discussion."
+
+They stood looking at each other for a moment: she, quite collectedly;
+he, smiling with his eyes and sneering with his mouth. Babiyaan, well
+aware that she was not allowed to smoke, knew better than to hand her
+the cigarettes, but placed them on the table and discreetly retired.
+
+"There is no discussion, Luce," she said quietly, though her voice
+contained a tremor. "I simply want you to realise that it is impossible
+for me to go on living like this for ever. It isn't fair...." she added
+petulantly. He said nothing, only smiled. She regained her dignity and
+spoke more gently:
+
+"I am a woman now, Luce, and it is only natural that I should wish to
+know other women--and men too."
+
+At that he laughed raspingly.
+
+"Why d-drag in the women?"
+
+She looked at him scornfully. It was ridiculous of him to pretend that
+men meant more to her than women.
+
+"It is unreasonable of you to expect me to spend my youth in secrecy and
+seclusion, just because you--" she stopped hastily.
+
+"Go on!" he said with a devilish gaiety. "'Just because _you_ happen to
+have a face like a mutilated b-baboon'--was that what you were going to
+say?"
+
+"Oh Luce, you _know_ it was not! Because ... because ..." she stood
+stammering with distress, while he stood grinning. "Because _you_ don't
+happen to care for the society of other people--was what I was going to
+say.... Don't think," she went on appealingly, "that I don't appreciate
+all you have done for me. I remember it every day and every night.... I
+shall never forget it ... and though I know I can never repay you, I
+will show you all the rest of my life how grateful I am.... But I don't
+see what difference it would make to you to let me know a few people ...
+you have so many friends ... surely you know some nice women who would
+call on me----"
+
+He broke out in a harsh voice, smiling no longer. "You are mistaken; I
+have no friends. The whole thing is out of the question and impossible."
+
+"I don't see why it should be at all," she pursued valiantly; "if you
+get me some pleasant woman as a chaperon."
+
+"In God's name what do you want with women?" he burst out. "A g-girl
+like you will never find a friend amongst them. They will hate you for
+your face, and your brains, and your youth.... They are d-devils
+all--lock, stock and barrel.... They'll rip you open and tear the story
+of your life out of you; if they once find out that you are a South
+African they'll never rest until they have nosed out the whole thing,
+and then they'll fling the t-tale to the four winds and the first thing
+you know you'll have your Bloemfontein aunt bearing down on you----"
+
+"Oh Luce! I don't believe they're as bad as all that----"
+
+"Then don't believe it," he retorted, with the utmost rudeness. "But
+understand one thing, I'll have no she-devils round this house."
+
+"Very well, let them be he-devils," she flung back at him. "I am
+accustomed to those."
+
+At that he stamped away from her towards the other door, gesturing with
+rage, and throwing broken words in her direction.
+
+"Isn't my life bad enough already?... Oh Hades!... I wouldn't stand it
+for a minute ... curse all women ... don't ever talk to me about this
+again ... I tell you.... It's monstrous ... a lot of thieves and
+blackguards.... You're driving me out of my own house ... I shall go to
+the Rand to-morrow ... why, by God, I!..."
+
+The door closed with a crash behind him.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+
+At two o'clock one afternoon Sophie Cornell walked into her sitting-room
+and flung upon the table by the side of her typewriter a great roll of
+MSS. She was gorgeously attired in a hat massed with roses of a shade
+that "never was on land or sea," and a furiously befrilled gown of
+sky-blue silk-muslin. But her face was flushed and heated, and her
+eyebrows met in a scowl of decided ill-temper. Opening a door that led
+through a long passage to the kitchen, she shouted:
+
+"Zambani! Zambani! _Checcha_ now with my lunch. Send Piccanin to lay
+table. _Checcha wena!_"
+
+She flung her hat into one chair and herself into another, and stared at
+a telegram which she spread out before her.
+
+"'Sorry can't come,'" she read, muttering; "'something better turned up;
+you understand!' Yes, I understand well enough! Just like the rotter to
+study her own convenience and throw me over at the last moment. What am
+I to do _now_, I'd like to know?"
+
+She lolled in her chair and glared angrily at a small black _boy_ in a
+blue twill tunic and short blue knickers above his knees, who was laying
+a cloth on one end of the table.
+
+"Is there any soda in the house, Piccanin?" she demanded; and when he
+signified yes, ordered him to fetch it then and be _checcha_. In the
+meantime, she rose and unlocked from the sideboard a bottle of whiskey.
+
+Lunch was a slovenly meal, consisting of burnt mutton-chops, fried
+potatoes, and a beet-root salad liberally decorated with rings of raw
+onion. Miss Cornell, however, ate heartily, and enjoyed a
+whiskey-and-soda. She then proceeded to attack a wobbly blanc-mange
+beringed with strawberry jam. Occasionally she demanded of some
+invisible personage:
+
+"And what am I going to do _now_, I'd like to know?" and the scowl
+returned to her brows.
+
+Suddenly, upon the front door which stood slightly ajar fell a soft
+knock. Miss Cornell's hands slipped to her hair, the scowl disappeared
+from her face, and in a high affected voice she called:
+
+"Come in!"
+
+Entered, with a shy and demure air, a girl dressed in the simplest kind
+of dress made of thin black muslin, with a white fichu over her
+shoulders falling in long ends below her waist. Her large white-straw
+hat had round it a wreath of lilac, which was of exactly the same colour
+as her eyes. Her lips were amazingly scarlet.
+
+"I beg your pardon," she said in a soft, entrancing voice. "I am sorry
+to disturb you at your lunch----"
+
+"That's all right," said Sophie affably; "I'm just done. Do sit down!"
+
+The girl seated herself daintily. Sophie, observing that she wore no
+jewelry of any kind except a ring, in which the diamond was so large
+that it must surely be paste, decided that her visitor must be "hard
+up." She (Sophie) had not much of an opinion of that "black rag of a
+gown" either, but she thought she detected the faint murmur of a silk
+lining as her visitor moved. The lilac eyes looked at her winningly.
+
+"I heard that you had a typewriting machine," she said, "and I wondered
+if you would be so good as to do a little typing for me--" She indicated
+a tiny roll of writing which she held in her hand. Miss Cornell sat up
+with an air.
+
+"Oh, I don't take in work!" she said perkily. "I couldn't be bothered
+with that sort of thing. I'm _sekertary_ to a gentleman who has an
+office down town."
+
+"Lilac Eyes" regarded her calmly and did not seem overwhelmed by the
+importance of this communication.
+
+"What a bother!" said she serenely.
+
+Miss Cornell became languid.
+
+"I get an enormous salary, and I have more work than I know how to get
+through already. Indeed, I am trying to get an assistant."
+
+"Really?" said the other girl. "I wonder if I would suit you?"
+
+"You!" Miss Cornell's face lit up with sudden interest and eagerness.
+She surveyed the other again. _Of course_, she was only a "hard-up" girl
+looking for work, and that air of gentle insolence that Sophie had been
+conscious of, was, after all, only "side" stuck on like the rose in the
+front of the simple black gown to hide poverty. Upon these reflections
+Miss Cornell's air became exceedingly patronising.
+
+"You? Well, I don't know, I'm sure. Can you type?"
+
+"Not at all. But I daresay I could soon learn."
+
+"Oh well! I couldn't give you much salary if you are only a beginner."
+
+"I shouldn't want any salary," said "Lilac Eyes"; but added quickly, as
+she saw the other's look of amazement: "At least, not for some months.
+If you would allow me to use your machine for my own work sometimes I
+should be repaid."
+
+At this Sophie had neither the wit nor the patience to conceal her
+satisfaction. Her haughty air departed and she beamed with delight. She
+had suddenly seen a clear way through a very difficult _impasse_.
+
+"You'll suit me down to the ground," she declared joyfully. "When can
+you move in?"
+
+"Move in?" the other gave her a wondering smile. "Oh, I couldn't come to
+live--only for a few hours every day."
+
+Sophie's face clouded again, but in a moment her eyes took on the
+absorbed look of a person who is rapidly reviewing a difficult
+situation. Presently she said:
+
+"Well, perhaps that wouldn't matter so much if you wouldn't mind
+_pretending_ sometimes that you live here."
+
+The other girl looked puzzled.
+
+"I'm afraid I don't quite understand."
+
+"Well, if there's any chance of you're doing as I ask you, I'll
+explain," said Sophie; "but, of course, I don't want to talk about my
+private affairs if it's no good. There's nothing in the reason for
+_pretending_ that you need object to," she added boldly. "What is the
+reason you can't come and live? Got a sick mother, or an old aunt, or
+something?"
+
+The other hesitated for a moment, then her lovely lilac eyes took on a
+curious expression.
+
+"Yes, I have an aunt," was her odd answer, but Sophie was no acute
+reader of eyes or odd answers.
+
+"More fool you," said she cheerfully. "I'd like to see the old aunt
+who'd get _me_ to support her. Well, all right now, if you think you'll
+come I'll tell you the whole thing."
+
+"Yes, I think I'll come. But as I have said, it will only be for a few
+hours daily; sometimes in the mornings, more often in the afternoons."
+
+"That'll do all right. Have a whiskey-and-soda and we'll talk it over."
+
+"I don't care for whiskey, thank you," said "Lilac Eyes"; "but I am very
+thirsty, and will have some soda, if I may."
+
+Sophie shouted to Piccanin to bring another glass, and pushed the soda
+and lemons across the table.
+
+"Make yourself at home," said she affably; "but I hope you're not one of
+those asses who don't drink!"
+
+"No, I drink if I want to--but not spirits."
+
+"Oh, I know--those old Cape pontacs. Save me from them!" Miss Cornell
+looked piously at the ceiling. The other girl, who had never tasted Cape
+pontac in her life, only smiled her subtle smile.
+
+Sophie seated herself in a lounge-chair, opposite her visitor, and
+crossed her legs, incidentally revealing her smart French-heeled shoes
+and a good deal of open-work stocking through which to lilac-coloured
+eyes her legs looked as though they were painted red. Piccanin meanwhile
+removed from the room the luncheon debris, his bare feet cheeping on the
+pale native matting and his long black eyes taking interested glances at
+the visitor whenever she was not looking his way.
+
+"And now let's get to business," said Miss Cornell. "First of all, you
+haven't told me your name yet."
+
+The lilac eyes were hidden for a moment under white lids, and a faint
+colour swept over the pale skin.
+
+"Rosalind Chard."
+
+"Well, I shall call you Rosalind, of course, and you can call me Sophie
+if you like. Sophie Cornell's my name. Rather pretty, isn't it?"
+
+"Very," said Miss Chard in her gentle, entrancing voice.
+
+"Well, now I'll tell you: I come from Cradock, in the Cape Colony, but
+I've been living all over the place since I left home. First, I went to
+stay with my sister in Kimberley. Have you ever been to Kimberley?
+_Man!_ I tell you it's the most glorious place--at least, it used to be
+before everybody went to Jo ... you know Jo-burg, _of course_?"
+
+Miss Chard shook her head.
+
+"Never been to Johannesburg?" Sophie's tone expressed the utmost pity
+and contempt. "Well, but you're an English girl, I can see. Not been
+long out here, have you?"
+
+"Only a week or so."
+
+"Great Scott! you've got a lot to learn!"
+
+Miss Cornell took a packet of cigarettes from her pocket and lit one.
+She then offered the packet to Miss Chard, who did not, however, take
+one.
+
+"Don't smoke either? Och, what! You're not _half_ a good fellow! Well,
+take off your hat, then. Do be sociable."
+
+Miss Chard unpinned her floppy white hat and wore it on her knee for the
+rest of the interview. Sophie noticed the piled-up crown of black, black
+hair; also, the peculiar branching way in which it grew above the girl's
+brows. ("I wonder if she uses bay-rum to make it all dry and electriccy
+like that?" was her inward comment. "And I'll bet she wears a switch.")
+
+"Well, to continue my tale--I had a lovely time in _darling_ old
+Kimberley: dances, theatres, suppers, everything you can think of; then
+my sister's husband must needs go off and buy a rotten old farm at the
+back of nowhere--Barkly East, if you love me! They wanted _me_ to come,
+too, but I said, Dead off! No, _thanks_! I want something more out of
+life than mountain scenery."
+
+Rosalind Chard looked at her and could well believe it. At the moment
+Sophie reminded her of nothing so much as a full-blown cabbage-rose,
+dying to be plucked.
+
+"And so you came here instead?"
+
+"Well, no; first I went to Jo-burg, and I _must_ say I had a heavenly
+time _there_; but--well--it didn't suit my health, so I became
+_sekertary_ to an old snook called Johnson. He had been in Rhodesia,
+poking about in some ancient ruins there, and--oh, my garden
+flower!--the stuff he used to give me to write and type! And the way he
+used to bully me when I didn't get through it! And then complained of
+my spelling, if you please. I didn't stay with _him_ any longer than I
+could help, you bet, though the screw was good. But I _must_ tell you,
+such fun--just as I was going to leave him I discovered from his
+correspondence that he was going up to Zanzibar to make some researches
+for some rotten old society or other, so I stuck to him for another
+month. I thought I might as well get a passage to Durban for nix. So I
+started with him from the Cape, but when the boat touched here, I said,
+Good-bye, Johnnie! Oh crumbs! The row he made when he found me
+trekking!"
+
+The listener's sympathy happened to be with the old snook, but Sophie
+was not asking for an opinion.
+
+"And do you mean to say," demanded the latter unexpectedly, "that you
+would rather live with your old aunt than in a sweet little house like
+this, with me?"
+
+Miss Chard did not mean to say anything at all as far as her own affairs
+were concerned.
+
+"Never mind about me, Sophie," was her reply. "Tell me some more of your
+interesting adventures, and how you came to live in this sweet little
+house."
+
+Miss Cornell's glance shifted from her new friend. She looked out of the
+window, round the room, at the pictures on the wall, at the
+typewriter--anywhere but into the two clear wells of lilac light
+opposite her, as she answered:
+
+"I rent it, of course. I told you, didn't I, that I am _sekertary_ to a
+man down town, named Brookfield. He thinks the world of me, and gives me
+a big salary; and then I get other work from a man called Bramham. Oh, I
+have more to do than I want, and I really _had_ to get help, so I wrote
+last week to a pal of mine up in Jo-burg, and told her to come and join
+me. She promised, and I expected her right up till to-day, when I got a
+telegram, if you please, to say that she'd got something better. Wasn't
+that a low-down trick? And after I had told Brookfield and Bramham and
+all! Brookie gave me the morning off to go and meet her, and I waited
+for the train and found she wasn't in it, and when I got back to the
+office there was the telegram! Fortunately Brookie was gone from the
+office when I got back, so he doesn't know that she hasn't come."
+
+"But why should it matter to him and to the other man whether she comes
+or not?"
+
+Again Miss Cornell's glance took flight.
+
+"Because of the work, of course--there's such tons to do ... and I can't
+get through it all by myself."
+
+Miss Chard watched her narrowly.
+
+"Well, but why do you wish me to pretend that I live here, and am your
+friend from Johannesburg?"
+
+"You see, it's this way ... Brookie and Mr. Bramham take an interest in
+me.... They don't think that I ought to live alone here, and all that
+sort of rot--and if I could show _you_ to them they'd think it was all
+right."
+
+Miss Chard looked startled.
+
+"Oh, I couldn't promise to meet strange men! I didn't suppose you would
+want me to do that or----"
+
+An exasperated look came over Miss Cornell's face.
+
+"You're not going to back out now, after me telling you everything?" she
+demanded angrily, but Miss Chard's scarlet lips took a firm line.
+
+"I don't wish to meet strange people," she said. To her surprise, the
+other girl at once became propitiatory and beseeching.
+
+"Well, but I won't ask you to meet anyone else. I'll keep you a deadly
+secret. And I can assure you that Brookie and Bramham don't matter in
+the least. Brookie is--well, to tell you the truth, he is entirely my
+property; he's crazily in love with me, and he won't bother you at all.
+Neither will Brammie, if it comes to that. He is an _awfully_ nice
+man--everybody likes him, and he's fearfully rich too. He's married, and
+his wife lives in England for her health, they say, but of coarse that
+must be all rot. Anyway, he never goes into society at all--only has men
+friends."
+
+"Well, what does he want here?" asked Miss Chard calmly, watching the
+flushed face before her.
+
+"Nothing--nothing at all. It's only a matter of business, and a friendly
+interest in me, and all that--and, you see, as he employs me as well as
+Brookie, I have to be civil and ask him to tea sometimes."
+
+It seemed to Miss Rosalind Chard that there was more in this than met
+the eye, but she was not able to fathom it at present. However, after
+listening to another long description of Mr. Bramham's inoffensiveness,
+she consented at last to be at the house one afternoon when he called.
+
+"As for Brookie----" began Sophie, ready to open up another chronicle of
+guilelessness.
+
+"No, no! I won't meet Brookie, I absolutely jib at Brookie!"
+
+Sophie became lugubrious. "But he knows that you were to have arrived
+to-day----"
+
+"Well," said Miss Chard decidedly. "Tell him that I came, but that I am
+as ugly as a monkey and as old as the sea. And now I must go, or
+my--aunt will be looking for me. I shall try and come in to-morrow and
+take a lesson on the typewriter. What time will be best?"
+
+"You'll have to teach yourself, my dear. I go to the office every
+morning at ten, and I lunch in West Street, and don't get back until
+above five in the afternoon. But I'll bring you all the MSS. there is no
+immediate hurry for--and you can do it one day and I'll take it back the
+next. We shall get along like one o'clock."
+
+"That's all settled then; good-bye!" Miss Chard had stepped out of the
+room into the verandah and was gone before Sophie could remove her high
+heels from the bars of the chair in front of her, where she had hooked
+them for extra ease and comfort. Inadvertently she listened for the
+click of the gate. But the gate did not click. Miss Chard, having got
+out of view of both house and gate, made a dash for the tall green hedge
+on the right side of the garden. Stooping down, she instantly
+disappeared.
+
+A few moments later Poppy Destin sat in the passion-leaved summer-house,
+delicately smoking a cigarette and brushing all traces of dust from her
+thin black muslin gown. Between little puffs of smoke she presently
+spoke to herself.
+
+"Certainly she is a terror ... a common mind, terrible clothes, Colonial
+slang ... I don't know that I can put up with her at all ... and those
+awful Brookies and Brammies! ... but it will be useful to be able to go
+through her garden whenever I want to make a little excursion into the
+world ... and, of course, I couldn't be there without some right or
+reason ... besides, it will be splendid to learn typewriting, and do all
+my own writing ready to send to the publishers ... but what a room! ...
+and those roses in her hat! Can such things be?... I must go and see
+whether Kykie has my tea ready."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+A few days later it would have been hard to recognise the sitting-room
+of Sophie Cornell's little green bungalow. Books had spread themselves
+about the room, the tawdrinesses had been removed, flowers were
+everywhere, and a fine vine in a long glass crept delicately up the side
+of the mirror above the mantel. When Poppy had hinted that she would
+like to change the room a little, Sophie had good-naturedly given her
+_carte-blanche_ to do anything she wished, saying:
+
+"It was not _my_ taste either, you know; but the place was furnished
+when I came into it and I haven't bothered to do anything since."
+
+The only things Miss Cornell would not allow to be banished were the
+photographs of her numerous admirers, which she insisted on ranging
+along the narrow wooden ledge running round the room above the dado.
+They were in all degrees of preservation--some of them yellow with age
+or exposure, some quite new; all were autographed and inscribed. Some of
+the inscriptions ran thus: "From your loving Jack"; "To the best girl I
+know"; "To one of the best from one of the worst," etc. It was to be
+observed that the most ardent _mots_ were merely initialled. But Sophie
+was equally proud of them all, and would exhibit them on the smallest
+provocation, giving a short narrative-sketch of each person which
+included the most striking features of his character, together with a
+thrilling account of his passion for her and the reason why she did not
+marry him.
+
+"Now, isn't _he_ good looking? Such a dear boy too ... and _generous_!
+My dear, that man would have given me the boots off his feet ... but
+there--he had no money; what was the good?... He's in Klondyke now ... I
+do hope he'll have luck, poor boy...."
+
+"This is Captain Halkett. No, I don't know his regiment, and he never
+would give away his photos in uniform, though he had some perfectly
+lovely ones.... Someone told me he was a 'cashier' in the Army ... but
+that was silly, of course ... there are no such things as cashiers in
+the Army, _are_ there? ... he simply adored me ... he gave me this
+bangle ... such a darling ... but he was married--or, _of course_----"
+
+"Oh, _that_ is Jack Truman, of Kimberley. Everyone knows _him_ ... a
+fearful devil, but most fascinating.... Isn't he handsome? ... such
+eyes ... you simply couldn't look into them, they made you blush all
+over. The women were all crazy after him, but he told me he didn't give
+a pin for any of them except me.... He wanted me to run away with
+him ... but he had a wife in a lunatic asylum ... obliged to allow her
+forty pounds a month, and he was _dreadfully_ in debt ... they tried to
+arrest him at Cape Town, but he got away dressed like a woman ... and
+now he is in the Australian Mounted Police, they say.
+
+"And, _of course_, you know who this is? One of the biggest men on the
+Rand ... with _thousands_, my dear.... Och! you should see him in riding
+kit ... you never saw any one look so perfectly _noble_ ... he was
+_madly_ in love with me ... everybody said so ... he told me I was the
+only girl who could ever keep him straight ... but he behaved rather
+badly.... I always believe some snake of a woman made mischief ... and
+when he went to England, one of those English girls snapped him up ...
+they live out at Jeppestown now ... and they say she's the _living
+image_ of me ... funny, isn't it?... but I think it just proves how he
+adored me, don't you?"
+
+Listeners of defective vision and an over-developed sense of credulity
+might have believed that Helen of Troy II had come to town--unless they
+had been long enough in South Africa to realise that the best way to
+enjoy a little quiet humour is to take a Cape-Colonial girl at her own
+valuation.
+
+Poppy listened to all with tranquil eyes. She was willing to believe
+that it might be true that Sophie was admired and adored and desired.
+But in the type of men who formed the army of admirers and adorers and
+desirers she could not pluck up the faintest kind of interest. It seemed
+to her that it was impossible that any man worth knowing could forgive
+the size of Sophie's hands and the shape of her feet, the look about her
+mouth, the paint on her face, and the dust in her hair.
+
+She was aware, however, that life in South Africa is too busy and too
+eventful to allow men much time for digging into personality--and that
+it has to suffice, as a rule, if the surface-metal shines pleasantly
+and looks like the real thing. Sophie's surface, no doubt, had an
+attractive glitter, but Poppy felt sure that if anyone with the time and
+inclination for such occupation had ventured to go a-quarrying into the
+nature of Sophie Cornell, the output would be found to be surprising,
+even in a land where surprises are every-day fare and the unexpected is
+the only thing that ever happens.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+
+In the meantime all went well. Secure in the knowledge that Abinger was
+away for some weeks, that Kykie would never search for her except at
+meal-times, every day found Poppy spending four or five hours at her new
+occupation--typewriting. She had determined that she would master this
+art before she went adventuring further into the world that lay beyond
+Sophie Cornell's gate.
+
+Sometimes she would arrive before ten in the morning, in time to see
+Sophie depart, gloriously arrayed, with the air of one due at the same
+garden-party as royalty.
+
+When she inspected the huge rolls of work which Sophie invariably
+brought back, she would sometimes wonder if the latter had indeed been
+to a garden-party and never put in at the office at all, except to fetch
+the MSS.
+
+The little house in the morning hours was always calm and peaceful.
+Through the trees of the garden Poppy could hear the world go buzzing
+by--the grating of the tram-cars on the lines, the clatter of horses,
+and the hiss of wheels going down hill, and an occasional street cry. No
+one ever came down the little pathway. Only the click of the machine,
+the voices of Zambani and Piccanin, busy with the pots and the pans in
+the kitchen and yard, broke the silence; or Poppy's trilling whistle as
+she corrected her proofs. By half-past twelve there would be piles of
+neat manuscript ready for Sophie to take back the next day, and Poppy
+would be speeding home through her own garden to luncheon. Sometimes in
+the afternoon she would finish early, and, going out into the kitchen,
+would toast buns and prepare the tea, and Sophie, coming home at five
+o'clock, would find it laid cool and dainty among flowers on the long
+table.
+
+One day, when Poppy had arrived almost directly after lunch, with the
+idea of getting in a long afternoon at her own work, she was
+disagreeably surprised to find Sophie stalk in a few moments later,
+flushed and handsome, and bringing with her a large bale of papers and
+the faint but unmistakable odour of good cigars.
+
+Poppy's little nose went up and a warmth ran through her; the smell of a
+good cigar unaccountably roused in her a vivid interest in life. For a
+moment she slightly envied Sophie, but a glance at the brilliant languid
+eyes and heavy mouth changed her mind, and singularly inspired her with
+the thought that good cigars were probably often smoked by hateful men.
+
+"Would you like me to order you a cup of tea, Sophie?" she asked
+presently.
+
+"No, thanks!" said Sophie, languidly stretching herself in a chair. "I
+couldn't drink tea. I've had a most tiring morning. Brookie brought Nick
+Capron in, and they simply _wouldn't_ let me work."
+
+After which calmly contradictory statement, she closed her eyes and
+fanned herself with a legal-looking document, chosen for its stiffness
+from among the papers she had brought, and which were now at sixes and
+sevens upon the floor.
+
+At the name "Nick Capron," Poppy gave a little start. How well she
+remembered the day she had heard that name from the lips of a beautiful
+woman in Bloemfontein! Could this Nick Capron possibly be the "most
+fascinating man in Africa" whom the gold-haired heroine was going to
+marry? She must try and discover.
+
+"I think a cup of tea would refresh you, Sophie," she presently said.
+
+"_Och ni vat!_ I can't eat or drink when I get worn out like this--I
+become a perfect wreck."
+
+Poppy surveyed the healthy, not to say opulent proportions stretched
+before her, and could not forbear to smile.
+
+"Oh, you should keep up your strength," she said, with irony entirely
+thrown away.
+
+"The only thing that would be the _slightest_ use to me, now," announced
+Sophie, "is a glass of champagne--and, of course, I can't have that."
+
+Poppy began to pore over her manuscript. She was in the mood for work
+and hated not to take advantage of it.
+
+"I wish I were rich enough to drink champagne whenever I am tired," was
+Miss Cornell's next contribution; and Poppy laughed without being
+amused.
+
+"You'd soon be bored with that."
+
+"Never!" said Miss Cornell fervently; then relapsed into languor.
+
+"I hope those papers are not important, Sophie, they are blowing all
+over the room."
+
+"Yes, they're _very_ important. They're all about a Malay abduction case
+which a friend of Brookie's is defending in the Courts next week. It's
+the greatest fun, Brookie and Capron were shrieking over it this
+afternoon."
+
+"Is Mr. Capron a lawyer?"
+
+"Oh, no--he isn't anything; just a pal of Brookie's. He's a
+Johannesburger, but he has a house here as well, and _tons_ of money,
+and a lovely wife--a perfect stunner, my dear--Brookie says she is the
+loveliest woman in Africa; but Capron has always got his eye on some
+other woman. By the way, Rosalind, to-day he was describing a girl he
+had seen in a rickshaw, and from the description I feel sure it was
+you. Your particular style of beauty appears to have struck him all in a
+heap."
+
+Miss Cornell made this statement as though she thought it humorous,
+which, indeed, she did, for that anyone should admire a girl so unlike
+her own type, and her own idea of beauty which that type represented,
+seemed to her really funny and incredible. Yet she looked intently now,
+and observed, so far as in her lay, "with the seeing eye," and for the
+first time since they had met--the girl before her. Nick Capron's
+unmistakable enthusiasm had made a great impression upon her.
+
+"He said that you were alone in a rickshaw," she told Poppy, "and that
+he and Mrs. Portal were walking together and met you. And Mrs. Portal
+said you looked like a Burne-Jones dressed like a Beardsley poster. What
+rot these society women talk! Who can understand a thing like that?"
+
+"What is Mrs. Portal like?" asked Poppy, remembering now the
+well-bred-looking woman who had been talking about Burne-Jones to the
+man with the dissipated eyes on the day of her arrival.
+
+But Sophie took no heed of the question. She was closely and furtively
+regarding Poppy, and thinking: "Has she any attraction for men, I
+wonder? She's not a bit smart ... and so pale ... and yet, and yet ..."
+Here Sophie's expression of thought gave out. If she could have
+expressed it, she would have added: "She is pale, and yet glows as
+though something within her is alight."
+
+"I hope you did not tell him anything about me?" asked Poppy suddenly.
+
+"No, I did _not_!" said Miss Cornell emphatically, and her annoyed look
+as she said it brought a ring of laughter from Poppy and a lovely
+mischievous glimmer to her eyes.
+
+Suddenly Sophie sprang up.
+
+"Great Scott! I _quite_ forgot to tell you--Brammie is coming to tea.
+That's why I came home so early. Do buck up, old girl, and make things
+look nice. Your papers are all over the place. I want the room to look
+as nice as possible for old Brammie."
+
+"Oh! blow Brammie," thought Poppy crossly. "I was just going to write
+something extraordinarily fine; now it will be lost for ever!"
+
+Nevertheless, she put her papers away with a good grace, tidied the
+room, laid the tea-things--as only she could--and went out to pluck
+fresh flowers for the vases. Sophie stood in her bedroom door buttoning
+a plaid silk blouse over her richly-endowed bosom.
+
+"That's ripping," she said approvingly. "Och! but you _can_ arrange
+flowers--I'll say that for you, Rosalind. Wouldn't you like to run home
+and change your dress, though?"
+
+"No," said Poppy, her head slightly on one side as she surveyed a great
+flaming hibiscus-blossom she had just put by itself amidst a heap of
+green on the mantlepiece. "Why should I change my gown?" she asked.
+"This is quite all right. And the man's coming to see you, Sophie, not
+me."
+
+"Oh, he really _wants_ to see you, and I think you ought to try and look
+nice. I'll lend you one of my silk blouses, if you like."
+
+"No, no, thank you," hastily. "It's awfully good of you, Sophie, but I
+think my gown is quite presentable."
+
+She looked absolutely charming in a pale-blue linen, perfectly laundered
+by Kykie; but Sophie considered anything less than silk very ordinary
+wear indeed.
+
+Poppy began to arrange her hair at the mantel-mirror, pulling out her
+little side-combs, running them through strands of hair, then plunging
+them in deeper, so that great waves leaned out on either side of her
+face and delicate fronds fell veil-wise just over her eyes. Then she
+took a bunch of green leaves and fastened them under her throat with a
+big, old malachite brooch she had.
+
+"Well, put some colour on your cheeks, or something," said Sophie
+discontentedly.
+
+Poppy flew into one of the fierce little rages that sometimes seized
+her. "I will _not_, Sophie! Why on earth should you suppose that because
+_you_ have a violent colour no one admires pale women? Do not make the
+mistake of thinking that everyone adores your type because _you_ do!"
+
+Sophie, utterly taken aback, was about to make a tart rejoinder, when
+there came a light tap with a crop on the front door.
+
+"Anyone at home?"
+
+Sophie flew to her room to complete her toilette, leaving Poppy to
+swallow her rage and open the door. A big, grey-eyed man, with a kind
+smile, was standing in the verandah. He was in riding-clothes and
+carried a crop in his hand.
+
+"Come in," said Poppy, without enthusiasm; adding: "Miss Cornell will
+not be long."
+
+"Are you Miss Chard?" said he pleasantly, and came in.
+
+He looked round in a friendly, boyish way that rather charmed her.
+
+"By Jove! How pretty you've made this place look! It's quite different."
+
+"Ah, I suppose you were here before, when it was a chamber of horrors,"
+said Poppy coolly. "I never saw a more impossible place in my life."
+
+He looked at her curiously as though greatly surprised. Then he said
+carelessly, and rather curtly she thought:
+
+"Oh, yes, I have been here before."
+
+He sat down in one of the easy chairs and Poppy began to put in order
+some books that had fallen from the book-case on to the floor. When she
+turned she found him still staring at her in that curious fashion, but
+without his smile. She missed it because it was a singularly
+heart-warming smile.
+
+"The last people here were rather addicted to antimacassars and
+glass-shades and things," she said, appearing not to notice his curious
+look; "and as it seemed to me a pity to let such things spoil a pretty
+room, I put them out."
+
+"Oh!" was all he vouchsafed. She felt chilled. But here Sophie burst
+into the room, very magnificent and highly coloured.
+
+"How _sweet_ of you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand up to her hair and
+the other outstretched, while her body performed the Grecian bend.
+
+"Rosalind, _do_ see about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure Mr. Bramham must
+be _parched_."
+
+Correctly estimating this as a hint to leave them alone, Poppy retreated
+to the kitchen, and did not reappear until she followed Piccanin in with
+the tea-tray. Sophie was saying, "_Do_ bring him around, Mr. Bramham. We
+should _just love_ to meet him."
+
+Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable curiosity to
+know whom she should _just love_ to meet; but she made no remark; merely
+sat down.
+
+"Shall I pour out tea, Sophie?"
+
+The latter nodded, but made no other attempt to include her in the
+conversation, continuing to monopolise Mr. Bramham entirely.
+
+In a short time Poppy became wearied of this state of affairs. After
+observing "Brammie's" boots, his fingers, his tie, the shape of his
+lips, his hair, the size of his ears, and his manner of sitting on a
+chair (all while she was apparently arranging the cups and looking into
+the teapot to see if the tea was drawing properly), the "eternal
+feminine," which is only another name for the dormant cat in every
+woman, awoke in her. She did not exactly want "Brammie" for herself, but
+she decided that he was too nice for Sophie.
+
+Immediately afterwards, Bramham began to realise that there was a
+charming personality in the room.
+
+"Do you take sugar?" blew like a cool little western wind into his right
+ear; while on his left, Sophie Cornell was bombarding him with
+instructions to bring someone to call.
+
+Poppy got her answer first, and a sudden glance of recognition fell upon
+the slim, pale hands amongst the tea-cups; then:
+
+"Certainly, Miss Cornell! I'll ask him to come, but I can't promise that
+he will. He's not much given to calling."
+
+"Bosh! I know he goes to the Caprons and the Portals--I've seen him with
+that horrid Mrs. Portal."
+
+"Ah! you don't admire Mrs. Portal?"
+
+"I don't see anything to admire," said Sophie. "She is not a bit smart,
+and her hats are simply awful!"
+
+"She is considered one of the most delightful women in South Africa,"
+said Bramham.
+
+"Oh, she may be," Sophie's air was unbelieving; "but I don't see where
+it comes in."
+
+She took her tea sulkily from Poppy's hand. Bramham looked bored. The
+little western wind blew again in his ear.
+
+"Perhaps her charm is not to be seen. Perhaps it is an essence--a
+fragrance----"
+
+Sophie scoffed at what she did not understand.
+
+"Oh, you and your old poetry----"
+
+"That's just what it is," said Bramham. "There's an odour of happiness
+about her that infects everyone who comes near her--no one cares a hang
+about what she wears or anything like that."
+
+"Well, I don't like her, anyway," said Sophie, now thoroughly
+ill-tempered, "and I don't see why you do. She's covered with freckles."
+
+That should have ended the matter, but Poppy's taste for torment was
+whetted.
+
+"Perhaps Mr. Bramham doesn't know her as well as you do, Sophie," she
+said softly.
+
+Sophie glared. Mr. Bramham looked amused. They all knew that Mrs. Portal
+could never be anything but a name to Sophie--that it was really an
+impertinence on her part to be discussing Mrs. Portal at all.
+
+"Do _you_ know her?" she retorted rudely.
+
+"Of course not!" answered Poppy. "I know no one in Durban except you,
+Sophie--and now Mr. Bramham," she smiled, a sudden smile of great
+sweetness at Bramham, and at that he gave her his whole attention.
+
+"That's dull for you, surely!"
+
+"Oh, no! I have plenty to do; and books to read; and how can one be dull
+in such a lovely place as Natal?"
+
+The sun came out in Bramham. He was a Natalian and proud of it.
+
+"I believe she gets up in the morning and goes out to see if the sun
+rises!" said Sophie, as if denouncing the conclusive symptom of idiotcy.
+
+The cold look with which Bramham had at first surveyed Poppy had now
+quite disappeared, and his grey-eyed smile was all for her. He also was
+a sun-rise man.
+
+"Do you like books?" he asked. "I can lend you any amount. We get all
+the new ones, and as soon as they're read the Lord knows where they go!
+I'll send you some up, if I may."
+
+"Thank you, that _will_ be good of you," said Poppy with enthusiasm.
+
+"Send her up all the old poetry books you can find," jeered Sophie.
+"Personally, _I_ like a jolly good yellow-back."
+
+Mr. Bramham looked extremely bored by this priceless piece of
+information, and more so still when she returned immediately to the
+subject of the men she was anxious to meet. Poppy got up and, opening
+the piano, began to play a little gay air to which she whistled softly;
+she never sang.
+
+"I'm just _dying_ to know him," said Sophie ardently. "He looks as
+though he has committed every sin you ever heard of. And how _did_ he
+get that fearful scar right across his face? Vitriol?"
+
+The little air at the piano stopped suddenly.
+
+"I really couldn't tell you. He is not communicative on the subject,"
+said Bramham drily. "But perhaps he will unfold to you--do go on
+playing, Miss Chard!"
+
+He adored music, and had an excellent view of an extraordinarily pretty
+pair of ankles under the music-stool.
+
+Poppy complied, but she changed the air to something savage that made
+Bramham think of a Zulu war-chant.
+
+"Well, I shall certainly ask him when I meet him. I wonder you haven't
+been able to find out! He lives with you, doesn't he?"
+
+"He is staying with me, at present, yes." Bramham's tone was full of
+weariness.
+
+"And that dark, strange Irishman everyone is talking about--Carson--he
+is staying with you, too, isn't he?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Are they great friends?"
+
+"We all know each other very well."
+
+Miss Cornell laughed genially.
+
+"I should say you do--isn't it true that you are called the three bad
+men all over Africa--come now?"
+
+"I'm afraid someone has been filling your head with nonsense. Who
+spreads these stories, I wonder?"
+
+"Ah, yes, that's all very well, but you know it's true, all the same.
+You are three dangerous, fascinating men, everyone says so, and the
+Kaffirs have names for you all. What is yours, Mr. Bramham?"
+
+"Kaffirs have names for everybody if one had time to find out what they
+were."
+
+"Oh, I know--_Umkoomata_--that's what they call you. Now, what
+wickedness can that mean?"
+
+"Who tells you these wonderful things, my dear young lady? You really
+have a lot of inside information about everything. You should start a
+newspaper." Bramham was slightly exasperated.
+
+"Oh, I know a lot more besides that," said Miss Cornell, shaking her
+finger at him archly. "About you, and Mr. Carson, too. He is going up on
+a secret expedition into Borapota for the English Government, isn't he?"
+
+"_Very_ secret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How the devil do these
+things leak out?"
+
+"Something or other, yes," he said aloud.
+
+"They say the English Government thinks an _awful_ lot of him."
+
+"Yes, he's a clever fellow," said Bramham, casually. No one would have
+supposed him to be speaking of a man dearer to him than a brother.
+Bramham did not wear his heart where it could be pecked at by the Sophie
+Cornells of the world.
+
+Poppy got up from the piano, and Bramham got up, too, and looked at his
+watch.
+
+"I must be off," said he, with a great air of business-hurry, which left
+him as soon as he got out of the gate.
+
+"Now, don't forget to bring Mr. Abinger next time," Sophie called after
+him from the verandah; "and that Mr. Carson, too," she added, as an
+afterthought.
+
+Poppy positively blushed for her.
+
+"Sophie, how can you! It was perfectly plain that he did not want to
+bring the man--and that he doesn't intend to, anyway. Are you really as
+dense as you pretend to be?"
+
+"Bosh!" said Sophie, retiring to the table and beginning to make a fresh
+onslaught on the bread-and-butter. "They'll turn up here in a day or
+two, you'll see. Isn't there any jam, I wonder?"
+
+"I shall not see anything of the kind. I wash my hands of you and your
+men friends. I didn't engage to meet anyone but Mr. Bramham, and I've
+done all I promised."
+
+She had done a little more than she had promised, as she very well knew,
+but observation was not Sophie's strong point, as her next remark made
+plain.
+
+"Now, don't be cross just because he didn't admire you. I told you to
+put on my silk blouse, didn't I?"
+
+Poppy laughed her entrancing laugh.
+
+"Do you really think men care for clothes, Sophie?"
+
+"Of _course_ they do! They love to see a well-dressed woman--especially
+when they don't have to pay for the dress. Lots of men won't even be
+_seen_ with a woman unless she's _perfectly_ turned out. Brookie is like
+that; and I'll bet that man Abinger is, too!"
+
+"Is he, indeed! Then remove him far from me. I'm afraid you won't suit
+him, either Sophie," with a touch of malice.
+
+"Why not? Don't I pay enough for my clothes? I dress far better than
+Mrs. Portal does, anyway. She always has on faded old linens and things,
+and I've only seen her in two hats since I came here--both of them
+_awful_!"
+
+"I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her."
+
+"Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear. _I_ think she is a frump.
+Capron's wife now _is_ good looking, and always dressed
+mag-_nif_-icently. But it makes a person sick to see the way they freeze
+on to all the decent men and never let them meet anyone else."
+
+"But do the men want to meet anyone else? If one woman is witty, and the
+other pretty, what more is there to be desired?"
+
+"You talk like a book with all the pages torn out, and the cover lost,"
+said Sophie irritably.
+
+Poppy laughed provokingly, and lay back in her chair, thinking--the
+whole thing was rather amazing. Abinger still here, and moving amongst
+pretty and witty women, whilst he pretended to be up in the Transvaal!
+His friend _Umkoomata_ the _Sturdy One_, whom she had told herself she
+would like to know, here too, visiting Sophie Cornell, whom he plainly
+didn't like. Nick Capron! How odd the world was! She began to ponder
+about _Intandugaza_, too--whether he was the mysterious dark Irishman
+who went on secret expeditions----
+
+"_Man!_ Rosalind," broke in Sophie suddenly. "That fellow Abinger is
+just crazy to meet me. We ran into each other as I was coming out of
+Brookie's office yesterday, and he gave me a look that made me go hot
+all over. He's got those bad eyes that make you feel curly all down your
+spine--_you_ know!"
+
+Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance of certain recent
+sensations still burning within her, she could not say that she did
+_not_ know; but her mouth expressed weariness and disgust.
+
+"It seems to me that you are talking about some kind of brute, Sophie,"
+she said.
+
+"Brute! Oh, I don't know," said Sophie, and laughed. The laugh sent
+Poppy out of the room with her teeth in her lip.
+
+"I can't stand Sophie any longer," she said to herself in her own
+garden, looking at the rose-red walls of the house and the flaming
+flowers on the plant before the door. As she went indoors her thought
+changed; she began to smile subtly to herself.
+
+"So Luce is in Durban all the time! He simply pretended to go away, to
+avoid discussing that matter of going out with me! And Mrs. Nick Capron!
+If I were to go out here, should I meet her? And would she recognise in
+me, I wonder, the little wretched vagabond of six years ago?"
+
+She reached her glass, and looked in.
+
+"I think not."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+
+Bramham and Carson sat smoking in the verandah of Sea House. Before
+them, not two hundred yards away, lay the sea, washing and rippling on
+the beach under the full of the moon. Behind them, through the open
+French windows a number of large woolly moths were _buzzing_ in and out,
+much intrigued by the light that shone through a pink silk lamp-shade,
+which had been made and presented to the establishment by Mrs.
+Brookfield, on the occasion of her husband's accession to Bramham's mess
+for six weeks. The electric-lights had been turned out to keep the room
+as clear as possible of insects. It was Bramham's house, and they were
+Bramham's native servants who stepped so gently, removing the
+dinner-things deftly without clamour, making no sound but the rustle of
+bare feet on polished boards and an occasional softly-spoken Zulu word.
+
+Bramham's household included no woman, but there was no better-appointed
+one in Natal. Having laid bare the gleaming oak dining-table, one of the
+_boys_ solemnly spread down its centre a strip of silver embroidery,
+while another placed two silver bowls of roses at each end, and removed
+the lamp with the pink shade to a side table. Afterwards the ice-bucket
+was replenished and fresh glasses placed near the spirit-tantalus.
+
+Having performed these duties with the greatest decorum and ceremony,
+they withdrew silently to the back regions of the house, where their
+solemnity slipped from them as suddenly as water slips from a Kaffir's
+skin. They disported themselves amongst the pot-washers and dish
+cleaners, the cooks and stable-boys, with many a merry snicker and
+laugh, chattering like magpies, clicking and clacking, and crying "Hah!"
+over the affairs of the _Old Baas_ (the master of natives is always
+_Old_ whatever his age) and the various other _Baases_ who sat at
+Bramham's board with regular irregularity.
+
+Ha! ha! where was _Shlalaimbona_ to-night, they inquired among
+themselves. It is true that he would sleep here in the house of the _Old
+Baas_, as he had now done for many nights, but where did he eat
+to-night? In the house on the hill, where a white star was hidden by day
+and by night?
+
+No; the information was forthcoming that he dined to-night at the house
+of Por-tal--he who was gay always with an angry face and had the wife
+whose hands could smooth away troubles.
+
+And where, the cook particularly desired to know, was _Bechaan_? He whom
+the world called Brookfield--who had slept in the house of _Umkoomata_
+for the matter of six weeks now? Where was he to-night? Followed the
+tale of the return of Mrs. _Bechaan_, with particulars amazing.
+
+_Vetta_, Carson's personal servant, gave an imitation of the lady, from
+which might have been gathered that her chief characteristics were a
+kangaroo-walk and a face which in contour and complacency resembled a
+camel's.
+
+In the meantime, _Umkoomata_ and _Intandugaza_ smoked in the verandah,
+which was like the deck of a yacht, broad and white-planked, and lined
+with a long row of every kind of easy-chair, a Madeira lounge, and a
+hammock with Union-Jack cushions.
+
+Carson, with his head far back in a canvas chair and his hands behind
+it, was smoking a cigar at the mosquitoes, sending them in shrieking
+swarms to roost in the roof. Incidentally, he was trying to persuade
+Bramham that the fine weather indicated a three-weeks' trip into
+Zululand, to get some good shooting.
+
+"I have another three weeks to put in, Charlie, and what is the good of
+loafing here, at a loose end?" He gave a glance at Bramham seated by
+him, pipe in mouth, hands in pockets, the picture of health and
+well-being. "And you are looking really seedy. A trip would do you
+good."
+
+Bramham immediately began to think himself precariously ill.
+
+"I know," said he uneasily; "I feel confoundedly slack. I must take a
+dose of quinine to-night. A trip would be just the thing to set me up,
+damn it!" He stared at the moonlit night, his eyes full of a wistfulness
+that was extraordinarily boyish in a man on the wrong side of forty. He
+thought of a lovely spot he knew up on the Tugela, where the moon would
+just be rising over a great Kop, and he seemed to smell the wood fires
+on the night air----
+
+"But I can't get away. I've got a big case coming on next month, you
+know." His face changed, the boyishness passed and the business-man
+reappeared. "Those fellows in Buenos Ayres are trying to do me up for
+five thousand."
+
+They smoked in silence for a moment or so, then Bramham continued:
+
+"My lawyer, of course, wants to see me almost every day on some point or
+another. I really couldn't get away at present, Carson. Why not take a
+run up to the Rand? By the time you are back I'll have those fellows on
+toast, and then we'll go off for a few weeks."
+
+"No," said Carson discontentedly, "everything is confoundedly dull on
+the Rand. I was sick of the place when I was there last month."
+
+"What's wrong with it?"
+
+"It is not the same as it was, Charlie. The old crowd has all gone away
+or gone to bits--Webb is in the Colony; Jack Lowther is mostly engaged
+(I think) in praying that his wife won't be too much for him when she
+comes out--she is on the water! The Dales are away. Bill Godley is up
+Inyanga way. McLeod's finances are in bits, and he's too busy keeping a
+stiff lip to be sociable. Clewer is now Public Prosecutor and has become
+a saint. Little Oppy has gone home. Solomon says he has met the Queen of
+Sheba at last, and expects that to account for his never being in
+evidence anywhere except in the stage box of the Standard Theatre."
+
+"Oh, damn it! disgusting!" commented Bramham.
+
+"And, anyway, the Rand air always chips the edges off my nerves, Bram.
+It's too high. Lord knows, I don't feel any too fit now! I believe I
+have another go of fever coming on."
+
+Bramham looked at him critically and affectionately. "You _do_ get some
+doses, but I hope you're not in for another, Karri!" he said. "By Jove!
+When South African fever puts her loving arms round a man she clings as
+only fever and a woman can."
+
+Bramham's face was clouded, but there was no real bite in his words. He
+had no quarrel with the clinging arms of women, or of fever. But he
+blamed these things for the look of bitter discontent and cynicism that
+lay across the beauty of the fine face beside him. Carson wore in his
+eyes the look, and round the mouth the marks, of one who has "wearied of
+every temple he has built"; or, as Bramham's thought expressed itself
+with no great originality, yet not without point--the look of a man who
+has got to the core of his apple and finds it rotten.
+
+"It's that look," Bramham told himself, "that gives women an instinct to
+comfort him; while if they had only let him alone from the first, maybe
+it wouldn't be there at all! And you can't comfort a man for his soul's
+bitterness, as though he has the stomach-ache. Besides which, Karri
+takes to comfort badly; he'd rather get a smack in the teeth any day
+from someone he can hit back!"
+
+Thus Bramham, musing and staring at the sea. In spite of its marred
+beauty, Carson's face seemed to him finer than that of any man he had
+ever known--and he knew most men of any consequence in South Africa.
+Meanwhile Carson, giving him another glance, wondered what kept him
+quiet.
+
+"Thinking of some woman, I suppose!"
+
+Presently Bramham did turn his mind to his own affairs.
+
+"I want your advice about something, Karri."
+
+"Fire away, Bram; let's hear all about her."
+
+At this Bramham, for reasons of his own, became slightly annoyed.
+
+"Don't be an ass, Carson."
+
+"Don't be a rake-hell, Bram. You know quite well you are always at some
+apron-string."
+
+Indignation dried up Bramham's eloquence.
+
+Carson mocked him further.
+
+"Why don't you lay the 'deadly doing' down, before it lays you out?"
+
+"Take your own excellent advice, my dear fellow. Or give it to Abinger;
+perhaps he needs it," said Bramham.
+
+"Poor old Abinger! I don't think it would be of much use to him. He
+scarcely does much 'roving by the light of the moon' these days."
+
+"Good Lord, no! the less moon the better in his case!" said Bramham
+grimly. "Where the deuce has he been all these years, Karri?"
+
+Carson shrugged.
+
+"Not much doubt about where he has been! He could give us some vivid
+inside information about the slow-fires that consume."
+
+They smoked a while in silence. Later, Bramham said:
+
+"Whatever Carmen Braganza found to do, she did it well! She told me that
+it had only taken her six months to learn to dance as she did--and _you_
+know how she danced! And, I suppose, if she had studied her man for a
+hundred years, instead of three months, she could not have got in a
+subtler revenge on Abinger--laying waste his looks like that! It's hard
+to believe what a magnificent specimen he was; and how mad the women
+were about him! Bah! it was a foreign devil's trick!"
+
+"But she _was_ a foreign devil. That was the point Abinger lost sight
+of."
+
+"Did you ever hear who the other woman was, Karri?"
+
+"Never. It was an amazing thing that it never leaked out, considering
+that the whole Rand was nose to trail. But the fact was, I suppose, that
+no one knew who she was except Abinger and his old housekeeper."
+
+"_And_ Carmencita herself. She swore to me afterwards that she had
+sprung upon them from behind a curtain in Abinger's room and slashed his
+face open before the other woman's eyes. Why she kept silence God only
+knows! More foreign tricks probably."
+
+"The other woman must have felt mighty uncomfortable all the months
+after, while Carmen stayed on dancing, and everyone was hot to find
+Abinger and get to the bottom of the mystery. There is no doubt that if
+he hadn't disappeared so neatly afterwards the police would have found
+some ground for rooting out the whole scandal for the public benefit,
+and the other woman's name would have been thrown to the beasts!"
+
+"Perhaps that was what Carmen was waiting for!"
+
+Carson got up to get another cigar and the subject dropped. When he came
+back Bramham reverted to his own troubles.
+
+"Colonial girls don't interest me at any time," he proclaimed
+aggrievedly; "especially the adventuress brand. I didn't think that
+even I was such an idiot as to get tangled up with one."
+
+Carson stared straight before him with a smile at the sea.
+
+"This girl is Brookfield's typewriter--confound him!"
+
+Carson's satirical eyebrows moved, but he said nothing.
+
+Bramham continued:
+
+"A tall girl, with a fine figure and a high colour--but what has that
+got to do with me?"
+
+"What, indeed?" an ironical echo from the canvas chair.
+
+This irritated Bramham.
+
+"If you think you're going to hear a tale of love you'll be
+disappointed. Nothing of the sort. It's a matter of highway robbery, if
+it's anything."
+
+Karri began to laugh.
+
+"Oh, come, Bram! This is not like you!"
+
+Neither was it. If Bramham made alms and oblations on strange altars, he
+was the last man to talk about it afterwards, or sigh over the stub-end
+of his cheque-book even with his closest friend. At this time, however,
+he was too much taken up with his grievances to defend his principles to
+Carson.
+
+"I don't say the girl isn't good looking," he now interpolated, as one
+who wishes to be quite fair and square; "and she _may_ be a good girl,
+for all I know," he added doubtfully.
+
+Carson grinned.
+
+"Any way, I'm quite sure the other girl is straight."
+
+"Great God of War! Are there two?"
+
+"What a fellow you are, Carson!" said Bramham peevishly. "Of course
+there are two, but the other one is quite different--English, I think;
+anyway, she's no Colonial. I don't know what to make of it, to tell you
+the truth, Karri. She's a friend of that Cornell girl and _that's_
+against her; yet she looks good----"
+
+"Do you mean that she is unlovely?" asked Carson with a wry smile.
+
+"No, I don't!" emphatically. "But the odd thing is that she didn't
+strike me at all at first; except as being bright and alive-looking--not
+like some of the dead ducks you see around these parts sometimes--then
+suddenly right under my eyes she blossomed out. You never saw anything
+like it--eyes, hair, feet, hands, everything--perfect; and her voice a
+melody."
+
+This was the most astonishing tale of highway robbery Carson had ever
+heard.
+
+"What next?" asked he.
+
+Bramham beat the bowl of his pipe against the balcony rail.
+
+"Cursed if I know what next!" he proclaimed. After a pause he added: "I
+wish you'd come and help me sift it out, Karri."
+
+Carson shrugged; his face grew a little weary.
+
+"I am not particularly interested in girls, Bram; I'm afraid I couldn't
+help you much."
+
+Bramham might have made a rude retort, but he didn't. He got up and
+leaned against a pole of the verandah, facing Carson.
+
+"Well, I should like to have had your opinion, Karri. What with that
+girl with the saint's eyes, and Brookfield's slippery ways----"
+
+"But where does Brookfield come in?"
+
+Bramham did not answer immediately. He appeared to be turning it over in
+his mind as to whether he should tell that part of the story at all.
+Eventually he roused himself to a point of indignation when he _had_ to
+tell.
+
+"Well, now, look here, Karri--this is the whole thing: About a month ago
+Brookfield came to my office with a yarn about his typewriter--pretty
+girl--good girl--knew her business, but fearfully poor, and he hadn't
+enough work to keep her going--would I give her some of my typing? It
+meant bread-and-butter to her, etc. _Of course_, I said 'Right!' But
+when it came to finding the work for her ... well, Milligan, my head
+man, put it to me that it meant taking away the typewriting from our own
+man, who can't do anything else, and has a wife and family ... and when
+I thought it over, anyway, I kicked at having a woman about the office.
+However, as I'd promised Brookfield to do something, I went round to see
+him about it and met the girl--Miss Cornell. I didn't take to her much;
+but she's poor, you know, and something had to be done to help her out."
+
+"I don't see what business it was of yours at all."
+
+"Karri, it's everybody's business when a woman's down on her luck--even
+if she has the shifty eye of Miss Sophie Cornell. All the same, I didn't
+contemplate having to tip up three hundred pounds, and I feel deuced
+sore about it."
+
+"Three hundred _what_?" cried Carson.
+
+"Well, look here, what was I to do?" said Bram sullenly. "Brookie
+badgered me into promising to do something; then the girl said she had a
+friend who wanted to come and join her, and if they could only get a
+little hole of their own they could set up an agency and take in work.
+Presently Brookie heard that some people called Lumsden were going to
+leave, and wanting to sell up their cottage--offered to sell the whole
+bag of tricks as it stood for three hundred, and Brookie said he would
+stand in for half if I would for the other half. I wasn't prepared to
+plank down one-fifty by any means, but the Cornell girl got hold of me
+and pitched me a long story about her friend, an English girl, who had
+got left in Kimberley by some people she was governessing for ... also,
+she was so full of gratitude about all our plans for them, that before I
+knew where I was I had promised. Well, Brookie asked me to arrange the
+thing quietly and take the house over from the Lumsdens in my name, as
+he didn't want to appear in the matter, because Mrs. Lumsden's sister at
+the Cape is a great friend of his wife's and he was afraid it might get
+to her ears. So I paid Lumsden one-fifty down on the nail, and the rest
+was to be paid in a month, and Miss Cornell settled in and the other
+girl turned up from Kimberley, and they've made the place all snug and
+seem as happy as sandboys. In fact, everything was going all right until
+this afternoon, when Brookie looms up with a face as long as a horse's,
+and says he's not prepared to pay the other one-fifty."
+
+"The little blackguard!"
+
+"Exactly. Just what I said to him. He said: 'Not at all!' Declared he
+hadn't let me in for anything.... I could get three hundred pounds any
+day of the week for Lumsden's place.... Just as if I could, or would,
+turn those two poor girls out now they're so happy! So, of course, I've
+just got to tip up the rest of the money and look pleasant ... and,
+after all, you know, Karri, why should I?... They're nice little women,
+and all that, and I'd gladly have done something, but three hundred!...
+I've troubles of my own, by Jove!... My wife doesn't live on Quaker Oats
+and barley water, by any means."
+
+"And then there's the pleasure of knowing you've been rooked. I never
+heard of such a piece of barefaced roguery in my life."
+
+"Well, what could I do? He said his wife was coming back unexpectedly
+and he couldn't raise the money."
+
+"You're three hundred different kinds of fool, Bram, if you let him rook
+you like that."
+
+"He's been too clever for me," grumbled Bramham, and shut his mouth on
+his pipe.
+
+"H'm! Mind the girl's not too clever for you too."
+
+A plaintive expression came into Bramham's face, mingled with
+irritation; he took his pipe out again.
+
+"My dear Karri, don't I tell you that I have nothing to do with the
+girl, or she with me? I was sorry for her and helped her out of a hole,
+and there the matter ends. I don't really regret the money--because of
+that other girl--but as you know, I am not a millionaire, and three
+hundred _is_ three hundred. What annoys me is that I should have been
+such a fool----"
+
+"Why did you pay? I should have refused."
+
+"Oh no, you wouldn't, because the women would have had to get out. No,
+that would never have done."
+
+"Well," said Carson, getting up and walking down the long verandah.
+"It's just as well that Mrs. Brookfield has come back. I wouldn't live
+in the house with Brookfield after this." He went indoors and began to
+negotiate a whiskey-and-soda.
+
+"Oh, come, I say, Karri!" Bramham got up and came and leaned in the
+doorway, one leg in the room and one in the verandah. "This isn't your
+affair, you know. Don't you get your back up about it. I've really no
+right to have told you; but you understand that I've been a good deal
+annoyed, and it's been a relief to speak of it. Of course, if Brookie
+had been here I should have gone into his room and blazed away at him
+after dinner and got rid of it that way. As it is, I feel better and
+there's no harm done. By Jove! what a glorious moon! Let's go for a
+tramp before we turn in."
+
+"Right!"
+
+They fortified. Later, without hats, they tramped off along the shining
+sands silvered by the light of a shimmering moon gazing at herself in
+the sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Brookfield's wife having returned, he came no more to Sea House. But he
+hailed Carson blithely at the Club next day.
+
+"What do you say to a drink, Karri?"
+
+"I don't want a drink," said Carson shortly.
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Don't ask me why not. I don't want one, that's all."
+
+"O God! look here! Now, damn it, why not?"
+
+Brookfield was as easily infuriated as Carson.
+
+On this occasion Carson stayed cool.
+
+"Because I don't like you--if you must have it."
+
+Brookfield at once became calm; he prepared to argue out the matter.
+
+"Karri," he began plaintively, "I want to tell you one thing. I like you
+and Charlie Bramham better than anyone in this rotten country, but
+there's no one who can annoy me more than you can----"
+
+Carson yawned, got up, and walked out of the room.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+
+It was a moonless night, but the stars were out in their legions, and
+the garden was full of a warm, silvery silence--the silence composed of
+the thousand tiny sounds and scents that make the charm and wonder of an
+African night. The moon-flowers were tolling their heavy, white bells,
+and some big flowering-bush, with pale, subtle blossoms, seemed to have
+all the fragrance of a beautiful woman's hair.
+
+Poppy walked in the gracious dimness, her bare, pale feet picking their
+way delicately amongst bright things lying like fallen stars in the
+grass. A green, clinging plant, waving long tendrils, clutched at her
+gown as she passed, and she broke it off, and, twining it into a crown,
+put it on her hair. It had tiny flowers dotted amongst its leaves. The
+trees shut her in from all the world, and it was as though she walked in
+some great, dim, green well.
+
+She had been all through the garden and was tired. At last she threw
+herself down and lay at full-length on the soft, short grass, in which
+there was no dampness, for a terrible pall of heat had lain all day upon
+Natal, and through the thin nainsook of her gown Poppy could feel the
+warmth still in the earth. She stared into the solemn velvet sky where
+Orion, in gleaming belt and sword, leaned above her, and the Milky Way
+was a high-road to Heaven, paved with powdered silver. Far away, in the
+town below, a church clock flung out eleven clear strokes upon the night
+air. Poppy turned on her side and lay with her cheek to the earth.
+
+"Old Mother Africa! What have you hidden in your bosom for me?" she
+whispered.... "I believe that if I sleep on your breast to-night I will
+dream my destiny. I love you, and you love me.... I am your child ... a
+poppy growing in your old brown bosom. You are the only mother I have
+ever known.... Whatsoever you give unto me, I will take and say it is
+good. I feel predestined to-night.... If I lay my ear to you, will I
+hear the foot-falls of my fate approaching?... What is there for me?
+Fame? Love? Those are the only two things in the world! ... but no one
+can have them both it is said.... Which have you for me, Mother? Will
+you tell me in a dream?... I will sleep here to-night," she said at
+last; and shutting her eyes she lay still.
+
+A man, coming very softly and wonderingly across the grass lawns,
+thought he saw a slim beam of moonlight lying there, and gave a startled
+exclamation when it sprang up and flickered into a cluster of tall
+shrubs.
+
+"That was an odd thing!" he said to himself. "I'll swear I saw.... And
+yet there is no moon to-night!"
+
+He stood long, looking into the darkness of the bushes until at last he
+imagined that he saw a moonbeam, shaped graciously like a woman's face,
+looking back at him. But when he approached it retreated. He stepped
+back again and it returned.
+
+"H'm!" he remarked; "I must have a bad attack when I see moonbeam faces
+on a moonless night!"
+
+The wedge of moonlight in the bushes seemed to him to give out two
+little gleams at that.
+
+"This is a fool's game," said the man aloud. "I must go behind these
+bushes and see where this thing begins and ends."
+
+Instantly the moonbeam disappeared altogether.
+
+"I thought so," he muttered. "Then it _is_ a woman, and I'm not
+delirious yet, though by the Lord my head feels.... I wonder if she will
+come back if I behave myself very nicely.... I'd like to see that face a
+little closer ... it looked.... Is it possible that I've made a mistake
+and this is not Portal's place at all? Perhaps I've found my way into
+Brookfield's zenana! It was _something_ like the gate Bram pointed out
+to me yesterday.... But what am I doing _here_, by the way?... I wish
+someone would tell me ... perhaps she will ... how can I get her to come
+back? ... it might be a good idea to light a cigar and let her see my
+guileless features.... I think I'll sit down too ... it's odd how queer
+I feel!" He sat down in the grass among the fallen stars, a tall,
+powerful figure in a light-grey lounge suit, and taking out a cigar he
+carefully lighted it, making as long a process of the lighting as
+possible. Then he threw away the remains of the match and looked up at
+the bushes, but his dazzled eyes could see no wedge of moonlight in the
+Egyptian darkness. It was there, however. And by the time the match had
+burnt his fingers, Poppy had been able to take a long absorbing look at
+what seemed to her the most wonderful face she had ever seen. She
+believed that in that short time she had read all that should, and
+should not, be written on the face of a man--strength, weakness,
+tenderness, tyranny, gentleness, bitterness, cynicism, gaiety,
+melancholy, courage, despair. But how came he here? How had he found
+his way through a locked gate? Was it possible that he had come
+through the _boys'_ compound? ... or by way of her secret hole in the
+summer-house? ... but he had not come from either of these directions.
+What did he want?
+
+In the meantime the man was holding his cigar between his knees and
+gazing in her direction.
+
+"O moon of my desire that knows no wane," he gently misquoted, "come out
+and talk to me!"
+
+His voice had a rustle in it of leaves before the wind. No woman could
+listen to it cold-hearted.
+
+"But what are you doing in my garden?" she said in her own entrancing
+tones.
+
+The man's veins thrilled in turn.
+
+"_Is_ it your garden? I was looking for the house of a friend. I'll go
+if you tell me to, but I'd much rather sit here and listen to your
+voice. I can't see you very well--" he finished with an air of
+complaint.
+
+"How did you get in?" asked Poppy. "Isn't the gate locked?"
+
+"My _boys_ have a name for me of which one translation runs--all gates
+open to him."
+
+"But it _must_ be locked."
+
+"It is not, I assure you. Though if this were my garden, it should
+always be--with me inside."
+
+"You talk very oddly," said she, trying to speak coldly; "nearly as
+oddly as old Khayyam himself ... I trust not for the same reason!"
+
+"You wrong me bitterly," he said. "I am trying to speak and behave with
+unusual decorum. It is the poetry of the night which affects me in spite
+of myself. You suspect some more occult reason, I see, but I can assure
+you on my honour that I dined quietly at the Club and drank no more than
+one whiskey-and-soda with my dinner."
+
+A silence prevailed.
+
+At last he said: "I think it would be a gentle and kind thing to do, to
+come and sit near me on the grass. I would like to look at you closely
+and see if you are a moonbeam I used to know long ago in Rhodesia."
+
+"I have never been in Rhodesia."
+
+"No? Then perhaps it was in my own land. The women there have voices
+like you.
+
+                  "There be none of beauty's daughters
+                    With a magic like thee,
+                  And like music on the waters
+                    Is thy sweet voice to me--"
+
+Poppy heard the rustle of leaves again through Byron's beautiful words,
+and a little shiver of happiness flew through her. She hoped he would
+sit there for ever, beguiling her with his sweet Irish tongue.
+
+"Tell me that you came from Ireland and I'll believe you with all my
+heart," said he next.
+
+"No; I was born out here."
+
+"In this bad, mad land?" His voice had a note of disappointment in it;
+he added: "I wish _you_ were mad and bad--but that is too much to
+expect, I suppose?"
+
+"Why do you wish it?"
+
+"Because then you would come and sit by me on the grass and talk to me.
+I am a very bad man, and I want company."
+
+"But," said Poppy softly, "_Il n'est jamais de mal en bonne compagnie._"
+
+"Voltaire in an African garden! O Lord! I _must_ be delirious," he
+muttered to himself. "I suppose you haven't such a thing as a pinch of
+quinine about you?"
+
+Poppy having very little about her at that time, began to laugh. Her
+laugh was rather like the first note of a bird's song, and she
+understood very well when he said:
+
+"O thrush, sing again!"
+
+"I think you must really be a little bit mad----"
+
+"If you would only be a little bit bad----"
+
+"Oh, I am--I often am----"
+
+"Where will you sit? On my right there is a patch of lesser darkness
+that smells passing sweet, and might be mignonette; on my left----"
+
+"No; I can't come over there; don't ask me."
+
+Her voice was tremulous now, for in her blood there was the strangest,
+wildest urging to come at his call. She wondered how long she could
+hold out against it--if he did not go soon.
+
+"Why should you want me to?"
+
+"Why? Because I want to know whether you are real ... or only a wraith,
+a streak of moonlight, a phantom of my brain. I want to be sure that the
+world is still going round, and that I am still in it. All I can see is
+a faint wedge-shaped gleam of white, crowned with strange stars. Have
+you tiny white stars in the darkness of your hair? Is your hair as black
+as the raven's wing, as night--as hell?"
+
+"Yes; it is."
+
+"And are your eyes long cameos of carved moonlight?"
+
+"They are indeed!"
+
+"Then Carissima--Adorissima ... come and sit on the grass."
+
+All the magic sweetness and sadness of Ireland was in his words. But he
+did not expect the slightest result from this impassioned entreaty, for
+he had long ago made up his mind that this strange witch of the night,
+who could throw the thrush's note into her voice, and quote Voltaire,
+and daintily but cynically suggest that he was drunk, was no simple maid
+to be beguiled by the tongue. This was a woman who knew her world and
+all the moves in the great game, and as a man who had played that same
+game often and well, and could appreciate a clever opponent, he awaited
+her next move, secure in the thought that it would not fail to be an
+interesting one.
+
+What he was wholly unprepared for was a glimmering fragrant presence
+beside him on the grass. The breath of her mouth was so close that he
+could feel it in little waves across his face. In the purple darkness he
+descried her white gown, and down each shoulder of it a long, long rope
+of blackness. The thought of a woman's hair had always some sorcery for
+him. He could never look at beautiful hair, even in the most
+conventional surroundings, without turmoil of flesh and spirit, inward
+curses at his own base nature, and revilings of all things feminine
+formed to lure the brain and bind the soul of man.
+
+At this moment every instinct of his being, every desire of his nature,
+fought with his self-control, desiring, inciting, almost compelling him
+to stretch out his hands to this witch-woman's hair and draw her nearer.
+Little beads broke out on his forehead; he dug his hands into the earth
+beside him. He could hear her breathing. A perfumed warmth came out of
+her and stole to him. He desired greatly that she should speak; but she
+did not; only sat there giving out perfume and weaving God knew what
+Ephesian spells to bind him. At about this time it seemed to him that
+this was a very fine dream and that a fine thing to do would be to get
+up and go hence before the dream could break. But that mood was soon
+inconstant. Silence enfolded them--a silence that was mutable and
+disquieting. At last he leaned towards her and spoke, dry-throated:
+
+"You win!" His voice was very low, and jarred like a fine instrument
+that has been struck.
+
+"Victory is to you! Tell me to go--or stay!"
+
+The girl, glowing and swaying beside him, could not speak; but her hands
+made some little motion to him that he interpreted as he wished. He
+grasped them in his, which were broad and powerful, but had eyes in the
+fingers: hands with the gift of discovery by touch. In that moment his
+heart and his purpose changed. At the greatest of all games he was no
+novice; but he had always played honestly as far as in him lay. It was
+his principle not to gamble unless the chances were equal for both
+players. As if they ever can be between a man and a woman! But,
+strangely enough, all honest men honestly believe it possible. By the
+feel of those soft hands quivering and burning in his, he had reason to
+believe that he had made a mistake--with regard to his opponent, at
+least.
+
+His head was far from clear that night in any case, and sitting there,
+with those hands in his, that fragrance ... those ensnaring plaits of
+hair ... was not conducive to coolness and sanity. It should be written
+down to him that he made an enormous effort to fight the sweet fumes
+that pressed upon him to cloud his brain and slacken his moral muscles.
+
+"Tell me something about yourself, Carissima," he said softly. "Tell me
+that you are married, and that your husband is a brute!"
+
+She drew her hands away swiftly. This was a jarring note that broke
+_her_ dream at least. What could he mean? How strange he was! Was it
+possible that he was mad? Was it at the bidding of a madman that the
+little cold stone in her breast was turning into something
+living--something that felt like a sweet red rose bursting into blossom?
+
+"Of course I am not married!" she said slowly and clearly. "I am only a
+girl of eighteen ... I do not understand why you say such things."
+
+He made a sound which might have been a groan.
+
+"My dear little girl, you must forgive me.... I believe I am ill
+to-night.... _Of course_ you are only a girl ... a good girl! ... gates
+and girls! ... gates!..." Suddenly he leaned closer to her and peered
+into her face, striving to distinguish the features he instinctively
+knew were lovely. "Who are you? What are you?" he strangely asked.
+
+"I am a poppy ... a poppy growing in Africa," said she, smiling subtly
+to herself, but trembling--trembling.
+
+"A poppy! ... then that is why your hair has that mystic odour!... 'Give
+me of poppy and mandragora.'... Poppies give sleep ... I believe that is
+what I want ... I am a sick man ... like Peter's wife's mother, I am
+sick of a fever ... and you are--a girl ... O Lord God!"
+
+"Oh, you really are ill!" she cried "Let me go to the house and get you
+something--some brandy. Rest here a while----"
+
+"Rest here, by St. Anthony!... No, no, nothing, it's nothing ... I'll
+go." He sprang up and stood at his full height above her. She, too, rose
+on her feet. She put out her hands to him, but he did not take them.
+
+"Good-night, Carissima ... I'll go home ... be good.... Girls should
+always be good ... and gates ... I must find the gate----"
+
+Strangely he went, striding away as silently as he had come through the
+darkness, and leaving her standing there on the grass. Later, she flung
+herself down and burst into bitter crying.
+
+"Oh, what a brute!... how I hate him!... how my heart hurts!... O God!
+what shall I do?... where has he gone?... I shall never see him
+again ... I wish to die! I wish to die!... Does he love some other
+woman?... Oh, I cannot live any longer ... he despises me because I am
+a girl.... How my heart hurts!... There is a knife in it.... If I could
+only hear him speak again!... I shall never see him again!"
+
+Suddenly she sprang up and ran swiftly across the grass, in the
+direction he had gone--the direction of the gate. But the gate was a
+long way off, and the way was dim. She ran into trees, and hurt her feet
+on stones and thorns, and presently, as she ran, she stumbled and fell
+over something or someone lying prone on the grass. In horror and fear
+she sprang away, but the figure did not move, only breathed heavily. She
+stole closer and peered down. It was he. She recognised the tall figure,
+the pale-grey clothes, the faint aroma she had recently known.
+
+"Oh, what has happened to you?" she tearfully cried, leaning over him.
+"Are you dead; are you dead?" Using her utmost strength she lifted his
+head and leaned it against herself as she half kneeled, half sat upon
+the grass. He was leaden-limbed as the dead, but his loud breathing
+reassured her; peering into his face she could see that his eyes were
+closed. She considered swiftly what thing she could do that would be
+best, presently resolving to run to the house and get brandy and restore
+him; and quinine, too, as he had asked for it--she knew that Abinger
+always kept a supply in his room. But first she would try and prop him
+against this tree-trunk. She dragged and strained at his arms, trying to
+move him, but he was a dead-weight. Tears of terror and distress
+streamed down her face and fell hot on his.
+
+"My dear! my dear!" she cried. "What is it with you?" Just as she made
+to let his head gently to the ground again, he stirred, and his
+breathing changed to that of a conscious, wakened man. In a moment he
+had dragged himself up into a sitting pose, with the tree-trunk at his
+back. She still remained kneeling by him--breathless, glad, afraid, and
+he leaned his handsome head against the laces of her bosom.
+
+"Are you better?" she whispered tremulously, joyously. "I am going to
+fetch you some restorative if you will let me leave you an instant."
+
+"You must never leave me again, dearest of all women," he said, and
+flung his arm about her. "I love you! Give me your lips." He slewed his
+head round suddenly and his mouth was hard on hers, dragging terrible
+kisses from it--kisses that shook her through and through as with some
+strange ague. He felt the trembling of her and laughed with his hand on
+her heart to still its loud beating.
+
+"'Your mouth is as sweet as bracket,'" he said, quoting some old song
+that sang in his brain, and kissed her again; then took her hair in his
+hand and wound it round his throat, holding the long plaits across his
+face and smelling them as though they were wonderful flowers.
+
+"And I never knew that your hair had this mystic fragrance!... What is
+it? It is not only sweet, it has some other essence, some fragrance that
+has a touch of earth in it, and pet, by God! it breathes of Heaven,
+too!... I think it is a flower that grows upon the eternal hills ...
+those strange red flowers.... Ah! poppies smell so, I think!... yes,
+poppies! poppies!... Dearest, if I were stricken blind and deaf in this
+hour, from ten thousand women I could search you out by this sweet scent
+of your hair."
+
+He kissed the soft sprays that fell over her eyes. "Speak to me!" he
+cried down on to her lips. "Speak to me in the voice I love!... _O! Ci
+risuoniamo in cristallo_ ... _wine in a crystal beaker_.... I never knew
+until to-night there was so beautiful a voice in the world!... Speak to
+me----"
+
+"If I could tear the heart out of my breast," she said, "I would put it
+into these two hands. I love you! I give you my life."
+
+"God forgive me, I will take it!... I will rob you of all your gifts!"
+
+"I give them to you ... I was born for this hour!" she whispered.
+
+A wave of the great sea that can submerge all the world rushed over
+them, beat them, drenched them, kissed them, crushed them to its breast;
+lapped them round, blinded them--flung them quivering and broken on the
+sands; left them.
+
+He said: "I cannot see your face, darling ... I will never forget this
+night. There has never been a night like it in all my life, and never
+will be again."
+
+"I love you! I love you!" her voice cried faintly.
+
+"I have loved you for so long," he said gently. "But always you have
+turned your face from me ... though I knew you were mine. I saw it in
+your eyes ... but always you denied me even the touch of your hand ...
+and I never knew that your hair smelled so sweet until to-night....
+_Loraine_, dearest of all women, kiss me again...."
+
+A terrible chill crept through the veins of Poppy Destin. Now she lay
+like one dead against the wild, loud-beating heart under the grey coat.
+Her own had ceased to beat; what words were these?
+
+He held her closer. The seeing fingers touched the fabric of her gown,
+and the slim, boyish body beneath.
+
+"Why, you're only a girl!" he muttered wonderingly. "You have slipped
+back to girlhood for love of me. God forgive me my sins! I am not worthy
+to touch your little bare feet, Loraine."
+
+At that she wrenched herself from his arms, sprang to her feet, and ran
+from him, blindly; she knew not, cared not, where. At one time she
+stumbled into a Christ-thorn bush and tore her hands and gown, but she
+felt no pain nor the warm blood running down. She only stopped at last
+because she found herself in the street with a rickshaw boy demanding
+where she wished to go. That recalled her to her senses and she stepped
+back hastily out of the light of his lamps, and stood in the shadow of
+the gate.
+
+"There is a _M'rungo_ in here who is ill. Come and help him to your
+rickshaw," she said, suddenly inspired.
+
+"Where does he want to go?" demanded the boy. "I go no more on the Berea
+to-night--only townwards."
+
+"Yes, that will do." She collected her thoughts hastily. He would
+probably not be able to give the boy his address, the safest thing would
+be to send him to the Club, where he had dined and was probably well
+known. She added, therefore: "He wishes to go to the Club."
+
+"Ker-lub!" repeated the boy and nodded sagaciously; _Ker-lub M'rungos_
+always paid well!
+
+Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gates and over the
+soft, dark lawns to the tree where the _M'rungo_ was sitting. She spoke
+in a clear, cold voice:
+
+"Here is a boy with a rickshaw; you had better let him help you home.
+You are certainly ill."
+
+He rose easily, and stood up like a well man, but his voice was hoarse
+and vague.
+
+"Ah, thanks, Mrs. Capron--you are always kind. I shall be all right in
+the morning. Good-night!" He went away muttering, followed by the
+rickshaw boy. Poppy stood like a stone woman.
+
+Later, she heard the gates clang and the rickshaw bell begin to tinkle
+down the long hill. Then she broke into dry sobbing, clutching at her
+throat with both hands, like one suffocating. At last some wild words
+burst from her lips.
+
+"Oh, I could kill myself to-night!... but first I will kill that woman
+Loraine!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+
+A storm shook the house next day when Luce Abinger returned. Kykie's
+shrill crescendo, expostulations and denials, were smothered like little
+frothy waves in the breakers of her master's wrath. Once the words "key"
+and "gate" came floating up the staircase and reached Poppy where she
+lay on her pillows, as she had lain until dawn, staring at the walls and
+the ceiling with dry eyes, and her pale lips took a wry and bitter
+curve. Later, pandemonium was extended to the yard and stables; then,
+after all these voices there was peace.
+
+Behind her locked door Poppy was vaguely thankful for safety from
+Abinger's fury and tyrannical questioning; and not all Kykie's
+cajoleries and threats could make her emerge.
+
+"Go away, Kykie. I'm not well. I want nothing," she repeated
+monotonously to all demands, until at last Kykie, from sheer weariness,
+obeyed.
+
+The strange emotions and events of the past night had left the girl
+numb. The ecstasy of hatred which had possessed her for that other
+woman, the birth-pains her heart had suffered, the anguish of
+humiliation and defeat had all passed. She felt nothing. She thought of
+nothing. Only sometimes as she lay there staring at _Monna Lisa_ on the
+wall, she had the fancy that she was a little wrecked boat, lying broken
+and useless on a beach where of late had raged a cruel storm.
+
+In the torrid afternoon hours she slept a while--dead, dreamless sleep,
+that revived her into at least some mechanical resemblance of herself;
+so that when Kykie once more pounded upon her door and demanded
+admittance with a tea-tray, she arose and let the anxious flustered
+creature in.
+
+"For goodness' gracious, and what do you look like, Poppy!"
+
+"Kykie, stop asking questions, or go!" was the answer given so fiercely
+that the old woman thought it wiser to say no more on the subject. She
+inveigled Poppy to sit down and take some tea and some delicately
+prepared sandwiches; in the meantime, she unfolded the tale of her woes
+to the girl's unhearing ears. Luce had beaten her best kitchen _boy_,
+and he had run away, so that she had been obliged to do all his work as
+well as her own. Every dish at luncheon time had been sent out untasted,
+and nothing eaten but bread and cheese--a terrible insult to poor Kykie!
+
+"And he's been prowling round the house like a lion all the afternoon,
+wanting to know what's the matter with you. Promise to come down to
+dinner, Poppy, or in the name of gracious me I don't know what I shall
+do."
+
+"I'll come down, Kykie," said Poppy dully. "What is all the trouble
+about?"
+
+"Just because the front gate was left unlocked all the time he was away.
+Of course, we little knew that it was open. But he said that I or the
+_boys_ ought to have found out and looked for the key in his room and
+locked it. _Me!_ Me that is on my weary feet in that kitchen all day
+thinking of his stomach--heavenly me! Take some more tea, my poor child;
+you look like a spook."
+
+"No, I have had enough, Kykie. Go away now, and see about your dinner.
+I'll be down."
+
+"Let me brush your hair first; you know you always like me to when you
+feel bad." The old woman took up Poppy's hair-brushes and approached
+the long ruffled plaits of hair; but the moment she touched them the
+girl sprang away from her like a white flame.
+
+"No, no, Kykie; never dare touch my hair again!" she cried violently.
+
+"In the name of--!" Words failed the indignant Kykie. She grabbed her
+tea-tray and floundered from the room.
+
+At dinner-time, white and fateful as a narcissus with a broken stalk,
+the girl faced Abinger's curious eyes across the table. But there was
+more than curiosity in his glance as it swept over her. The same
+peculiar quality was in it that had troubled her at their last dining
+together. Only now she did not notice it. If she could have given her
+thoughts to anything at all but weariness and despair, she might have
+wondered to see his very real concern at her appearance.
+
+"Why, what have you been doing to yourself?" he said. "You look half
+dead. Here, drink this wine at once." He poured out a glass of champagne
+for her, and would eat nothing himself until she had partaken of one of
+the _hors-d'oeuvre_. And when the soup appeared, he waved hers away
+and ordered an _entree_ to be brought at once. The wine flew into
+Poppy's cheeks and sent a little scarlet to her lips. She felt a warmth
+stealing into her being that had been sadly absent since the past
+midnight. Presently she smiled a little wan smile across at him.
+
+"Oh, I'm all right, Luce! Only I didn't sleep much last night ... the
+heat----"
+
+"We'll get out of this infernal place--" he began.
+
+"Oh, no, no!" she cried violently, then pulled herself together and
+added more calmly: "I like the place, Luce--and the garden ... is so
+lovely ... I should hate to go away."
+
+He was curiously amenable.
+
+"Very well, we'll stay if you say so. And I've been thinking over what
+you asked the other day, Poppy ... we'll change things. You could go out
+if you want to ... we must talk about it ... I want to talk ..." he
+halted a little in his speech--"to you."
+
+"I'm not keen about it any longer, Luce. I don't want to know people,
+after all. I think I'll shut myself up and work for ten hours every day.
+I mean to write. I will write a wonderful book. Surely people who work
+hard are happy in a way, aren't they, Luce?" Her voice and her eyes were
+wistful. "One would never want anything else--after a time--but to go on
+writing wonderful stories of life, would one?"
+
+He smiled grimly. She thought he was going to hurl a barb at her, but he
+only said with the same unusual gentleness:
+
+"Work will never fill _your_ life, Poppy. You are the kind of girl who
+will live the wonderful stories that the other women write."
+
+The lilac eyes in the _troublante_ face opposite gave a sad long look
+into his; then fell. She shivered a little.
+
+"Some wonderful stories are terrible, Luce," she said in a low voice.
+
+When she rose from the table, he said:
+
+"Come and smoke in the garden with me."
+
+She turned her face away from him, staring vaguely at a picture on the
+wall.
+
+"I don't care about the garden to-night, Luce. The drawing-room, if you
+like--but I am very tired."
+
+"I shan't keep you long. There is something I want to say to you."
+
+He followed the slim, upright figure walking with such weary grace and
+trailing her white chiffons behind her, to the drawing-room, where the
+lights were low, the windows open to the night scents, and the big
+chintz-covered chairs and sofas held out rose-clad arms to them. She
+went straight to one she knew well, and dropped into it, laying her
+cheek against the cool, shiny chintz. Close beside her was an open
+window, and Abinger came and stood in it, his face in profile to her,
+staring out into the darkness. His hands were clasped behind him tightly
+gripping a cigar which he had taken out but did not light. Poppy closed
+her eyes and the lids burned against them. She had a great longing to be
+alone with her thoughts. But Abinger had begun to speak.
+
+"Now--about your going out, Poppy, and meeting people, and all that; my
+chief reason for being disturbed when you mentioned the thing the other
+day was that I was unprepared. I hadn't had time to think out what was
+the best plan for you--for us. Of course, you know--it was very well for
+you to travel all over the place as you have done as my sister; but the
+thing is, that it won't do here. I can't spring a sister on people who
+know that I haven't got one."
+
+"No, I suppose not," said she vaguely, from the depths of her chair.
+
+"You realise that then?" he went on evenly. "Well, you see, you rushed
+me before I had been able to decide what was best to do, and of course I
+got mad. I'm sorry, Poppy, I beg your pardon, I'm sure."
+
+Poppy, dimly surprised at this unwonted penitence, would have murmured
+something, but he went on quickly:
+
+"Had _you_ any plan? How did you think of accounting to people--women
+particularly--for the fact that you were living here alone with me?"
+
+"Accounting to them?" she echoed faintly. "Will they ask me?"
+
+"Well, not exactly you, but they'll ask anyone who can tell them, and
+expect a satisfactory answer before they take you to their breasts."
+
+"But, Luce, you could tell them, or let it be known. I shouldn't
+mind ... _not_ how I first came to you, starving and ragged and beaten;
+I couldn't bear anyone knowing that ... but they could know how good you
+have been to me, bringing me up and educating me and being a guardian to
+me."
+
+"And you think that would satisfy them?"
+
+"I don't see why not. Of course, it is unconventional. But I believe it
+is not unheard of for a girl to have a guardian ... and guardians are
+not always old."
+
+"That is so. Unfortunately, my dear girl, there is one thing you omit to
+take into consideration."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"I happen to be a dog with a bad name."
+
+Poppy made a little weary exclamation. In truth, she did not see any use
+in prolonging the discussion. The desire to go out into Durban and meet
+men and women no longer burned within her. In her present state of
+weariness she believed she would never again have any taste for human
+society. Abinger, however, pursued the course of his remarks.
+
+"It is very sad, but my reputation is not one that would commend me to
+the good ladies of South Africa as the guardian-angel of a young and
+remarkably pretty girl."
+
+Poppy sat silent.
+
+"I regret to say that the very notion of my appearance in such a _role_
+would be received with ribald shouts of laughter by all the men who have
+the pleasure of my acquaintance, and in Durban and Johannesburg it would
+be considered the best joke ever told in the clubs."
+
+At last the girl was moved out of her apathy. She shrank back in her
+chair with her hands before her face. She thought of the Durban Club and
+a man in it listening and laughing.
+
+"O God!" she softly cried.
+
+"As for the women," continued Abinger calmly, still staring out of the
+window. "Well, generally speaking, all the women out here are of the
+genus crow, and their virtue is a matter of whitewash. Of course, there
+are degrees. Some of them have managed to assume four or five coats of
+it, and there's not a speck to be seen anywhere. These are saintly far
+beyond the understanding of you and me, my child, but as they mostly
+live in Johannesburg and we don't, we won't worry about them. There are
+others there too, who are only in the grey, or one-coat stage, and I've
+no doubt they would extend a claw of welcome to you, if you'd like to go
+and live up there. Durban is another matter altogether. This, I must
+tell you, is a city of the highest moral rectitude. The whitewash is
+within, as well as without. It flows in the women's veins. Some of them
+are solid blocks of it! I'm afraid, Poppy, that by the time their
+husbands have handed the highly delectable tale of my guardianship round
+the morning tramcars on the way to office, and discussed it in the
+evening while having their high-teas in carpet slippers, you will not
+stand much chance of being received into the 'white and winged throng'
+which makes up Durban society. You will be black-balled."
+
+Poppy sat up in her chair now, her eyes shining, her cheeks aflame.
+
+"Why do you say all this?" she demanded haughtily. "If it is as you say
+and through your fault, you must put the matter right. I do not wish to
+know these women, but I do not choose that they shall shake their skirts
+at me, because you have a vile reputation. You will have to find some
+way out----"
+
+Abinger looked away from the window at last and at her. There was a tall
+lamp to his hand, and he turned it up high, and she saw that he was
+smiling--a smile none the less unlovely because it had in it the same
+unusual quality of gentleness that had distinguished it all the
+evening.
+
+"But, of course, my dear girl!" he said with a note of surprise in his
+voice, "that is what I am coming to. I have told you these things simply
+to show you the impossibility of your living any kind of social life
+here, unless you are prepared to let everybody know the real state of
+affairs. When everything is known it will be a simple affair for you to
+take your place, and you will have an assured position that no one will
+be able to cavil at. It is for you to say now, whether or not you are
+ready for the truth to be published."
+
+Poppy's look was of amazement.
+
+"The truth? But what do you mean, Luce? You have been at great pains to
+tell me why they won't accept the truth."
+
+He stood looking down at her vivid face for a moment. There was an
+expression on his own that she found arresting too, and she said no
+more; only waited till he should speak. He turned the lamp down again.
+
+"Poppy," he said in a very low, but clear voice, "do you remember the
+old French Jesuit coming to the White Farm?"
+
+She stared at him. Her expression reverted to irritation and surprise.
+
+"Father Eugene? Of course I do. And I remember how furious you were,
+too. And how you stormed at each other in French for about twenty
+minutes, while Kykie and I stood wondering what it was all about."
+
+"Do you remember any other details? I'm not asking out of idle
+curiosity," he added, as she threw herself back impatiently in her
+chair. She wrinkled her brows for a moment. Her head really ached very
+badly, but she wished to be reasonable.
+
+"I didn't understand French at that time, but you explained the meaning
+of it all to me. You remember you took me into your study and told me
+how he thought you frightfully immoral to have a young girl living in
+your house without her parents, and that he wished you to make a solemn
+set of promises to him to the effect that you would be a good friend and
+guardian to me all your life. You said it was a fearful nuisance, but
+that if you didn't do it, he meant to get to work and find my proper
+guardians and make things generally unpleasant."
+
+"You remember that clearly?"
+
+"Certainly I do, and so do you. What is the use of this tiresome
+repetition? It is quite beside the point."
+
+"No, it is not. Just one more question--you remember going back into the
+dining-room to the priest and making the promises, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes; we stood before him and _you_ made the promises. I didn't--though
+I certainly said '_Oui_' whenever you told me to, and some words after
+him once. It was then you gave me this ring that I always wear. By the
+way, Luce, I'm tired of wearing it. You can have it back."
+
+"Thank you, my dear girl; but I wouldn't think of depriving you of it.
+It is your wedding-ring."
+
+"My--? I think you have gone mad, Luce."
+
+"Not at all. That is your wedding-ring, Poppy. When we stood before the
+priest that day we were being married."
+
+She burst out laughing. "Really, Luce," she said contemptuously, "you
+are developing a new form of humour. Does it amuse you?"
+
+"Not much," he said drily; "not so much as it does you, apparently. I
+don't see anything funny in a marriage ceremony. I remember being
+exceedingly annoyed about it at the time. But I have come round since
+then." As he went on, Poppy ceased to smile contemptuously; when he had
+finished speaking, her mouth was still disdainful, but she was
+appreciably paler.
+
+"Of late," said Abinger in a voice that had a meaning, "I have begun to
+find the fact that you are my wife wonderfully interesting."
+
+She sprang up from her chair.
+
+"This is the most ridiculous nonsense I ever listened to!" she cried
+excitedly. "I don't want to hear any more about it. I refuse to listen."
+She turned to go, but he caught her by the wrists and stood holding her
+and looking into her deathly pale face.
+
+"Am I the kind of man who wastes time talking nonsense? Kykie was a
+witness. She knows we were married that day."
+
+"Kykie! I'm _sure_ it is not true. She has never spoken of it----"
+
+"I forbade her to do so. I told her that she'd go out at a moment's
+notice if she did. Further, as you are so very hard to convince, Poppy,
+I will show you the marriage certificate signed by Father Eugene."
+
+He took a paper from his pocket, and held it towards her. But she had
+suddenly sunk back into the big chair with her hands over her scared and
+ashen face.
+
+"Oh, Luce! Luce!" she cried pitifully. "Say it is not true! say it is
+not true!" and burst into wild weeping.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+
+Sophie Cornell sat at her breakfast-table looking pasty-faced and
+unwholesome, without any colour on her cheeks, her good looks
+effectively disguised in hair-wavers and a hideously-figured heliotrope
+dressing-gown.
+
+Poppy stared at her in dull amazement, wondering how she could have so
+little vanity as to allow another girl to see her look so unlovely.
+
+"She will probably hate me for it, but that doesn't matter," was the
+thought that came into her mind as she encountered Sophie's eyes,
+sleep-bedimmed, but distinctly resentful, taking her in across the
+table. As a matter of fact, Sophie's vanity was so great, that it never
+occurred to her that she could appear unlovely to anyone--even in her
+unpainted morning hours. Her resentfulness was roused entirely by reason
+of the fact that this was the first time she had laid eyes on her
+assistant typewriter for a full three weeks, and that even now the
+recalcitrant only came to say that she didn't feel quite equal to work.
+
+"Och! nonsense!" said Miss Cornell, eyeing her coolly. "You look all
+right. A little pale, but, then, you're always as washed out as a
+_fadook_."[4]
+
+  [4] Dishcloth.
+
+Poppy's lips performed a twisted, dreary smile. She was entirely
+indifferent to Miss Cornell's opinions of her looks. To anyone's. As she
+stood there in the little black muslin gown she always wore to come to
+Sophie's house in the morning, she might have posed for a
+black-and-white drawing of Defeat.
+
+Sophie saw nothing but the prospect of another two or three days' hard
+work, and she didn't like it.
+
+"You're a fine sort of assistant," she grumbled, her mouth half full of
+toast. "And another thing: Bramham's been here several times inquiring
+for you, and the whole place is littered up with parcels of books and
+magazines he has sent you. I couldn't think what excuse to make for his
+not seeing you, for, _of course_, he thinks you live here, so I told him
+at last that you had a touch of dengue fever and wanted quiet. He's
+stayed away ever since, but he's been sending flowers and fruit. You've
+evidently made a mash."
+
+Poppy had no inclination to disguise her feelings from Miss Cornell.
+
+"Sophie, you make me sick!" she said and turned away.
+
+"Yes, that's all very well; but you made a bargain with me, that you
+would meet Bramham sometimes, and if he likes you, so much the better.
+You don't seem to know when you're lucky!"
+
+"Lucky?" Something broke from her lips, that might have been only an
+exclamation, but had the sound of a moan.
+
+"Pooh!" said Sophie. "Some fellow's been kidding you, I suppose, and you
+don't like it. Oh! I know all about it."
+
+"You know some wonderful things, Sophie!" said Poppy at last, in her
+soft, low voice. "Your mind must be a treasure-house of dainty thoughts
+and memories."
+
+But irony was ever wasted on Sophie. She got up and stretched her
+well-shaped arms above her head until the heliotrope sleeves cracked and
+gaped at the seams.
+
+"Well, all I can say is that you are a donkey not to want to meet nice
+fellows when you get the chance. Don't you ever intend to marry?"
+
+Poppy, who had gone over to smell some flowers, probably Bramham's,
+which were clumsily bunched in rows on the mantel-shelf, faced her with
+an air of insolent surprise.
+
+"What can that possibly have to do with you or your men visitors?"
+
+"Oho!" said Sophie aggressively. "You won't get many chances of marrying
+without _my_ assistance, my dear. Perhaps you don't know it, but men
+don't come to Africa with the idea of entering into the holy state of
+matrimony. When they _do_ marry, it's _quite_ by accident, and the girl
+has to work the accident. You don't know much about that business, my
+child," she added contemptuously. "Better take a few lessons from me."
+
+"Why? Have you been very successful?" Poppy's tone was one of polite
+inquiry. The other girl flushed.
+
+"Jolly sight more than _you'll_ ever be, with your white face and thin
+figure," she retorted, adding pleasantly: "Your eyes remind me of a
+snake's."
+
+Poppy sauntered carelessly towards the door.
+
+"And _you_ remind me of the man who, when he was getting the worst of a
+discussion on original sin, said to the other man: 'If I were you, I
+would not drink with my mouth full.' I am quite willing to believe
+anything you like to tell me about your conquests, Sophie; only please
+don't bother to hunt a husband for me. The good God kindly supplied me
+with the same instincts as other women. I can do my own hunting."
+
+She went out and closed the door behind her with a gentle, sad movement,
+as though she was shutting in the light of the world and regretted doing
+it. A little colour had come to her face. She felt better.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Abinger had gone away. This time his destination was really the Rand,
+for the _boys_ had taken his luggage to the station and seen him leave.
+He had told Kykie that he would be away for six weeks at least.
+
+After that stormy scene in the drawing-room, when he had left Poppy
+wrapped in wild weeping, nothing further had passed between them on the
+subject of their marriage. Indeed, she had not seen him again. But he
+had left a letter for her, and enclosed was a copy of the marriage
+certificate, to show her that he had not been inventing. He further
+informed her that Father Eugene was still alive, and that by writing to
+the Jesuit Monastery in the Transvaal she could at any time ascertain
+the simple truth. The rest of the letter was written in a strain of
+casual indifference, that Poppy found singularly reassuring. His
+attitude appeared to be that of a man rather bored with the subject
+because it bored her; but, facts being facts, he plainly felt it his
+duty to show her that there were less pleasing and many more boring
+things in life than to be called Mrs. Abinger. He told her first of all,
+not to be a foolish girl and make herself ill about nothing; that it
+would be in every way to her advantage to make her _debut_ in South
+African society as the wife of a well-known man.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I have not disguised from you," he wrote, "that I have what is called a
+bad reputation, but that will not affect you--rather redound to your
+credit in fact, since the wives of rakes are always looked upon as
+possessing something unusual in the way of brains and charm. As my wife,
+your lines will be laid in not unpleasant places. You may have as many
+friends as you like, and I will allow you five thousand pounds a year to
+entertain them and yourself upon. In making the matter public, no
+painful details need be gone into. All that is necessary is that you
+give me permission to make the truth public. Tell me when you are ready
+to assume the title of Mrs. Abinger--I'll do the rest. In this, dear
+girl, as in all things, pray please yourself. Only, remember that if
+you don't choose to accept the situation, the situation still
+remains--_we are married_. And it is only under the conditions stated
+that I can permit you to live any other life than the one you have lived
+so long."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When first she received this letter, Poppy read it and flung it from
+her. But in the calm that came after a week's intolerable torment of
+longing, and despair, she read it again. The fierce fires that had
+consumed her were burning low then, and cast but a faint and dreary
+flicker down the pathway of the future. That future looked a land all
+shadows and gloom, whatsoever pathway she chose to take towards it. The
+simplest thing to do seemed the most desirable; and surely it was
+simplest just to let things stay as they were! She would tell Luce
+Abinger that her choice was to let things remain as they had always
+been, and then she would live on, drifting through the weary days and
+months and years, working a little every day, until work at last would
+become everything and fill her whole life. Perhaps, as she had missed
+love she would find fame. It did not seem to matter very much whether
+she did or not.
+
+All she asked was to find peace. Knowing very little of life she did not
+realise that in asking for this she asked for everything. For no woman
+finds peace until she has tasted of all the poisoned dishes at the
+banquet of life--and then the peace is either of the dead body or the
+dead mind.
+
+After those seven days of suffering, Poppy sat with her broken
+love-dream, like a pale child with a broken toy. She thought because she
+was numb that all was over then, except the dreary living through the
+dreary days. But the young have a great capacity for suffering, and she
+had forgotten how very young and strong she was, and how hot the blood
+ran in her veins. After a day she was back again in the trough of the
+sea. When at last she emerged she was a child no longer, but a woman
+with something to hide from the world--a wound that bled inwardly and
+would always ache.
+
+Abinger had been gone nearly three weeks then, and wrote to say that he
+should probably be away for two or three months, as he was selling all
+the property he owned on the Rand, and the final settlements would take
+him quite that time. The thought of the long respite from his presence
+was a great relief to the girl, and by unconsciously lifting a little of
+the strain from her mind helped her to come back the sooner to her
+normal self. Kykie's delight was enormous when Poppy was to be seen
+wandering aimlessly through the house once more and into the garden;
+though _there_ she never stayed long now, and there were parts of it she
+did not go near.
+
+From Kykie she learned incidentally, and without resentment, that the
+front gate was locked once more and the key safe with Abinger. That
+reminded her of her secret exit, and then she remembered Sophie Cornell,
+whose image had quite faded from her memory. It occurred to her that she
+ought to visit her self-imposed employer, and make her excuses and
+farewells as simply as possible, for something in her now strongly
+repudiated further association with the Colonial girl.
+
+The visit and quarrel had braced her in a remarkable way. Afterwards she
+felt that in spite of all she was really alive still, and she found
+herself regretting that through Sophie's garden must lie her only way
+into the world beyond. The restrictions of the house began to irk her,
+and she was afraid of the garden. She felt she _must_ go out. She
+determined to visit the sea and explore the Berea; choosing such times
+as would be safest to make entries and exits through the little opening
+in the passion-flower house. In the early mornings she knew well that
+wild horses might pass through Sophie's garden without her knowing or
+caring--and again, under cover of darkness it would be simple to slip
+through unseen. She told Kykie that in the future she always desired
+dinner at six-thirty; and Kykie, who had grown curiously meek and
+obedient of late, made no demur. This arrangement gave Poppy a long
+evening to herself, and she had never allowed anyone to intrude upon her
+evening hours. It would be supposed that she spent them in the garden,
+for always she had found great pleasure in wandering in the moonlight,
+and in the early morning hours, and the servants were well acquainted
+with her habits.
+
+So she took to going forth. As soon as darkness fell she would depart,
+darkly-cloaked and with her head draped mantilla-wise, to see what the
+forbidden world looked like "'twixt gloam and moon." Her favourite route
+was by the Musgrave Road, a long thoroughfare that leads to the top of
+the Berea. Over gates would come to her glimpses of charmingly-lighted
+rooms, and pretty women sitting down to dinner, or sauntering with their
+husbands, enjoying the gardens after the heat of the day. Past one house
+and another she would go, catching little pictures between the trees, at
+windows, and through open doors--sometimes an exquisite little vision of
+a mother romping with her children and kissing them good-night; or a
+husband standing back with a critical cock to his head to get a better
+view of his wife's new gown, or the way she had done her hair. She never
+stayed for the kiss that would come after the verdict, but flew swiftly
+on with her eyes suddenly hot and teeth set in her lip. Other sights
+were amusing: a face contorted and a head and arm screwed in the agony
+of fixing a collar-stud; a man grooming his head before an open window
+with two brushes, and a drop of something golden out of a bottle. Once
+she saw quite a sensible-looking man practising a charming smile on
+himself in the glass, and at that could not restrain a little jeer of
+delight at the "nobler" sex. When she caught children at windows in
+their nightgowns, peering out, she just gave a weird "_Who! Who!_" like
+the lesser-owl common in Natal, and they scuttled like rats.
+
+These things affected her variously. Times she mocked the peaceful
+citizens of Natal for Philistines and flesh-potters. Times her heart
+came into her throat and tears scalded her eyes, and she felt like a
+prowling hungry jackal. But most often she flung a bitter laugh to the
+wind and said:
+
+"I have the best of it--better prowl the veldt lean and free, than be
+caged and full."
+
+Once or twice she had occasion to recall a French saying she had come
+across while her French was in the elementary stage. She had studied the
+phrase for an hour or two, and applied the dictionary to it, and
+eventually it read to the effect that if all the roofs in Paris were
+lifted one night the devil might be observed in every house lighting the
+fires to make the pots boil. The remark seemed to have lost some of its
+original point in translation, but it still bore an air of significance,
+and came singularly to hand once or twice, startling Poppy to the
+thought that Paris and Durban are both under the same sky, and that fuel
+of fire is the same all the world over. On these occasions it was she
+who scuttled, and she did it with good-will, almost cured of her taste
+for living pictures. But the pastime was fascinating to a lonely and
+lonesome creature, and she returned to it.
+
+Many of the houses she passed stood hidden away in thick gardens, with
+nothing to indicate their presence but glimmering lights and voices, or
+sometimes music, or the clank of dinner plates. But if sound attracted
+her, Poppy was not deterred by gates or gravelled paths. With a fleet
+foot, a sweet tongue, and an excellent imagination, there is little to
+fear in forbidden gardens, or anywhere else for that matter. The chief
+thing is to have the bump of adventure sufficiently developed!
+
+Sometimes she found that there were others abroad for adventure
+also--some of these of a sociable temperament most inconvenient. Once a
+magnificent person in evening-dress followed her so persistently, that
+she was driven at last to the expedient of walking under the glare of a
+street lamp with her shoulders humped and her skirts held high enough to
+display to all who took an interest in the matter a pair of knock-kneed
+legs and horribly pigeon-toed feet. The device worked like magic; she
+was followed no further.
+
+On another occasion she allowed a youthful Romeo to sit beside her on a
+bench, only to discover that she was afflicted with a painful sniffing
+cold--about forty sniffs to the minute. She was soon left sole occupant
+of the bench.
+
+There were other _contretemps_. Once her evening out cost her sixpence,
+and she was very much annoyed, for her stock of sixpences was low.
+Abinger paid all bills and did not expect her to have any need for
+money. It was her habit, if she saw a native policeman eye her
+suspiciously, to step quietly up to him with a most grand air and tell
+him to send her a rickshaw when he reached the main road, as she was in
+a hurry and could not wait for the car. The minute he was out of sight
+she would scud down a side street. But upon this occasion a rickshaw was
+so close at hand that she was obliged to take it and boldly direct the
+boy to Sophie's front gate. Arrived there, she ran full into a man
+coming out. The light from a passing car showed her his face, dark and
+dissipated, but keen. He was carrying his hat in his hand, as men do on
+hot nights, and she observed that his hair was parted down the centre
+with a curl on either side.
+
+"Ah! What Luce calls a German from Jerusalem!" was her comment.
+Incidentally she smelled a smell she was familiar with, from daily
+contact with Sophie and sheets of MSS. This made her certain that it was
+the redoubtable "Brookie" himself whom she had encountered.
+
+Often as she glided like a wraith through Sophie's garden the sound of
+laughter and the flavour of smoke came to her through the trees, or
+Sophie's voice, outraging the gentle night by some sentimental ballad.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One late February evening, when all the world was steeped in silver
+light, Poppy's heart seemed to her to be lying very still in her breast.
+As she walked over the trembling moonlight shadows a curious feeling of
+happiness stole across her.
+
+"Am I at peace already?" she asked herself wonderingly at last. "Has my
+soul forgotten what I did to it, and how I found it only to give it away
+to a man who called me by another woman's name?"
+
+It must have been late, for carriages and cars passed her, bearing
+homewards people who had been to the theatre or dining out. She caught
+scraps of conversation concerning the play, and little intimate remarks
+about people were flung freely to her upon the night wind. But her ears
+heeded nothing, for she had a companion who singularly engrossed her
+attention. She believed it was herself she walked with--a new-found,
+detached, curiously-contented self. She did not know that it was Destiny
+who had her by the hand.
+
+At the top of the Berea Hill, not far from her own gate, she stopped a
+moment under the deep shadow of some wayside trees. All in black she
+seemed part of the shadow, and she stood very still, for she heard
+rickshaws coming up the hill, and she thought she would let them pass
+before she essayed the glare of a street lamp a few yards ahead. As it
+happened, the first rickshaw stopped at a double white gate which was
+full under the light of the lamp. A man descended, turned, and held out
+his hand, and a woman stepped daintily down. She was a thin, slim woman,
+wrapless, in a black satin gown with silvery sleeves. She looked as
+interesting, though not as wicked, as the Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. In
+the lamp-light her hair, which was dark brown, appeared to have seven
+red lights in it. Her face was neither beautiful nor pretty, but
+well-bred and harmonious, with a sort of glimmering gaiety about the
+eyes. Poppy instantly recognised her as the woman she had seen on the
+day of her first arrival in Durban and had subsequently ascertained to
+be Mrs. Portal. She was carrying on a desultory conversation with the
+man, and they continued it as he stood feeling in his pockets for money
+for the _boy_.
+
+"Why don't you flirt with her yourself, Billy--Bill?" said she. "You
+would be good for her and she wouldn't do you any harm!"
+
+He was a heavily-built, sullenly-handsome man, who looked as though he
+had never said a good-tempered thing in his life.
+
+Poppy was astounded when he blithely answered:
+
+"Darling, when there is only one woman in a man's life, he can't
+convincingly imply to the woman he is with that she is the only one in
+the world----"
+
+Mrs. Portal fell to laughing.
+
+"Billy, you fraud! You know you always carry along on top-ropes when I'm
+not there."
+
+"Not with Mary," the man asseverated. "Mary would want too much of a
+deuce of a lot of convincing. She would smell a rat."
+
+"Don't be subtle, Billy," cried Mrs. Portal, laughing and going in at
+the gates.
+
+The other rickshaw drew near, and "Billy" waited to receive it. As it
+passed Poppy, two scraps of conversation floated to her.
+
+"I've a great mind to persuade Nick to go with you--and to take me too,"
+said the woman, laughing a little.
+
+"Yes, why don't you? 'Better a bright companion on a weary way, than a
+horse-litter,' you know. But it would be too rough a journey for you,
+I'm afraid."
+
+The man's voice sent all the blood in Poppy's body rustling to her ears.
+She burnt and glowed at the thought of his nearness. _Now_ she knew that
+it was Destiny who had walked with her. Now she knew that peace would
+never be hers so long as this man's feet trod the earth.
+
+The rickshaw appeared to be filled with something resembling yellow
+foam--billows and billows of it fell everywhere, even upon the shafts
+and the folded hood behind. The moment the bearer stood still, the man
+called Billy came forward and put out his hand to the woman in the
+rickshaw, and she regally descended. The watching girl, through eyes dim
+with jealous pain and anger, seeking nothing but the dark face that came
+after, still saw that the woman was very beautiful and recognised in her
+the heroine of her childhood's days. It was, indeed, Mrs. Nick Capron!
+
+She also was cloakless, with magnificent bare arms and shoulders
+gleaming white above the rippling waves of yellow chiffon. Her hair
+rippled and waved too, and shone in masses on her head, and diamonds
+twinkled in it. She seemed almost too bright a vision for the naked eye.
+
+"And what did you think of _that_ for a play?" asked the sullen-faced
+one as he opened the gate.
+
+"Enchanting," said she vivaciously. "So full of introspection and
+retrospection, and all that, and----"
+
+"Yes, and mighty little circumspection," was the ready answer, and they
+passed in, laughing.
+
+The last man, moving with casual deliberation, came slowly to the
+side-walk, and stood there speaking to the bearer, a powerful Zulu, as
+he paid him, asking if he had found the pull uphill too hard. The _boy_
+laughed in response and shook his winged arms boastfully, saying:
+
+"_Icona._"
+
+Afterwards both rickshaws jingled away. The man should have followed the
+others in, but he stood still. He stood still, with a yellow chiffon
+wrap flung over his arm, and distinctly snuffed the air.
+
+"Poppies!" he muttered. "What makes me think of poppies?... God! I could
+almost dream that dream again...."
+
+For an instant his brilliant moody eyes stared straight into the black
+shadows where Poppy stood, watching him with both hands on her heart.
+Then the voices of the others called, and he turned abruptly and went
+in.
+
+Poppy fled home to dark, sad dreams.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+
+One blue-eyed morning, about a month after Abinger's departure, Poppy
+was down on the sea-beach. She sat in the loose sand, and ran her hands
+restlessly in and out of it, making little banks about her. She was
+wondering if she would be able to sleep if she came out and lay in these
+cool white sands some night. She was so tired of never sleeping.
+
+The sun had not risen, but there was a pale primrose dado painted across
+the East.
+
+Presently the girl became aware of another woman sauntering along close
+to the edge of the sea. She was digging a walking-stick in the sand
+every few yards and watching the hole fill with water afterwards. She
+carried the tail of her white-linen skirt under her chin, and her feet
+all wetted by the little incoming waves, had caught the pale light and
+seemed shod with silver as she walked, singing a little French song:
+
+                    "Le monde est mechant, ma petite,
+                      Avec son sourire moqueur:
+                    Il dit qu'a ton cote palpite
+                      Une montre en place du coeur."
+
+When she came opposite Poppy she left off singing and stood for a minute
+looking at her. Then came slowly sauntering up the beach to where she
+sat. Poppy recognised Mrs. Portal. Mrs. Portal recognised the
+Burne-Jones eyes; but she wondered where the gladness of living was all
+gone.
+
+"You look like a pale, sea-eyed mermaid, forsaken by your lover," she
+said. "Why aren't you combing your hair with a golden comb?"
+
+"What is the use, if my lover is gone?" said Poppy, with a smile.
+
+"Oh! if you did it a new way he might come back," laughed Mrs. Portal,
+and sat down by her side. "I thought I was the only sun-worshipper in
+Durban," she remarked, as one continuing an ordinary conversation with
+an old friend. "I have felt rather superior about it, and as lonely as a
+genius."
+
+"I am often down here in the morning," said Poppy, "but it must be
+lovely at night, too. I was thinking that I should come and sleep here
+one night when it is moonlight."
+
+"_Never_ sleep under the moon," said Mrs. Portal darkly, "or an awful
+thing will happen to you--your face will be all pulled out of drawing."
+
+Poppy unconsciously put up one hand and felt her face. But Mrs. Portal
+burst out laughing. "You have done it already? Well, she must like you,
+for she hasn't done you any harm."
+
+"I like _her_," said Poppy.
+
+"And well you may. She's the only woman who knows everything about one
+and yet doesn't give one away." Mrs. Portal plugged her stick deep in
+the sand and made a support for her back. She then clasped herself about
+the knees and continued her remarks:
+
+"Yes ... she knows too much ... but she keeps on smiling. I suppose it's
+because the old pagan is so used to sinners.
+
+        "'There's not a day: the longest--not the 21st of June--
+          Sees so much mischief in a wicked way
+        On which three single hours of moonshine smile----'"
+
+"And yet she looks so modest all the while!" Poppy finished.
+
+Mrs. Portal reproved her.
+
+"I consider you too young and good looking to read Byron."
+
+"Do you think he wrote for the old and ugly?" laughed Poppy. "And how
+came you to read him?"
+
+"What! The retort flattering! _You're_ no Durbanite. _You_ don't grow in
+the cabbage garden. Ohe! I can say what I will to you. Ding-Dong!"
+
+Her little, high-bred face was neither too sunny nor too sad, but had a
+dash of both sunshine and sorrow about the eyes and lips. She screwed it
+up in a way she had, and began to sing her little French song again:
+
+                    "Le monde est mechant, ma petite:
+                      Il dit que tes yeux vifs sont morts,
+                    Et se meuvent dans leur orbite
+                      A temps egaux et par ressorts."
+
+The odour of happiness which Bramham had spoken of began to make itself
+felt. Little fronds and scents of it caught hold of Poppy and enfolded
+her. Looking at the face beside her she saw in it no signs of any mean
+content with life. There were fine cobwebby lines around the eyes and
+mouth, and a deep one between the brows, and Poppy wished that they were
+upon her face, too, for they were beautiful. Yet they could only have
+come through suffering, for Mrs. Portal was not old.
+
+"She has had sorrows, too--but not shameful ones. She wears them like
+jewels," thought the girl.
+
+The woman beside her had indeed greater gifts than mere beauty. She had
+seven red lights in her hair, which was always extraordinarily tumbled
+without being untidy; a heart of gold; and a tongue of silver.
+
+Many men loved her, as fine men cannot help loving what is lovable and
+sweet, and gentle, and kind, and brave, and gay, and wise.
+
+Even women loved her; and so the worst thing they could find to say of
+her was that she must have been quite pretty--once!
+
+In return, she loved all men, and was kind to all women, loving one
+steadfastly.
+
+But now, half in pity, half for some reason she could not fathom, she
+found a place in her heart for Poppy Destin, too. She was touched by the
+girl's beauty, on which her seeing eyes saw the shadow of tragedy.
+
+"_Quite_ a child!" was her thought. "Too young to have so much to hide
+behind those lovely eyes!" A line from Pater's monograph on _Monna Lisa_
+came into her mind:
+
+    "Hers are the eyes that have looked on all the world; and the
+        eyelids are a little weary."
+
+She put out her hand to Poppy. If Poppy had eyes like _Monna Lisa_, she
+herself had the hands of that Mother of all saints and sinners--only a
+little browner.
+
+"I would like to be your friend," she said quietly.
+
+Poppy flushed, and then became pale. The hand Mrs. Portal touched
+stiffened a little, and the lilac eyes looked away at the sea rather
+than meet the kindness of the other's glance--but they were dim with
+tears. Mrs. Portal's warm, Irish heart felt a chill. She was a little
+sore too, for her friendship was more often sought than proffered, and
+never before had she known a repulse. She could not know that the girl
+before her felt honoured as never in her life before, and was filled
+with gratitude and affection. But Clementine Portal was a creature full
+of intuition and understanding. Possibly some of the girl's feeling
+subtly communicated itself to her, for she became aware that the rebuff
+did not come of rudeness or indifference--or coldness of heart; but of
+some other strange feeling.
+
+"Is it possible that she's afraid of me?" she thought at last. "Poor
+child! doesn't she know an enemy from a friend? It must be that she has
+found all women her enemies!"
+
+They had been saying little ordinary things to one another in the
+meantime, while they gazed before them to where the risen sun was
+transforming the curved, purple waves into a sheet of dazzling copper.
+
+Presently Clementine got up from the sands, very reluctantly.
+
+"I must go home to breakfast, or my household will be searching for me,"
+she said, with a mournful smile, shaking her skirt into shape. "Heaven
+meant me to roam the deserts and run in the woods; but Fate laid upon me
+the burden of respectability and planted me in the cabbage garden. I
+must run and catch a tram-car!"
+
+Poppy laughed at her; but her laugh ended on a queer note.
+
+"Being a wild ass of the desert has its drawbacks, too!" said she, with
+something of bitterness.
+
+Clementine put out her hand and touched the girl's. "Well, don't be a
+wild ass any more. Come and see me. I hold agricultural shows on the
+first and last Fridays of the month, and you will find the best kinds of
+turnips and cabbages in my drawing-room. But if you seek me in love and
+charity as a friend _should_, come on Sundays. You never told me your
+name, yet, mermaid!"
+
+Poppy held the brown, thin hand and answered firmly:
+
+"Rosalind Chard."
+
+But afterwards, when the other had gone a little way, she ran after her
+and caught her up and said:
+
+"But I wish you would call me 'Poppy.'"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Nevertheless, it was not until a month later that she visited Mrs.
+Portal. Strongly attracted by the kind, gay ways and looks of that
+fascinating woman, she yet feared to know her better. And she feared,
+too, that in the house of Mrs. Portal she might meet the man whom she
+knew not whether most she loved, or feared, or hated; for whose sake she
+gashed herself with the knives of defeat and despair. She knew that he
+belonged to Mrs. Portal's circle of friends, and she had heard from
+Sophie Cornell that the chief of these was Mrs. Capron. _Mrs. Capron!_
+That was the name in which he had bidden her good-bye, speaking in his
+drunkenness or delirium, she knew not which. Mrs. Capron, the splendid,
+milky creature, who had been with him in the rickshaw, and whom Poppy
+had so clearly recognised! Would _she_, too, recognise Poppy? The girl
+was not so certain now of the improbability of such a thing, for of late
+it seemed to her that she had begun to present a singular resemblance to
+herself as she had looked in those unhappy, far-off days. The strain of
+suffering had told upon her terribly, and her face was tragically drawn,
+with a sharp, childish look of suffering about her mouth, and soft,
+though not unlovely hollows, in her cheeks. Her eyes looked larger and
+more unreal for the shadows beneath them.
+
+The day she decided to go to Mrs. Portal's found her examining herself
+in her glass with apprehensive eyes, keen for every defect. She was a
+woman now, examining her weapons for battle, and her courage misgave her
+as she saw her reflection. She had put on a white gown that was all
+simple lines and soft laces, and she really looked very young and
+girlish, but she hated her appearance when she thought of those two
+charming-looking women of the world with their eloquent clothes. What if
+she should meet _him_ there and he should compare her with them? What if
+either the thin, vivacious, sunburnt woman, whom she herself could
+hardly help loving--or the regal-milky-woman of yellow chiffon should be
+that _Loraine_ whom he so loved?
+
+"With either of them what chance should I stand?" she asked herself,
+desperate-eyed. "Why have I got these vile, purple shadows?--and holes
+in my cheeks? I never had them before!" She burst into tears, and at
+this juncture Kykie thought fit to make her entrance unannounced with
+her everlasting tea-tray.
+
+"Now, Poppy, to goodness! what you ought to do is to take off that tight
+frock and put on a nice cool gown and rest," said the beldame
+importantly.
+
+"You're mad, Kykie--and I wish you wouldn't come into my room without
+knocking." Poppy made occasion to fling a towel over her hat and gloves
+which lay on the bed, and which it was not desirable Kykie should see.
+
+"Ah! you needn't mind old Kykie, darling," was the response; and Poppy,
+unused to such blandishments, stared at the yellow face which continued
+to waggle archly at her.
+
+"What will Luce say when he comes back, if I haven't taken care of you?"
+
+The girl suddenly sickened at her tone.
+
+"How dare she speak to me like that!" was her furious thought. "As if
+Luce has any right over me or my health!" She could have struck the
+leering smile from the woman's face; she turned away trembling with
+anger to her dressing-table.
+
+"So you knew all the time about Luce and me being married?" she said in
+a toneless voice, when she had presently mastered herself.
+
+"Heavenly me! yes, and I knew it would all work out and come right in
+the end. But I think you ought to wear your wedding-ring now, Poppy....
+All right, all right, you needn't look at me like a _mal-meit_!... I'm
+going now ... I wouldn't stop with you another minute when you look like
+that ... you and Luce are a nice pair for temper ... surely to goodness
+one would think all would be peace and love _now_--" The door was
+closed and locked on her and she was obliged to continue her soliloquy
+on the stairs.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+An hour later found Poppy letting herself in at the double white gates
+of Mrs. Portal's garden. It was neither the first nor last Friday in the
+month, nor yet Sunday afternoon; but she had not come for society. She
+came because she must; because of her bitter need of some word
+concerning the man she loved.
+
+The house was a big, red-brick villa, with many verandahs and no
+pretentious, except to comfort. An English maid, in a French cap and
+apron, showed her into a drawing-room that was full of the scent of
+flowers, with open windows and drawn shades. Almost immediately Mrs.
+Portal blew into the room like a fresh wind, seized her hands, and shook
+them warmly.
+
+"I knew you would come to-day," she said. "I dreamed of you last night.
+Poppy, I have a feeling that you and I are going to be mixed up in each
+other's lives somehow."
+
+A creature of moods and impulses herself, Poppy thoroughly understood
+this greeting, and it warmed her sad and lonely spirit gratefully; she
+let herself be beguiled to the fireside of Clementine Portal's
+friendship. Before she realised it, they were seated together in a deep
+lounge just big enough for two people, and a pile of cushions with cool,
+dull-toned surfaces, talking like friends of long standing. Mrs. Portal
+was quite in the dark as to who the girl was, but that did not bother
+her at all, and her remarks contained no shadow of a question. It was
+enough that she "had a feeling about her," and had dreamed of her and
+believed in her.
+
+To ordinary persons these might not seem very cogent reasons; but
+Clementine Portal was in no sense ordinary. Her judgment concerning
+things in general, and women in particular, was both keen and sound;
+but she never allowed it to interfere with her inspirations, which she
+considered far safer. Apparently intensely practical and conventional,
+she was, in reality, a woman who lived the most important part of her
+life in a hidden world. She had the seeing-eye and the hearing-ear for
+things that went unnoted by the every-day man and woman. Being Irish,
+she was packed full of superstition, but, fortunately, a strong vein of
+common sense counterbalanced it. As for her humour, that most fatal gift
+in a woman, it sometimes resembled a fine blue flame, that scorched
+everything in reach; and sometimes, to the consternation of the
+conventional, was the rollicking wit of a fat and jolly Irish priest
+addicted to the punch-bowl. She had a wonderful way of attracting
+confidences from people about the things they most cared for in life. In
+a little while Poppy had told her what she had never told to a living
+soul before--about her little book of songs--and her great ambitions as
+a writer. For some unknown reason the girl felt these ambitions very
+much alive in her that afternoon. Clementine Portal sat like a creature
+entranced, with her lips slightly apart. When Poppy had given her, upon
+urgent requesting--a halting, eloquent outline of her novel, Clem said:
+
+"I _know_ it will be good.... I can feel that it will have big bits of
+open space like the veldt in it, with new sorts of trees growing by the
+wayside as one passes along.... I hate the modern woman's book, because
+it always makes me gasp for air. It is too full of the fire that burns
+up all there is in life."
+
+"You would write far better than I, probably," said the girl. "I know so
+little of life--only what I feel. You know everything----"
+
+"Dear girl, you are better as you are. When you know everything, you
+will have discovered that the world is full of sawdust, and the people
+stuffed with shavings, and no one worth writing about--then, where will
+your fine books be?"
+
+"Have you ever thought of writing?"
+
+"Often," she began to laugh. "And when I discover a real good man in the
+world I shall burst into glory in a novel. But no such man exists. He
+died when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Here
+is tea. We'll drown my pessimism in the cream-bowl, shall we?"
+
+She went to the tea-table. The maid drew up the window-shades, letting
+the lovely rose-lights of late afternoon into the room. It was a real
+woman's room, full of flowers and photographs, and cushions, and piles
+of magazines and weeklies everywhere. There were no wonderful pictures
+on the walls, or valuable china in cases. Only a few well-arranged
+native curios, a good piano, and the kind of things people from home
+gather about them when they are sojourning in a foreign land. As Poppy
+followed to the tea-table, her eye caught a full-length photograph on
+the wall over the writing-desk, and she stayed a moment to look. It was
+a woman in her presentation gown--two long, lovely eyes smiled
+contentedly on the world. Underneath, in a woman's writing, were the
+words: "To Clem, from Mary."
+
+It was the regal-milky-woman--Mrs. Capron. Mrs. Portal turned round from
+her tea-cups.
+
+"Ah! everyone looks at that photograph! She is very beautiful. The
+remarkable thing is that she is good, too. That _is_ remarkable, isn't
+it? I'm sure if I had a face like that I should go to my own head and be
+a perfect divil."
+
+"Who is she?" asked Poppy, still before the smiling picture.
+
+"My friend, Mrs. Capron."
+
+"Is that her name written there?"
+
+"Yes, hers and mine. She is my dearest friend, and so she is allowed to
+call me Clem; you may, too, if you like."
+
+Poppy came, thanking her, and sat by the tea-table. She felt suddenly
+happier, for now she could follow the dictates of her heart and love
+this woman--whose name was _Clem_.
+
+As they took tea the door opened gently and a little figure stole into
+the room straight to her mother's knee.
+
+"I like you, and love you," said she solemnly.
+
+"Hyacinth, what have you been doing?" Mrs. Portal asked anxiously.
+
+It was easy to see that they were mother and child, for they had the
+same golden-brown eyes, full of dots and dashes and shadows, and the
+same grave-gay mouths. There, however, all resemblance ceased. The
+child's physique consisted of a head covered with long, streaky brown
+hair, and a pair of copper-coloured legs which apparently began under
+her chin.
+
+"I love and like you," she repeated glibly.
+
+"Then I know you have been doing something very wicked, Cinthie. You
+always have when you like and love me."
+
+"_Pas!_" said Cinthie, now gazing calmly at Poppy.
+
+"I shall go and find out," said Mrs. Portal. "I have to go, anyway, to
+speak to cook about dinner; do forgive me for five minutes, dear;
+Cinthie will look after you. Cinthie, I hope I can trust you to be good
+with Miss Chard for five minutes."
+
+The moment she was gone Cinthie made a boastful statement.
+
+"My face is bigger than yours!"
+
+Poppy put up her hand and felt her face carefully; then looked at
+Cinthie's with the air of one measuring with the eye.
+
+"Well, perhaps it is!" she acceded.
+
+"It's bigger'n anyone's," continued Cinthie, even more bragfully. "Who
+are you married to?"
+
+This was an awkward and surprising question, but Poppy countered.
+
+"Why should you think I am married, Cinthie?"
+
+"Everybody's married," was the swift response. "_I'm_ married to Mammie,
+and Mammie's married to Daddie, and Daddie's married to the moon, and
+the moon's married to the sun, and the sun's married to the sea, and the
+sea's married to the stars, and the stars are married to the
+stripes--Daddie says so. Let me sit on your lap, I'm as tired as a bed."
+
+Poppy lifted her up, and Cinthie, lolling against the white, lacy dress,
+gazed for a space into the lilac eyes. She then carefully selected a
+long streak of her own hair and put it into her mouth, thoughtfully
+sucking it as she continued her remarks:
+
+"I think you had better marry Karri," she said. "I like Karri better'n
+anyone, except Daddie. His face is bigger than anybody's."
+
+"Is Karri a man, then?"
+
+"Yes; but he's got two women's names, isn't that funny? One's Karri and
+the other's Eve. I'll show you his photo."
+
+She ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a frame from a table, and
+brought it back triumphantly.
+
+"There!" she cried, and dumped it into Poppy's lap.
+
+Poppy stared down into the pictured face of the man she loved.
+
+Mrs. Portal reappeared.
+
+"Oh, Cinthie, I've heard all about it from Sarah, and I'm very angry
+with you. I knew you had been doing something specially wicked. You're a
+_petite mechante_."
+
+"_Pas!_" said Cinthie stoutly.
+
+"You are. Go away, now, to the nursery. I'm very angry with you."
+
+Cinthie retreated, bitterly reasseverating:
+
+"_Pas! pas! Pas petite mechante! Pas!_"
+
+Clem observed the photograph in Poppy's lap.
+
+"She has been showing you her hero--the hero of us all. Everyone in this
+house genuflects before Eve Carson."
+
+And so at last Poppy knew the name of the idol before which she, too,
+worshipped!
+
+"By the way, did Cinthie mention that his face is bigger than anyone's?
+That is the final point of beauty with Cinthie--to have a big face.
+Well, Evelyn Carson's face is not so big, but his ways are, and his
+ideas, and those things make for bigness of soul----"
+
+Poppy said nothing: only she prayed with all her soul that Clem would
+continue to talk upon this subject; and Clem, looking dreamily at the
+girl, but obviously not thinking of her, responded to the prayer.
+
+"He is a wonderful person, and we all adore him, even though our
+judgment sometimes asks us why, and our ears sometimes hear the untoward
+things that are not compatible with reverence," she was smiling. "I
+daresay you have heard of him."
+
+"Yes," said Poppy, in an even voice.
+
+"Most people have, by now--he's been one of the foremost figures in
+South African life for years, one of the many Irishmen who have left
+their native land, burning with the sense of England's tyranny, only to
+go and strive for England's fame and glory in some other part of the
+world. We met him first on the Rand, where all the interesting
+blackguards forgather at some time or another; but he was always in
+trouble there, for, you know, Oom Paul doesn't approve of Imperialistic
+Irishmen, and invariably contrives to make anyone of the kind
+exceedingly uncomfortable. Karri Carson has been a marked man, watched
+by the Secret Service, and his every action and every word reported,
+with the result, of course, that he has said and done many daringly
+foolish things, and nearly been deported over the border once or twice.
+Fortunately, there are more interesting places than the Rand, and there
+is always a rumpus going on in _some_ quarter of Africa, and he has been
+in all the rumpuses of the last fifteen years--Uganda--Matabelel
+and--anywhere where there was anything in the wind and where _real men_
+were wanted. He's earned the V.C. a dozen times, though he's only got
+the D.S.O. But it is not love of honours that is his moving spirit--just
+an Irishman's lust for being in the "redmost hell of the fight." Between
+intervals of active service he has gone off into the wild deeps of
+Africa, where no one has ever been before--discovered a new quadruped
+and a new tribe of natives. The Royal Institute is _dying_ to trim him
+up with blue ribbons and exhibit him in London, but Africa has kissed
+him on the mouth, and he will not leave her." Clem drew a long breath.
+"I can't think what we shall all do now that he is gone," she finished
+sadly.
+
+"Gone!" Poppy wondered what kept her voice so calm while her soul cried
+out within her.
+
+"Yes, gone away to Borapota: a little red-hot spot in the red-hot heart
+of Africa. It is very conveniently situated for us--not too far from our
+lovely Mombassa harbour--and it is very rich and fertile, and in every
+way desirable, and the Imperial Unionists think we ought to own it, and
+the Liberal Little Englanders think we ought to get it--without spilling
+a drop of blood or saying a single bad word to anybody. And Evelyn
+Carson has gone to get it for us _sans_ Maxims and _sans_ men and _sans_
+anything much besides a high heart and a squad of _boys_ who have been
+everywhere with him. He has gone on a _peaceful expedition_ into the
+midst of one of the fiercest tribes in Africa to barter or bargain for
+Concessions that will eventually extend the Empire by sixty thousand
+square miles, and add a country crammed with coal and iron and ivory and
+a dozen other lovely things to the pink part of the map. And he has gone
+without even _official_ permission, so that if he succeeds--why, hurrah!
+for the Union Jack and everything under it! And if he fails--only
+another reputation buried in an African grave! No one will care a rap,
+and everyone will forget him except the people who love him. The only
+thing I care to think of in the matter is, that the Borapotans are said
+to be extremely intelligent and reasonable men, who will make splendid
+soldiers--and then everyone knows what a way Evelyn Carson has with all
+natives! The Zulus and the Basutos, and all the war-loving tribes,
+simply adore him! Still, there's no denying the fact that he's gone with
+his life in his hand. Even if the natives prove to be sweet and
+reasonable, there are half a dozen other deaths lurking in every mile of
+the Interior."
+
+"Has no other white man gone with him?" Poppy heard herself asking.
+
+"No one except his _boys_ will go with him once he starts on the
+unbeaten track--but our friends the Caprons have sailed with him as far
+as Mombassa, and Mrs. Capron declares they will accompany him inland,
+too, until he drives them back. Of course, he's sure to do that before
+they reach the danger zone--but isn't it intrepid of her?"
+
+Poppy did not know what she answered. Darkness engulfed her spirit,
+almost her senses.
+
+"They started about a month ago, and I am terribly lonely without them
+all. Mrs. Capron and her husband will be back within three months, I
+expect, but we feel--_everybody_ who knows--very anxious about Eve
+Carson, more especially because he is very susceptible to malarial
+fever. He had a frightful attack about six weeks before he left; he was
+found raving in a rickshaw one night, and for nearly a fortnight
+afterwards was practically delirious. However, no sooner was he out of
+danger than he took up his preparations again, and in spite of the
+doctors, he sailed on the date he had originally fixed."... Mrs. Portal
+looked extremely mournful, but presently she added: "We are so thankful
+to think that Mrs. Capron will be with him for a while, because her
+husband has often had fever, and she thoroughly understands it."
+
+"I must go home," said Poppy suddenly; and Clementine, roused from her
+reverie by the strangely sounding voice, stared at the girl.
+
+"You look quite ill, dear," she said gently. "I am so sorry; I have been
+wandering on, about all the things that interest _me_!... Will you lie
+down a little while? or shall I ring for some wine?"
+
+"No, no, I must go home ... it is nothing ... I feel odd sometimes ..."
+she spoke vaguely, but she stood up, arranging her veil and pulling on
+her gloves. Clem came with her through the garden, and they stood for a
+moment with the low double gate between them, bidding each other
+good-bye. Mrs. Portal kissed her and told her to come again soon, but
+the girl answered nothing. Suddenly a visionary look passed like a veil
+across Clementine Portal's face.
+
+"Poppy," she said in a dreamy, yet intent way; "there will be deep
+waters around you soon! ... you will need courage, resolution, _and_
+silence ... those are a woman's greatest friends in this world ... but,
+in so far as one human being can count on another--count on me, too, for
+a friend."
+
+Already the swirl of the waters was in Poppy's ears, but the kind, brave
+message came to her like a friendly oar in the dark sea of trouble. For
+a moment she clung to the older woman's hand like a child afraid; then
+they parted. Poppy walked away through the vapoury, delicate light shed
+by a slender fragment of moon, and Clem Portal stayed staring
+abstractedly over the gate. It was three years before they met again.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+
+Poppy lay upon her bed like a drowned woman. She had come in almost
+fainting, and Kykie, meeting her on the stairs and seeing her face, had
+flown after her to her bedroom with water and brandy. The old woman had
+taken the girl in her arms bodily, and placing her on the bed, proceeded
+to drench her face and hair with ice-cold water and eau-de-Cologne, and
+to force doses of brandy between the white lips.
+
+At last, reviving somewhat under this vigorous treatment, Poppy found
+breath and sense to remonstrate:
+
+"What do you mean, Kykie? Do you want to choke me? Stop that ... I'm
+nearly drowned."
+
+"You were drownded enough before you came in," responded Kykie with
+asperity; "your dress is soaking. Where have you been?"
+
+Poppy had been lying in the dew-drenched grass of the garden for some
+two hours or more after her return from Mrs. Portal's, but she was not
+conscious of the fact.
+
+"... And, Luce coming home without warning, and you not in to dinner,
+and everything in the world to aggravate a gracious Christian woman!"
+continued Kykie, panting like a stout sheep.
+
+"Luce? Dinner?" said Poppy vaguely. "What is the time, Kykie?"
+
+"I think you're going cracked," said Kykie with fresh ire, "not to know
+the time! Half-past nine it is, indeed, and me not in bed yet, when you
+_know_ what I suffer if I don't get my night's rest. You and Luce
+simply haven't the consideration of a _cow_ for me."
+
+"Oh, go to bed!" said Poppy wearily.
+
+"I'll do nothing of the sort, thank you, extremingly. I will not go to
+my bed until you have eaten some dinner. Do you think I want all the
+trouble of a funeral in the house? You ought to be ashamed of yourself,
+Poppy, not taking any care of yourself, knowing what you do----"
+
+The old woman paused with some significant intention, but Poppy only
+waved a pale hand in her direction.
+
+"Go away and hold your peace, Kykie, for the love of Heaven!"
+
+"I'll only go away to get you some food ... and you're to eat it, Poppy
+dear," she began to coax. "I'll bring you some nice hot soup, lovey, and
+a little chicken mayonnaise, and you _will_ try and eat it, won't you?
+and a little glass of champagne."
+
+"I couldn't Kykie ... only leave me alone...."
+
+The old woman promptly seated herself upon the side of the bed with the
+air of an immovable rock.
+
+"Well.... Oh, all right, then ... _anything_ ... why can't you leave me
+alone?"
+
+Kykie did; but she took the precaution of removing the bedroom door-key
+and taking it with her, for she knew her mistress's ways well. In a few
+moments she was back again, with half a pint of champagne and a little
+pile of caviare sandwiches, which she warranted to put life into a
+corpse if she could only force them down its throat. She almost
+proceeded to this extreme measure with Poppy, threatening, cajoling, and
+complaining all the while.
+
+Eventually she took her departure with an empty plate and glass, and as
+she went she threw back a last menacing remark to the bed.
+
+"And _I shall stay up to speak to Luce_ when he returns from the Club."
+What she could mean by this Poppy neither knew nor cared. Revived a
+little by the wine and food, but with a body and mind demanding rest,
+she closed her eyes and fell into dead slumber.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When the candles which Kykie had lighted in the tall silver sticks on
+the dressing-table had burnt far down from their scarlet shades, Poppy
+awakened to the fact that someone was moving about her bedroom. She
+opened her eyes, but did not stir or make a sound.
+
+A man was standing by her writing-table humming softly to himself while
+he took up each little ornament and article upon it, and gently broke it
+between his hands. There were several paper-knives of wood and silver
+and tortoise-shell; quaint pens, and two gold-set rose-glasses. He broke
+them all gently between his hands, and the snapping of them was like the
+snapping of little bones. He then tore up some photographs, and a
+black-and-white etching of the Bay of Naples, and piled the pieces into
+two little heaps. As he walked away from the writing-table towards the
+lighted dressing-table, the candles gleamed on his profile, and Poppy
+saw that it was, as she supposed, the profile of Luce Abinger. He was
+humming between his teeth, a little tune--an odd noise resembling much
+the sort of monotonous hum made by black fighting ants when they go out
+seeking battle with other ant tribes.
+
+Something resembling panic stole over the girl as she listened, and once
+she saw his distorted mouth smiling terribly, and could have cried
+aloud, but she controlled herself and continued to lie still with
+half-closed eyes, watching his strange proceedings. From the
+dressing-table he took up her two beautiful ivory brushes with her name
+written in silver across their backs, and bending them in his hands,
+snapped off their handles, laying the broken bits down. Then carefully
+and methodically he broke every one of the silver articles on the
+table. The sound of them snapping seemed to give him acute pleasure.
+Even two tall vases of silver and cut-glass were not too strong for his
+skilful hands; nor was a little porcelain trinket-tray, with a scene
+from the _Tokaido_ inlaid upon it (for which he had paid thirty pounds
+at Yokohama), spared.
+
+A handful of rings and bracelets, which Kykie had removed from her
+fainting mistress and placed in a little heap upon the table, he dropped
+upon the floor and ground his heel upon.
+
+With no look towards the bed where Poppy lay, he left the table then,
+and sauntered to the walls, from which he stripped the wonderful chalk
+drawings and flung them in ribbons to the floor. His eye caught the
+silver and ivory crucifix.
+
+"Ah, Christ! I had forgotten you," said he, speaking for the first time,
+in a soft and pleased tone, and picking up a boot-tree left carelessly
+by a chair he approached, and struck a ringing blow upon the beautiful
+ivory face, shattering it. Again and again he struck until it lay in a
+hundred tiny splinters on the ground. Poppy's eye had sought the door
+and found it closed; the lock gleamed and there was no key to be seen.
+She came to the conclusion that she was locked in with a man who had
+gone mad. The house was absolutely silent.
+
+"If he chooses to kill me, he can; no one will hear my calls," she
+thought, and she continued to lie very still.
+
+In smashing the crucifix Abinger had for the first time made a noise
+louder than the gentle cracking and crunching of bones; but he had now
+awakened to the charm of breaking things with a crash. He beat the
+boot-tree full into the smiling face of _Monna Lisa_.
+
+"Stop smiling, you leaden-jawed Jewess," he said softly.
+
+The glass flew in jingling showers in every direction, but the strong,
+quiet face remained on the wall in its frame; and though the mouth was
+full of splintered glass, the eyes smiled gravely on--the eyes of a
+woman who had seen many such violent scenes come and go.
+
+There was a tiny bronze bust of Daniel O'Connell, standing on a little
+cedar-wood shelf, which Abinger caught up and flung with a calm, sure
+aim at the long gilt-edged mirror, making a great white radiating
+asterisk full in the centre of it.
+
+All vases and flower-bowls he took from their places and dropped upon
+the floor. The sound of their breaking was not unmusical.
+
+He still continued to hum. At last there was nothing left to destroy
+except the books arranged in their shelves round the room. A few he
+pulled from their cases and tore them across, but the sound of their
+tearing was tame and had no charm for him after so much exciting noise.
+Leisurely he left them at last and came to the foot of the bed and stood
+looking down upon the girl lying there. She met his eyes with a calm and
+quiet glance, though the soul within her was apprehensive enough.
+
+The smile on his mouth was like the carved smile on the mouth of some
+hideous Japanese mask, and his eyes resembled the eyes of a gargoyle. He
+was in full evening-dress and very immaculate, and his fair hair lay as
+smooth and sleek upon his head as a sleeping child's.
+
+"Awake?" he asked, with continual and unfailing pleasantness.
+
+"You hardly expected me to have remained asleep?" asked Poppy equably.
+She saw very well now that he had not lost his reason. His eyes were not
+an insane man's eyes, though they were lit by some frightful emotion,
+and he was plainly in the grip of one of his extraordinary rages: the
+worst she had ever witnessed. It did not occur to her that she could in
+any way be the cause of his anger, and she felt wearily indignant that
+it should be obtruded upon her at this time. She did not mind much about
+all her beautiful things with which he had made such holocaust, though
+her possessions had always had for her that pathetic value and meaning
+which the lonely attach to inanimate things. But her whole life was
+_bouleverse_ now, and she understood that such things mattered little.
+
+Abinger was looking at her with a tinge of something that might have
+been expectancy in his fury. Was he waiting for her to demand what he
+meant by this unprecedented outrage on her privacy? Ill and careless of
+life as she felt, she still had strength to rebel against this new form
+of tyranny, and to meet it with courage and disdain. It seemed to her
+that it would be more insolent not to ask him what he meant, but to
+simply take such vile and brutal conduct as a matter of course. So she
+stared back calmly at him from her pillows, not knowing what a strange
+picture she presented, lying there. Her arms wide from her, revealing
+the long, curved line of her boyish young form; her subtle face, pale,
+with strong ivory tints in it against the whiteness of the pillows, the
+blue scornful light of her eyes, and her drowned black hair lying like
+gorgon ropes about her. Passion-racked and pale as Magdalene, she was a
+sight to kindle the fires of pity and chivalry in any good man; but the
+lust of Luce Abinger's eyes was for the grace and bloom and beauty of
+her, that even misery and fatigue could not rub out, and these things
+kindled his blood to such a fury of savagery and desire that he scarce
+knew what he did. With one quick movement he had left the foot of the
+bed and was sitting beside her with an iron hand on each of hers. So she
+lay there, like a pinioned bird, with his tormented face above her.
+
+"Harlot!" he whispered, still smiling; and the word leapt from his lips
+like a shrivelling flame and scorched across her face.
+
+"Harlot!" he repeated softly. "Tell me the name of your lover!"
+
+That bleached her. Disdain departed from her looks and she lay there
+quivering under his hands; her dry lips parted, but her tongue was stiff
+in her mouth. The blow was so utterly and profoundly unexpected. What
+did he mean? What could he mean? How could he know of that secret idol
+in that secret grove of her heart, before whose altar she had slain her
+girlhood--and his honour? How could he know of that sweet shameful
+secret that she shared with a mad or drunken man--but mad or drunk, the
+man she loved? Had she not buried the secret deep and sworn that no one
+should ever drag it from the depths of her? Was it possible that she had
+not buried it deep enough? Was it written across her face for all the
+world to see? She searched the scorching eyes above her and then at last
+she was afraid; her own fell and the lids closed over them.
+
+Vile epithets fell again and again from his lips, and under each her
+face blenched and shrank as though little flickering flames or drops of
+corrosive acid had touched it; but her eyes were sealed and her lips
+gave forth no word.
+
+At last it ended strangely. Weariness seemed suddenly to overcome
+Abinger, for his grasp grew loose on the girl's hands, his tense
+features relaxed, a bluish shade stole over his face.
+
+Presently he stumbled to his feet, and, walking unevenly and vaguely,
+made his way from the room.
+
+In a moment Poppy Destin had leapt from the bed to the door and locked
+it soundlessly.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Sophie Cornell was saying good-night to a visitor. "Well," said he.
+"Tell Miss Chard how sorry I am. As soon as she feels well enough, I
+shall send up my carriage, and I'd like her to use it and get some fresh
+air."
+
+"Och, what, she won't be well enough for that some time yet," was Miss
+Cornell's answer. "She is very dickie indeed. I shouldn't be surprised
+if she croaked."
+
+Bramham gave her a searching look.
+
+"Well, look here; she ought to have a good doctor in. I'll ask Ferrand
+to call. He's my doctor, and the best I know----"
+
+"Oh, don't do that?" said Sophie hastily; "we've called a doctor in
+already, you know."
+
+"Who have you got?"
+
+"I must go--I can hear her calling," said Sophie suddenly. "Good-night."
+
+Incontinently she disappeared, the door closed, and Bramham was left to
+pick his way through the dark garden as best he might.
+
+After the sound of his steps had died away a figure stole from among the
+trees to the verandah, softly opened the front door and walked in upon
+Miss Cornell, who was in the act of mixing herself a whiskey-and-soda.
+The drink spilled upon the table and Sophie's mouth fell apart.
+
+"My God, Rosalind! What a _shrik_[5] you gave me! _Man!_ What's the
+matter with you?" At the end of her question her voice fell into a
+whisper. She stared with genuine horror at the wraith-like face before
+her: Rosalind Chard, with dilated eyes in an ashen face, drenched hair,
+a white lace gown wet and torn, hatless and shoeless.
+
+  [5] Start (fright).
+
+"_Gott!_ Rosalind!" repeated the Colonial girl. "Has someone been trying
+to murder you?"
+
+"Yes," said the other tonelessly. "And I've come here for safety. Will
+you take me in, Sophie?"
+
+"Of course. But who was it? A man, I'll bet--or has your old aunt gone
+up the tree?"
+
+"Don't ask me anything, Sophie. I shall go mad if I have to talk. Only,
+hide me and never let anyone know I'm here, or I shall kill myself." The
+girl fell exhausted into a chair and Sophie stood staring at her with a
+long face. It would not suit her book at all, she reflected, if Rosalind
+Chard wanted to be shut up and never see anyone. However, she saw that
+this was no time to argue the point, and that her present pressing
+business was to get the exhausted girl to bed.
+
+This she proceeded to do.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+
+The person largely instrumental in bringing Poppy back to health and a
+remote interest in life was Charles Bramham.
+
+One day Sophie Cornell met him in West Street and asked him to come and
+call.
+
+"I have Rosalind up at last," she told him; "but she looks like a dying
+duck, and I believe she _will_ die if someone doesn't buck her up. It
+would be a _real_ charity if you would come and talk to her."
+
+Bramham, though an exceedingly busy man, accepted the invitation with
+vivacity, for he was much _intrigue_ on the subject of Miss Chard, and,
+further, he had not forgotten the romantic and piquant sensations she
+had inspired in him upon the occasion of their one meeting. Now, piquant
+and romantic sensations are very valuable in South Africa, and should
+always be followed up in case of life becoming too monotonously saltless
+and savourless. Bramham swiftly found a spare hour and arrived one
+afternoon in Sophie's absence.
+
+He was utterly taken aback by the change in the girl. He came upon her
+suddenly, sitting in the verandah with her hands laced round her knees
+and her eyes staring straight in front of her with a look in them that
+was not good to see.
+
+"Why! _you_ ought to be away up in the country somewhere, out of this
+sweltering heat," was his first remark after ordinary conventionalities.
+She observed him coldly and assured him that she was perfectly well.
+Her invitation to come into the verandah and take a chair was polite,
+but lacking in enthusiasm. But it was hard to daunt Charles Bramham when
+he was looking for sensations. Besides which, he felt a genuine and
+chivalrous interest in this desperate-eyed girl.
+
+"This climate is only meant for flies and Kaffirs," he said pleasantly.
+"It's quite unfit for white men in summer--to say nothing of a delicate
+English girl unaccustomed to it."
+
+A smile flickered across Poppy's lips at this description of herself,
+and Bramham, encouraged by his success, went on to tell her about just
+the ideal spot for her to recover her health.
+
+"At the Intombi, near Port Shepstone," he said, "you can stand on hills
+that undulate to the sea five hundred feet below, with the whole veldt
+between brilliant with flowers."
+
+Poppy looked with surprise into the keen, strong face. She believed
+Bramham must be a lawyer, because he had such a scrutinising,
+business-like look about him. But to her astonishment he went on to tell
+her of a valley where arum-lilies grew in such masses that they looked
+like miles of snowdrifts lying on the grass.
+
+"All along the south coast," he continued, warming to his subject,
+"there are thousands of acres covered with flowers--red and variegated
+and white. I think the white ones are mostly wild narcissi. The smell of
+the sea wind blowing over them is warranted to cure the sickest body or
+soul in South Africa. I wish I were there now," he added wistfully, and
+the pupils of his eyes expanded in an odd way.
+
+"But you are not sick," said Poppy, smiling less wanly.
+
+"No, but when all the flowers are in full bloom the quail come down,"
+was the artless rejoinder. "Not that _that_ will be for a long time
+yet; September is the time. But I like that place."
+
+And Poppy liked him. It was really impossible to help it. She remembered
+now that she had experienced the same pleasure in his frank, kind
+glances and direct remarks the first time she had met him. Certainly
+there were dangers about him. Undoubtedly he could be a villain too, if
+one allowed him to be, she thought; but there is something attractive
+about a man who can forget he is talking to a woman and remember acres
+of flowers instead--and get that boyish look into his eyes at the same
+time! She was not the first woman, however, who had felt the charm of
+Charles Bramham. When he had finished with Upper Natal, he fell to
+telling her of a woman, a _great_ friend of his, who had once lived in
+Durban, until the women drove her out saying that she was mad and bad.
+
+"Certainly her face was all marked up," said Bramham gravely. "She said
+her temperament did it; but _they_ said it was wickedness. So she went
+away and wrote a book about them. She let some of them down on a soft
+cushion, but others she hung up by their heels and they're hanging there
+yet--food for the aasvogels."
+
+"She must be very clever," said Poppy drily.
+
+"She is. She's a _bird_," said Bramham with enthusiasm. "When her book
+came out everybody here black-guarded her, and said it showed what an
+immoral wretch she was to know such things about men and women." He gave
+Poppy a side-glance to see if he should add something else that was hot
+on his tongue, but he decided that she was too innocent-eyed.
+
+"All the same, we all sneaked off to Piet Davis's and looked at the
+Bibles whilst we shoved bits of paper across the counter: 'Please send
+me two copies of _Diana Amongst the Wesleyans_ at once; wrap each in the
+_Sunday at Home_ and despatch to my office.'"
+
+Poppy gave a little ringing laugh and asked eagerly:
+
+"Is she here now?"
+
+"Lord no! I wish she were. She has settled in France, where, she says,
+they understand temperament better than out here, and I believe it. Last
+night I went to a dinner-party--a thing I never do, and it served me
+right--and a woman opposite started tackling me about her; said she had
+seen Mrs. Haybittel in Paris, and that she was older-looking than ever."
+
+"'Yes, so am I,' said I, 'but I am also more in love with her than
+ever.' At which she giggled, and they all turned up their mirthless eyes
+at me. That woman is an old enemy of mine, and she always trains her
+guns on me whenever she can get an audience. She's a Mrs. Gruyere, and
+if ever you meet her, beware!"
+
+"'I thought the ideal woman was always young,' she snippered at me.
+
+"'Not at all,' I said. 'She may be old, but not _too_ old. She may be
+ugly, but not _too_ ugly. She may be bad, but not _too_ bad. It is a
+pity you didn't find someone to tell you about this before,' I finished.
+That gave her something to bite on with her celluloid teeth."
+
+Bramham amused Poppy in this fashion for something like two hours, and
+then, having given himself an invitation to call again shortly, he left
+her with laughter on her lips and the shadows fled from her eyes. She
+went indoors and, her old trick, looked at herself in a mirror.
+
+"What is the matter with me," she said wonderingly, "that I can laugh
+and be gay, when I know that the future is dark with fateful things."
+
+Nevertheless, she continued to laugh, and that night, while Sophie was
+away at the theatre and the house was quiet, she began and finished with
+the winged pen of inspiration a little merry song that was all sparkling
+with tears, full of the shadows that lie in dark valleys, but also
+fresh with the wind that blows across the hills lifting the shadows. Her
+personal troubles all forgotten in her work, she went to bed wrapped in
+the ecstasy of one who has achieved and knows the achievement good. But
+not to sleep. The lines of her poem twinkled and flashed back and forth
+through her brain; the metre altered itself to one, oddly, daringly
+original. Phrases like chords of music thrilled through her and
+everything she had already written seemed tame and meaningless. Lying
+there she re-wrote the whole thing in her brain, setting it to a
+swinging, swaying metre that swayed and swung her tired mind to rest at
+last. But in the calm light of morning she did not change her poem, for
+she had the artist's gift of selection and recognised inspiration when
+she saw it.
+
+That day found her descended into the pit of desolation once more, with
+the "black butterflies" swarming overhead, shutting out the light. What
+was happening to her was that temperament was claiming her. The
+poet-artist in her that had struggled so long for the light was being
+born, with all the attendant pangs and terrors of deliverance, for when
+the body is sick and the soul torn with suffering is temperament's own
+time.
+
+Intermittently she began to do fine work, but there were always the
+black hours afterwards when she forgot that she was an artist, and only
+knew the terror of being a woman. Then she suffered.
+
+In the meantime, Sophie had her chained to the typewriter. She had begun
+to hate the clicking horror, but she felt an obligation to work for
+Sophie as hard as she was able, to pay for the food she ate and the roof
+over her head. She never dared to think of Abinger and whether he sought
+her. The secret exit in the garden wall she had skilfully hidden.
+Abinger would probably think that she had a double key to the front gate
+and had escaped that way, or else through the _boys'_ compound.
+Certainly he would never dream of seeking for her in the house of
+Sophie Cornell. She had rigorously bound the latter to silence as to her
+presence in the little bungalow, and knowing that for some reason it was
+exceedingly important to Sophie to have her there, she had no doubt that
+the Colonial girl would keep her lips sealed. To the many men-friends of
+the fascinating Miss Cornell, it became known that a companion and
+assistant mysteriously shared her house, and her work, but the
+astounding thing was that this mysterious person kept to her own
+quarters at all times, and did not care for theatres, late suppers at
+the Royal, or drives to Inanda! It was generally supposed that she was,
+in the slang of the day, either "moth-eaten," or "cracked."
+
+At the earliest opportunity Poppy tied Charles Bramham's tongue also, by
+telling him frankly that she had an enemy she was afraid of and whom she
+feared would find her out.
+
+Bramham had become a constant visitor whom Poppy always welcomed. His
+visits meant to her a time of ease from the torment of her own thoughts,
+a respite from evil dreams. His big, bracing individuality evoked in her
+a strong liking and comradeship, and she hoped he had the same feeling
+for her; but she was sometimes afraid of the glances of his grey eyes.
+
+She was not long in discovering that though he was essentially a man's
+man, he had a great fondness for the society of women; that, indeed, he
+was one of those men who are lost without a woman as the central figure
+of existence--to work for and wind dreams around. He told her so very
+often, in words that were meant to be enigmatical and symbolical, no
+doubt, but which were really as frank and simple as the man's nature.
+
+"Life out here is saltless and savourless--just one day's march nearer
+_voetsack_, unless someone takes an interest in you," was the
+disconsolate remark he made to her one day, with a look in his eyes that
+was even more direct than his words.
+
+"But you must have heaps of people who do that," Poppy answered evenly,
+"and you strike me essentially as being one of them yourself. I'm sure
+you must be, or you would not have made a success of your life."
+
+"How do you know I'm a success?" somewhat gloomily.
+
+"Oh, anyone can see that. You have the calm, assured look of a man whose
+future is secure."
+
+"You mean I look smug and self-satisfied!"
+
+"Nothing of the kind. When a man has any intellect to speak of, money
+merely expands his interests and makes him ever so much more interesting
+than before. Do you think Sam Johnson ever got smug-looking? even when
+he had three hundred a year, which was quite an income those days?"
+
+"Are you comparing me with Johnson?" asked Bramham, grinning.
+
+"Oh, you needn't be vain. Africa is swarming with men who are the equals
+of Johnson in brain, without being hampered by his principles. His
+endurance and fine courage are another matter entirely. I don't suppose
+there are many men here who have gone through what he did to reach
+success."
+
+"You're mistaken there," said Bramham. "There are plenty of men out here
+who have beaten their way through almost insurmountable difficulties,
+and come out top-dog."
+
+Poppy smiled sceptically.
+
+"Difficulties, yes--but poverty and bitter want?
+
+                 "'Slow rises worth by poverty depressed!'
+
+"What do South Africans know of terrible poverty? Their minds are often
+starved, but never their bodies, and there is always the sunshine, to
+clothe and warm. Even the little Kaffir children have their stomachs
+filled with rice or mealie-meal pap and can roll in the sun and be
+happy. I don't suppose any of the residents of this place know the real
+meaning of the word poverty--you, for instance?"
+
+"Oh, I'm not much of an instance," said Bramham carelessly. "I am a
+Colonial, but, as a matter of fact, I happen to have spent a great part
+of my youth in London. I had to leave Africa when I was ten and I
+thought it pretty rough luck. If you cast your eye around, you will
+notice that Natal seems to have been just made for boys of ten--there's
+the sea, and the bluff, and the bay, and the Bush. Ah, well! I don't
+suppose you will understand what it meant to leave all these things and
+go and settle in a gloomy little side street in Chelsea!"
+
+Poppy _could_ understand; but she was so much surprised that she said
+nothing.
+
+"My mother was left a widow with two young sons," continued Bramham in a
+pleasantly narrative tone. "She had no means, but she had the pluck of
+ten men and a heart for any fate. She used to give music lessons and
+teach a few youngsters; but there is no income to speak of to be got out
+of that. We boys had to hustle out and find something to do as soon as
+we left school, which was pretty early. There was no hope of a
+profession for either of us; the only thing to do was to grab with teeth
+and nails whatever offered and make the best of it. I was the eldest and
+had to get out when I was twelve, and the first place I got was with an
+undertaker as a sort of boy-of-all-work. Lord! how I hated that business
+and that man! But I got a sound knowledge of book-keeping there that was
+invaluable later on. Afterwards I got a billet with a firm of
+auctioneers, and the experience I got _there_ has been mighty useful
+too. But their place of business was a long way from Chelsea, and I
+couldn't afford fares, so I had to get up at three-thirty in the
+mornings and go off on foot with fourpence in my pocket to feed myself
+on during the day. There was a place I used to go to for my mid-day
+meal--a sort of 'Cabmen's Rest,' where I used to get a fine hunk of what
+is known as 'spotted dog' for twopence-halfpenny; but I couldn't run to
+that every day in the week, because it didn't leave me enough to live on
+for the rest of the day. The winter was the worst time. My mother was
+always up to see me off in the mornings, with a cup of coffee to put
+heart into me for my long walk--and she would be waiting for me in the
+evenings with a smile and a hot supper, probably something she had done
+without for her own dinner. During supper she usually had some
+astonishing tale to tell us of great men who, having had to struggle
+with adversity, had won through and come out top. She was a
+brilliantly-educated woman, and had been a wide reader--I don't think
+the life of _any_ famous man had escaped her knowledge. It certainly put
+heart into _me_ to know that finer men than I had gone through the same
+mill, and I often went to bed in a glow of virtue. But I'm bound to say
+that the glow had a way of wearing off during the daytime. We had a
+wealthy cousin who could have helped us a deal if he'd liked, but his
+help never went any further than writing letters of advice and
+forwarding parcels of discarded clothing. His frayed collars used to
+come my way. I think now, looking back, that the worst physical pain I
+can remember in those London years was the feel of that fellow's collars
+sawing at my gorge. He is still alive, and I am often obliged to meet
+him when I am in London, and I can tell you I never let him off those
+collars. I harp on them until he gets as frayed and sore as my neck used
+to be."
+
+Bramham smiled gaily. Poppy wondered what the worst mental suffering
+had been, but she had too much respect for suffering to ask.
+
+Indirectly, Bramham presently enlightened her.
+
+"It was pretty bad those days to remember the life we had known out
+here. My brother, being fairly young, didn't feel it so much. My mother
+and I had our memories all to ourselves."
+
+He made a long pause. Poppy said nothing. She was sitting with her
+elbows among the papers on the table listening intently.
+
+"We came out here afterwards, and my brother and I put up a big fight
+for fortune, and we won out at last; but I don't know that we ever
+should, if my fine old mother hadn't been at the back of us all the
+time."
+
+"She was a noble woman," said Poppy softly. "How you must have made it
+up to her afterwards."
+
+"She died just when things were beginning to come our way," said
+Bramham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+
+Poppy and Bramham were alone together as they had been many times
+before. The verandah being the coolest place, they were sitting there,
+on a low basket-lounge affair, in darkness, except for the streaks and
+squares of light that stretched through the open windows and door of the
+sitting-room, falling across the verandah and losing themselves in the
+massed greenery of the garden. The little red glow at the end of
+Bramham's cigar gave enough light at times for him to observe that upon
+the face of his companion the strained, tortured look which often
+haunted it, was getting full play under cover of the dimness. She
+laughed lightly, however, at his sallies as they talked--the disjointed
+intermittent conversation of people who are far from the subject under
+discussion.
+
+By reason of the shortness of the lounge they were seated rather close
+together; so close, that when Bramham's arm, which was lying along the
+back of the sofa, slipped down, it, as a matter of course, touched her
+waist. Her face was averted, so that even if it had been light enough he
+could not see the troubled look that flashed across it. She sat
+perfectly still, however, and said nothing. It _might_ be an
+accident--she would wait and see. But presently she felt personality and
+magnetism in the touch of that firm hand, lightly as it rested on her;
+and she knew that this was not an accident.
+
+"Don't do that," she said; her manner was careless, but there was a
+_timbre_ in her voice that chilled. Bramham instantly removed his hand.
+
+"Why not?" he asked discontentedly.
+
+"Because I don't care about it," she said, her tone pleasant and
+friendly again.
+
+Bramham smoked a while. He was not at all offended, but he chose to
+pretend to be. His experience of women presently prompted him to make a
+remark which he had discovered they regarded in the nature of a taunt.
+
+"I'm afraid you are very cold-blooded."
+
+Poppy merely laughed. Bramham, piqued that his shot had missed fire,
+and, having no other ready at the moment, repeated it with as much
+disagreeableness as he could muster--which was not any very great
+amount.
+
+"It must be unpleasant to be so cold."
+
+"Oh, not in this climate," said she tranquilly; adding, with a touch of
+malice: "and there are always plenty of fires where one can warm
+oneself, _quelquefois_."
+
+"I think that what _you_ need is a bonfire." Bramham was feeling
+distinctly cross, but Poppy laughed so merrily at this _mot_ that his
+good-humour was restored. He began to smoke again, sitting sideways now,
+because he was able to see her face better, and there appeared to be no
+object in sitting cheek by jowl. Later, he said:
+
+"I don't see why you should despise my nice bright flame."
+
+Poppy meditated swiftly. She liked Bramham well, and she desired to keep
+him friendly; only, there was a thing he had to understand clearly. She
+was learning to make use of any twist of the tongue in difficult
+situations, but she knew that she was dealing with man of a good type
+and it seemed indicated that a _little_ of the truth would not be out of
+place at this juncture--a little only! the real, bitter, wonderful truth
+she would share with no one in the world!
+
+"I am far from despising it, Mr. Bramham," she said at last, very
+gently. "But I happen to want you for a friend, not an enemy."
+
+Bramham did not see his way quite clear through this. However, he
+declared stoutly that he had never been a woman's enemy yet.
+
+"Then you must often have been your own," she retorted, with a little
+glint of bitter wisdom. Thereafter, the conversation flagged again.
+Bramham had missed his cue and his broad shoulders took on a somewhat
+sullen expression. Poppy had the hopeless feeling that she had lost a
+lover without finding a friend, and the thought filled her with sadness.
+Only God and she knew how much she needed a friend; and she was sure she
+could find no stronger, firmer rock to her back than this big, kind man,
+if she could only get him away from these shoals of emotion on to the
+firm ground of friendship.
+
+But Bramham was sighing sulkily, and flipping with his forefinger at the
+end of his cigar, as though he had no further use for it. Obviously, he
+was thinking of making a chilly departure. Suddenly she put out her hand
+and touched his, resting on his knee.
+
+"You are quite right, I _am_ cold," she said softly; "starving with
+cold; and you can never know how charming and attractive your fire looks
+to me, but--after all, the best seat is already taken isn't it?"
+
+Bramham stared hard at her, swallowing something. This was the first
+time his wife had been mentioned between them. She did not falter.
+
+"Don't you think I am nice enough to have a fireside of my very own?"
+She spoke with the soft bird note in her throat, and her smile was a
+wistful thing to see.
+
+Bramham's other firm hand came down on hers, and gave it a great grip.
+
+"By Jove! I do. And I hope you'll get the best going."
+
+A wave of grateful warmth rushed over the girl at his words. Her eyes
+filled with tears.
+
+"Thank you; thank you!" she cried brokenly; and added, on a swift
+impulse: "The fire I want seems to me the most wonderful in the
+world--and if I can't be there, I'll never sit by any other."
+
+She did not attempt to stanch her tears, but sat looking at him with a
+smiling mouth, while the heavy drops fell down her cheeks. Bramham
+thought that, because of the smile, he had never seen any woman look so
+tragic in his life.
+
+"Don't cry; don't cry, dear!" he said distressfully. "I can't bear to
+see a woman cry. Do you love someone, Rosalind?" he asked, using her
+name shyly.
+
+"Yes, Charlie," she said simply; "I do. But there is a knife in my
+heart." She turned from him now, and looked away, that he might not see
+the despair and humiliation in her face.
+
+"I will be your friend, Rosalind. Trust me. I can't understand at all.
+You are altogether a mystery to me; I can't understand, for one thing,
+how a girl like you comes to be living with Sophie Cornell----"
+
+"I came here quite by accident," she interrupted him. "I have always
+meant to tell you, though I know that for some reason Sophie doesn't
+want you to know. I walked into the garden one day, and saw Sophie using
+a typewriter, and I came in and asked her to take me for an assistant."
+
+"What! But weren't you a governess to some people in Kimberley, and an
+old friend of Sophie's in Johannesburg?"
+
+"No, I've never been a governess, and I never saw Sophie until I walked
+in here some three months ago. The girl you take me for never came at
+all, and Sophie was glad to have me take her place, I suppose. But,
+indeed, it was good of her to take me in, and I am not ungrateful. I
+will pay her back some day, for she is of the kind money will repay for
+anything." She added this rather bitterly, for, indeed, Sophie never
+ceased to make her feel her obligations, in spite of daily slavery on
+the typewriter.
+
+"Well, of all the--!" Bramham began. Later, he allowed himself to
+remark:
+
+"She certainly is a bird of Paradise!" and that was his eulogy on Sophie
+Cornell.
+
+"But how comes it that a girl like you is--excuse me--kicking about the
+world, at a loose end?--How can any fellow that has your love let you
+suffer!--The whole thing is incomprehensible! But whatever you say
+stands. You needn't say anything at all if you don't want to----"
+
+"I can't tell you anything," she said brokenly. "If I could tell
+_anyone_, it would be you--but I can't. Only--I want a friend,
+Charlie--I want help."
+
+"I'll do anything in the world for you--all you've got to say is
+'Knife.'"
+
+"I want to get away from Africa to England, and I haven't a penny in the
+world, nor any possessions except the things I am wearing now."
+
+"Oh, that's simple!" said Bramham easily. "But have you any friends to
+go to in England?"
+
+"I have no friends anywhere--except you.
+
+                      "'I have no friend but Resolution
+                          ... and the briefest end!'
+
+"But I don't think my end is yet. I must go away from Africa, when I
+love it most--as _you_ did, Charlie. There are things to do and things
+to go through, and I must go and suffer in London as you did. But I mean
+to win through and come back and get my own, like you did, too."
+
+She jumped up and stood in the light of the window, and Bramham could
+see that her eyes were shining and her cheeks flushed. She looked like a
+beautiful, boastful boy, standing there, flinging out a mocking,
+derisive hand at Fate.
+
+"Life has had her way with me too long, Charlie. Ever since I was a
+child she has done nothing but cheat me and smite me on the mouth, and
+beat me to the earth.... But I am up again, and I will walk over her
+yet!... Love has found me, only to mock me and give me false coin and
+pass me by on the other side; but I will come back and find Love, and it
+will be _my_ turn to triumph. Look at me!" she cried, not beseechingly,
+but gaily, bragfully. "There is no white in my hair, nor any lines on my
+face, nor scars ... where they can be seen. I have youth, courage, a
+little beauty, something of wit--and I can write, Charlie. Don't you
+think that I should be able to wrest something for myself from the claws
+of that brute Life--a little Fame, a little Love----?"
+
+"I should just say I _do_," said Bramham heartily. "You're true-blue all
+through, without a streak of yellow in the whole of your composition."
+
+
+
+
+PART III
+
+
+                 Nothing is better I well think
+                 Than Love: the hidden well water
+                 Is not so delicate to drink.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+
+Poppy sailed by one of the pleasant small lines that run direct between
+Natal and England without touching at East London or the Cape.
+
+"If it will amuse you," said Bramham, "to sit down with diamonds at
+breakfast, and diamonds-and-rubies-and-emeralds at lunch, and the whole
+jewel-box for dinner, take the Mail-steamer and go by the Cape. And
+then, of course, there are the scandals," he added seductively.
+"Personally I like them; but _you_ look to me like a girl who wants
+rest, and to forget that there is such a place as Africa on the map."
+
+Poppy agreed. She had travelled by the Mail-boats before, and thought
+them excellent places--for anyone who values above all things a little
+quiet humour. Also, persons returning from Africa with little else than
+a bitterly acquired philosophy, find satisfaction in putting their only
+possession upon the sound basis of contempt for riches. For herself, not
+only was she able to sustain life for three weeks without scandals and
+the elevating sight of millionaires' wives lifting their skirts at each
+other and wearing their diamonds at breakfast, but she longed and prayed
+with all her soul for peace, and solitude, with nothing about her but
+the blue sea and the horizon.
+
+The battle before her needed a plan of campaign, and to prepare that she
+must have time and rest. First, there must be some bitter days spent in
+wiping from her mind, and memory, Africa and all that therein was. She
+realised that if the greater part of her thought and force was afar
+from her, seeking to follow a man who by that time was deep in the heart
+of Africa, it would be futile to expect anything great of the future.
+Abinger and his soul-searing words must be forgotten too; and Clem
+Portal's fascinating friendship, and Charles Bramham's kind grey eyes
+and generous heart. All these were destroying angels. If she admitted
+thoughts of them into her life, they would eat her time, and her
+strength, which must austerely be hoarded for the future.
+
+Courage, resolution, silence--those were three good things, Clem Portal
+said, to be a woman's friends. And those were the things the girl strove
+to plant firm in her soul as she watched with misty, but not hopeless
+eyes, the retreating coast of her beloved land.
+
+She kept aloof from everyone, spending long, absorbed hours of thought
+and study in some canvas-shaded corner; or swinging up and down the
+decks, drinking in the freshness of the wind. Before many days were
+past, care departed from her, and rose-leaf youth was back to her face.
+Gladness of life surged in her veins, and the heart Evelyn Carson had
+waked to life, sang like a violin in her breast. Her feet were on the
+"Open Road" and she loved it well, and could sing with Lavengro:
+
+    "Life is sweet, brother ... there is day and night,
+    brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, all sweet
+    things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."
+
+She had yet to find that the gods love not the sound of women's feet
+upon the Open Road. Its long, level stretches are easy to the feet of
+men, but for women it most strangely "winds upwards" all the way, and
+the going is stony, and many a heavy burden is added to the pack the
+journey was commenced with. Youth and Love are stout friends with whom
+to begin the climb, and Poppy knew not that she had a pack at all.
+Certainly she suspected nothing as yet of the burden which Fate and her
+own wild passionate nature had laid upon her. So still she went
+glad-foot. No one who watched her could have believed that she was a
+girl out in the world alone--a girl breaking away from a past that was a
+network of sorrows and strange happenings, to face a future that lay
+hidden and dark.
+
+The few quiet passengers on board chanced all to be middle-aged, and not
+greatly curious about the affairs of other people; but they often
+pondered idly among themselves upon the identity of the fleet-footed
+girl with the face like a spring morning; mildly speculating as to what
+had happened to her chaperon at the last moment; for they thought it
+would be ridiculous to suppose that she was travelling alone, except by
+accident.
+
+Only one person thought differently--the ship's doctor. He had seen her
+eyes the day she came on board, and he knew a few things about women's
+eyes. Indeed, it is certain that if Maurice Newnham had given half as
+much attention to medical science as he had divided between the
+engrossing subject of women's eyes, and the poker-table, he would not
+have been preparing black-draughts for able seamen, and treating
+passengers for _mal-de-mer_, in return for a passage home. He was a good
+doctor gone wrong for lack of principles, application, energy,
+ambition--anything but brains. Ten years of roaming through Africa found
+him at last kicking its dust from his feet with his achievements and
+fortune ably represented by a duck's egg, and nothing before him but the
+prospect, at best, of a post as ship's doctor on one of the big Atlantic
+liners. He was a square-built man with a clean-shaven face that would
+soon be fat and loose-jawed. Laziness--physical and mental; intellect
+gone to rack and ruin; savage boredom with the world in general--these
+were the things writ large upon him. He detested with all his heart the
+few worthy passengers; the untemptress-like women, and the men who only
+went to the smoke-room when it was too hot on deck, or for a quiet game
+of whist. And always he turned his burnt-out eyes to where Poppy sat
+dewy in the sunshine or swung down the deck--trying to place her and
+read her story. He was sure that she had a story. He considered her
+clothes, and her manners, and her walk, distinguished, and in keeping
+with the general theory that she was a well-born girl accidentally
+travelling alone. It was only on the evidence of her eyes, as he had
+seen them the day she came aboard, that he formed the conclusion she was
+facing life on her own responsibility. He told himself _then_, that they
+were the eyes of a girl who had come to a bad bit of the road, and
+though she had wonderfully changed in a few days, his professional eye,
+blurred though it was, saw still on her the traces of stress and storm.
+Now, Maurice Newnham knew all about bad bits of the road. He had
+stumbled through muddy and broken places himself, and seen others do the
+same; some dying in the holes they had made, some lying down by the
+wayside with no heart to start afresh. His keen instinct for a
+fellow-stumbler was the only instinct he had not deliberately blunted.
+Therefore he greatly desired to make the acquaintance of "Miss R.
+Chard," as the passenger-list described her. Moreover, he was attracted
+by her unusual beauty.
+
+However, it was plain to everyone that Miss Chard did not wish to form
+acquaintances. When the women made pleasant little overtures, she smiled
+a kind of cold vague smile, and let _that_ be her answer. And she simply
+looked through the men. Dr. Newnham got into her way several times on
+deck and on the companionway, forcing her to meet his eyes, but she
+remained composed and indifferent under their bold glance. He had almost
+despaired of ever gaining his end, when chance, the only friend he could
+lay claim to, intervened.
+
+On a hot day in the tropics the ship's _chef_ had resort to tinned
+supplies, and amongst other things sent to the luncheon-table was an
+_entree_, which had the appearance of tongue-in-aspic, charmingly
+wreathed with lettuce and cress. Most people attracted by the greenery,
+partook of this dish, and though they immediately discovered themselves
+to be eating "Sarah Anne Lane," they calmly continued the cannibalistic
+performance, for "bully beef" is too old and close a friend to be
+despised by any South African sojourner. However, on this occasion
+"bully" was an enemy--perhaps the historic Sarah-Anne was really present
+at last (in portions)--for before night everyone who had partaken of the
+fascinating bewreathed _entree_ was _hors de combat_ with a mild attack
+of something in the nature of ptomaine.
+
+Poppy was one of the sufferers, though by no means the worst. She was
+ill enough to require the services of Dr. Newnham, and to be grateful
+for them. He was always very grave and curt, never stayed for more than
+a few moments, or talked of anything but the state of her health. Soon
+she was up on deck again; but for a few days he continued to
+professionally superintend her doings. Afterwards he fell naturally into
+the habit of staying to talk to her. Everyone knows how easily these
+things are done on board ship. Poppy, after all, was glad to talk to
+someone. In the few days spent below she had grown weary of herself, and
+Newnham was an interesting interlude--as interesting as a character on
+the down-grade always is, if only because of its efforts to hide the
+wreckage from the eyes of a new acquaintance. But efforts that are not
+natural cannot be kept up long. The old Adam soon reasserts himself.
+Poppy began to get prehistoric peeps of the raw savage that Newnham hid
+under his professional manner and well-made clothes, and they sickened
+her. She knew too much about white savages, and she much preferred the
+real thing--Zulu or Basuto. However, she forgave him a great deal for
+the sake of the curious things he knew about people in different parts
+of Africa. He had been everywhere, from the Karoo to the Kalahari, from
+Boshof to Blantyre, and from Matjesfontein to the Matoppos.
+
+Both in Rhodesia and the Transvaal he had seen history made, and in the
+telling of these things he possessed that idle eloquence so often found
+in men of a dissolute type. In Newnham the gift, being grafted upon the
+trained observation of his student years, was specially striking.
+
+At Johannesburg, his last and latest place of residence, he had been in
+charge of a native Hospital in one of the mine compounds. He said he had
+cut off enough Kaffirs' legs there to fill a forty-foot shaft.
+
+"If one of them came to me with a corn, I'd make it into a reason for
+cutting his leg off," he said malevolently. "I hate the brutes."
+
+"I hate brutes too," retorted Poppy, with the curled lip of disgust.
+"You know very little of natives, if you think they all come under
+_that_ heading."
+
+"Ah!" said he. "I see you have the tender heart that goes with the
+tender-foot. If you only knew as much of them as I do----"
+
+She probably knew a great deal more, but she left it at that.
+
+Her mind had flown away into the dark deeps of Africa, where a man
+forged ahead over unbroken tracks, through fevered swamps, with no
+companions but his faithful _boys_, upon whose courage and staunch
+loyalty his life must of necessity often depend--and not depend in vain;
+for "good men" (the expression has nothing to do with morals) trust
+their _boys_, and are trusted by them to the death.
+
+Ah! with an effort she dragged back her thoughts from across the sea.
+That way madness lay! She gave her ears once more to Newnham and the
+Rand.
+
+He spoke of Johannesburg with the mingled hatred and admiration everyone
+who has ever lived there feels for that evil, fascinating Monte-Carlo of
+money, and tragedy, and suffering.
+
+"It is the only place worth living in," he averred; adding: "At least,
+that is what all the old residents say, and you can understand the
+emotion with which they say it when you consider that most of them came
+out as waiters and cook-generals, and blossomed later into millionaire
+squires and dames of society."
+
+"But they all go and live in Park Lane, don't they?" smiled Poppy.
+
+"Oh! they revisit the scene of their triumphs. It lures them across the
+sea. A poignant longing comes to them sometimes, even in Park Lane, for
+the glitter of galvanised-iron and sardine-tins and Nestle's Brand--and
+the red dust, and the spectral blue gums. But they do precious little
+for the place that has done so much for them," he sneered. "I should say
+that with the exception of the Barnato ward, and an open space for
+games, not a millionaire of the lot has done anything to beautify or
+benefit Johannesburg. 'Make your pile and scoot' has always been the
+watchword. But I suppose it isn't in human nature for a debtor to love
+his creditor!"
+
+Newnham and Poppy spent many days in talk of Africa. The evenings, which
+were all blue and gold--sea and sky alike thickly sown with stars--she
+loved to dream away alone in some shadowy corner, or leaning over the
+taffrails with the gleam of the phosphorescent waves reflected on her
+face. But when Newnham sought her out she would either walk, or have her
+chair put where a big electric-light blazed on the face of her
+companion.
+
+"Never sign a paper, or drink water in the dark," was a Spanish proverb
+well known to her, and she had another of her own:
+
+"Never rest where you cannot see the eyes of a man you distrust."
+
+She was frankly interested in what Newnham had to say, but she
+distrusted him. Nevertheless, she went ashore with him at Teneriffe and
+they wandered about the narrow debris-strewn streets, and were stared at
+by the women who wear such liberal coats of powder and rouge upon their
+handsome olive skins and grow stout so early in life.
+
+Poppy had a fancy to climb the zig-zag road to Laguna, but Newnham
+looked lugubrious at the idea--probably his muscles had long been out of
+gear for climbing or any other physical activity--and hastily suggested
+that the boat would not be making a very long stay. So they roamed about
+the lower slopes of the hills instead, watched the barefooted women in
+the washing pools, and did some shopping. Poppy, accustomed in her
+travels to have Abinger behind her paying for everything she bought,
+quite forgot that all she owned in the world was forty-five pounds, the
+remainder of seventy pounds she had allowed Bramham to lend her (she had
+been obliged to expend twenty-five pounds upon a wardrobe), fell with
+rapture, upon a lovely piece of Spanish lace, and handed out five pounds
+without the turn of an eyelash. It was only afterwards that she realised
+her foolish extravagance. As they were returning to the ship followed by
+two men carrying baskets of fruit and flowers bought by Newnham, he
+suddenly observed that her face had become dolorous.
+
+"What's wrong?" he asked in his casual but not offensive manner.
+
+"Oh, nothing!" Then she stood still, seized by a sudden thought. "Do you
+think the woman would take that lace back again?"
+
+"That five pounds' worth? No--not for a minute. I saw the gleam in her
+eye when she stowed away your fiver. But why--don't you like it?"
+
+"Oh, yes. I love lace. But I have just remembered that I can't afford
+it."
+
+"Well, I don't think it's the slightest use going back. But _I'll_ buy
+it, if you like?"
+
+"You? What for? What would you do with it?"
+
+"Give it to you, of course," he said pleasantly, but she flushed and her
+manner instantly became cold.
+
+"I do not wish you to buy it," she said shortly. "I like it and will
+keep it myself."
+
+"I wonder how many times to the minute a woman changes her mind!" he
+jested, but he was secretly much amazed.
+
+"She's hard up!" was his thought. That side of the picture had not
+presented itself to his mind before, and it "gave him to think." He
+later resolved that he would offer to buy the lace from her to give to
+his sister--and then get her to take it back under the name of a
+"keepsake" when they reached England.
+
+"I bet that'll suit her book," he cynically thought.
+
+But Poppy did not come on deck after dinner, and the next day she let
+Newnham see very plainly that she was offended. For two more days she
+kept the atmosphere about her so frigid that he did not dare venture
+into it. He found the time singularly blank. There was nothing to do but
+sit in the smoke-room and curse the day that he was born, between
+drinks. On the third evening she relented and allowed him to approach
+her under the blaze of electric-light.
+
+"Why have you been so cruel to me?" he demanded almost violently. "What
+have I done to make you angry?"
+
+He half expected that she would--as girls generally do--first feign
+ignorance of his meaning, and, later, allow herself to be persuaded that
+she had never been angry at all. But she was not of the same kidney as
+the girls Maurice Newnham had been meeting for the last ten years. She
+spoke at once, and to the point.
+
+"I thought it extremely insolent of you to offer to give me five
+pounds," she said, and Newnham, being much taken aback, could only find
+tongue to utter:
+
+"I swear I didn't mean to be insolent."
+
+"Oh, yes, you did. I hated the way you spoke; and when I remember the
+way you looked, I wonder that I allow myself to speak to you again."
+
+"I'm awfully sorry," he stammered. "I'd no idea you would take it in
+such a way. It was an ordinary thing to do, I thought. Most women or
+girls in Africa would think nothing of taking a little bit of lace."
+
+"I am not at all like most women and girls in Africa," was the cool
+response. "However, I will say nothing further about it, Dr. Newnham.
+Only please, if you care to talk to me, behave yourself--and don't ever
+mention _lace_ again."
+
+Newnham had never been spoken to in this fashion by a woman since he
+came to Africa, and he did not take to it at all. But he was afraid to
+show his resentment for fear she would carry out her threat and never
+speak to him again. And if she turned her back on him now, he believed
+he should go mad. It had come to _that_ with him. He was half-crazed
+with passion for this girl who could look at him so composedly and speak
+to him so contemptuously. But together with his passion was bitter rage
+with himself and with her. He was torn between primitive emotions. At
+one moment he longed with all the malignity of a mean weak nature to
+fling coarse words at her that would make her crouch before him; in the
+next he longed only to crouch himself, offering his neck, his body, his
+soul to her feet.
+
+While he wrestled with his longings and inclinations, breathing hard at
+her side, she composedly arose and left him with a cool good-night.
+
+He returned to the smoke-room and kept the steward busy for the next two
+hours; and when at last, by reason of the emphatic dimming of the
+electric lights, he roused himself to thoughts of bed, he had come to a
+conclusion and a resolution. Quite an epoch for him!
+
+All the next day he haunted Poppy strangely. He was never far from her,
+and the look in his eyes stirred her to discomfort and foreboding,
+although it was not comprehensible to her. Something in his eyes she
+understood only too well--she began to expect _that_ in men's eyes now!
+But what did that half-pitying, half-scornful expression mean? She
+resented it extremely; but her curiosity was aroused. In the evening,
+therefore, she let him pull his chair next to hers in the usual corner.
+Only, the electric light was gone; the burner had died out, and someone
+had forgotten to replace it or thought it not worth while to do so, for
+this was the last night at sea and the ship was to dock on the morrow.
+They were creeping near the grey-green English coasts now, and the
+English weather was sweet and grateful after the heat of the tropics and
+the dusty land left far behind; but there was a freshness in the
+late-April air that made Poppy turn up the collar of her coat and take
+shelter under the lee of her chair cushion.
+
+Newnham, restless and miserable, quoted with some trace of emotion:
+
+                        "O to be in England
+                        Now that Spring is there."
+
+But his emotion was neither for Spring nor England. He led the talk to
+London with the hope of getting her to speak of her destination; but she
+went off at a tangent and began to tell him about the wonderful shades
+of blue to be found in the interior of a glacier. He ignored that, and
+made occasion to give her his card with a Kensington address written on
+it, saying in rather strained fashion:
+
+"If ever you want a friend--doctors are sometimes useful people, you
+know."
+
+She thanked him and took his card, holding it carefully in her hand. But
+she offered no information on the subject which so engrossed his
+thoughts. An uncomfortable pause followed. Suddenly in the darkness she
+felt a hand hot on hers.
+
+"Miss Chard ... Rosalind ..." he had discovered her name--"I will do
+anything for you."
+
+It was far from being a surprise to her that he should make some kind of
+avowal. But his words seemed to her rather odd--and somehow in keeping
+with his odd looks at her. She very gently drew away her hand from under
+his and put it behind her head. The other was quite out of his reach.
+
+"Thank you, Dr. Newnham," she said kindly, but with no particular
+fervour.
+
+"Do you understand what I mean?" he said huskily, after another pause.
+"I can help you."
+
+He could not see the expression on her face, but he saw that she turned
+her head to look at him as she answered:
+
+"What can you mean?"
+
+"Oh, you needn't beat about the bush with me," he spoke with coarse
+irritation. "I know what you have to face."
+
+"You must be wonderfully clever," she said, with a touch of sarcasm;
+"but I should like to know just what you mean."
+
+Irritation now became anger.
+
+"You know well enough," he said brutally. "What is the good of playing
+pure with me! It is my business to see what isn't plain to other
+people."
+
+In the darkness she grew pale with anger at his tone, but she had fear
+too, of she knew not what. Her wish was to rise and leave him at once;
+but curiosity chained her--curiosity and creeping, creeping fear. Dimly
+she became conscious of the predestined feeling that once or twice
+before in her life had presaged strange happenings. What was she going
+to hear? She sat very still, waiting.
+
+The man leaned close to her and spoke into her ear. His breathing was
+quick and excited, but he had some difficulty with his words; he
+muttered and his sentences were halting and disjointed.
+
+But Poppy heard everything he said. It seemed to her that his lowest
+whisper pierced to the inmost places of her being, and reverberated
+through her like the echoing and resounding of bells. Afterwards there
+was a terrible quiet. He could not see her face. She appeared almost to
+be crouching in her chair, all bundled up, but he did not venture to
+touch her--some instinct kept him from that. Pity, mingled with his base
+passion and scorn. He regretted that he had spoken so violently. He
+feared he had been brutal. At last she spoke, in a faint voice, that
+seemed to come from far away.
+
+"I don't know what you mean ... I think you must be mad."
+
+Newnham laughed--derisively, devilishly.
+
+"I'll bet that's what you are going home for, all the same."
+
+While he was furiously laughing, with his hand flung above his head, she
+flamed up out of her chair, and spoke for a moment down at him in a low,
+vibrating voice:
+
+"You vile man! Never dare speak to me again. You are not fit to live!"
+
+Then she was gone.
+
+After a time he got up and stumbled towards the smoke-room, intending to
+get drunk; but he changed his mind before he reached it, and went to his
+cabin instead. Having closed his door, he sat in the berth and stared at
+his boots. He said at last:
+
+"H----! What a beast I am! But what is worse, I am a fool. I am no good
+any longer. I made a mistake in my diagnosis. That girl is straight!
+Pure as the untrodden snow! I had better cut my throat."
+
+However, he did not.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Poppy, lying on her face in her cabin, was tasting shame. Bitter-sweet,
+mysterious, terrifying knowledge was hers at last--and with it was
+shame. Shame that the knowledge should come to her from profane and
+guilty lips! Shame that the child of the king of her heart should be
+unworthily born; that a king's child should be robbed of its kingdom;
+that the mother of her child should be one to whom men might throw vile
+words. Shame that she was a transgressor.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+
+London was not new to Poppy. She had lived there for months at a time,
+but always at the best hotels and under luxurious conditions. Now, she
+hardly knew where to seek a home in accord with her limited means, but
+she had heard of Bloomsbury as being the resort of writers and artists
+and people whose riches are rather to be found in their heads and hearts
+than in their purses; so she took her way thither.
+
+She walked the old-fashioned squares the day after her arrival and found
+them all green-tracery, and darts of spring sunshine that touched the
+gloomy houses with the gilt of past romance. After much roaming, and
+knocking, and climbing of stairs, and making of awkward adieus to angry,
+disappointed landladies, she eventually discovered a tall, white house,
+whose front windows overlooked the pigeons pecking in the straggly grass
+that grows in the courtyard of the British Museum. A room on the top
+floor but one seemed likely to suit her purse and her tastes, and she
+seized upon it eagerly. It was big and bare, with no noise overhead,
+except the footsteps of two tired maids, who crept to bed at eleven
+o'clock with very little to say to each other. It seemed to Poppy that
+she could not have found any better place to start hard work in, and
+yet, from the first day there, a dreariness crept over her spirit--a
+kind of mental numbness she had never known before, oppressed her. She
+supposed it must have something to do with her physical condition and
+the shock she had lately received, and that after a few days it would
+pass. Instead, it increased. Her nights became indescribably weird and
+unhappy. Always it seemed to her that she heard someone calling
+somewhere, and she used to wake up, thinking that she had been urgently
+roused to fetch something. Sometimes, still half asleep, she would get
+up and begin to dress to go out; then, gradually becoming conscious of
+what she was doing, she would light the gas and stare round the room,
+looking for the person who had been speaking to her. In the daytime it
+became impossible to work, though she perpetually goaded herself to her
+writing-table. The only time she could get any ease from the intolerable
+restlessness and depression that filled her, was when she was half out
+of her window, leaning above the street, watching the intermittent
+stream of uninteresting-looking people who passed up and down the broad,
+dingy steps of the Museum, and listening to the roar of London afar.
+Trying to interpret the street calls was an idle amusement, too,
+wondering why the coal-carters should shout _Ko-bel_, and the cry of the
+oyster-man be exceeding dolorous like the cry of a soul in the depths.
+
+_Clam ... Clam ... clamavi._
+
+In the afternoons, when still haunting sadness obsessed her, she would
+put on her hat and visit a picture-gallery, or walk in the park, or roam
+the streets looking at the shop-windows and into the strained, anxious
+faces of the hurrying passers-by. She speculated as to whether she would
+ever get that look, and always she wondered what was worth it; then one
+day, as she walked, she felt what seemed tiny fluttering fingers
+clutching at her heart-strings, and she _knew_! Flying home on swift
+feet, she nailed herself once more to her work-table. She _must_ work,
+she told herself feverishly; and when she could not, frenzy seized her,
+then terror, then despair. Yes, those were the things she had seen in
+the strained, hurrying faces that passed along--frenzy, terror,
+despair; not for themselves, but for _others_. _She must work!_
+
+But Inspiration hid Her face; and shadows came out of the four corners
+of the room and closed in upon her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Breakfast was always brought on a tray by a maid called Kate. For the
+rest of her meals she frequented A.B.C. shops, and the like, existing on
+cups of tea and boiled eggs and glasses of milk, after the manner of
+women who live alone and have to economise. But sometimes in a wild
+burst of extravagance she would wend her way to Soho and order a little
+Italian meal all _hors-d'oeuvres_ and thin Chianti. She loved to hear
+the French and Italian chatter about her, and felt more at home there
+than anywhere, not minding the men's bold, dark glances, for in her
+travels with Abinger she had learnt to know that there was really little
+of harm in them. Of course, she attracted much attention and often had
+uncomfortable adventures in her lonely goings and comings; but she did
+not let these ruffle her greatly, telling herself that all such things
+were part and parcel of the fight. She minded nothing, in fact, except
+the tragic atmosphere of her room, which engulfed her spirit as soon as
+she entered. The nights began to be even more eerie. She lay awake often
+until dawn, and presently longings and urgings came upon her to procure
+something that would produce sleep. She had never known anyone who took
+drugs or sleeping-draughts, and could not imagine what put such an idea
+into her head--indeed, having read De Quincey's _Confessions_, she had a
+horror of such things, and so, fought the suggestion with all her might.
+But still it returned. Once when she was sitting at her table, with a
+throbbing head, biting her pencil before a blank sheet of paper, she
+distinctly heard someone softly say:
+
+"Go and _buy_ some inspiration."
+
+She stared about the empty room.
+
+"What can be the matter with me?" she demanded of herself, after a time,
+and strove with all her strength to work and drive such insane thoughts
+from her. But the writer within her was mute, the poet dumb, and her
+woman's body was very weary.
+
+One day, she had been striving with herself for many hours, writing down
+dry, banal words that she almost dug out of the paper a moment
+afterwards. At intervals she sat with her head on her arms, wondering
+what had ever caused her to dream that she was born to the pen; brooding
+over the possibilities of her chances as a shop-girl, a waitress in a
+tea-shop, a chorus-girl, a housemaid--as _anything_ but a writer of
+poems and romantic fiction, at which she was obviously a dismal failure.
+
+At last she flung papers and pencils to the four corners of the room,
+and left the house. Out of doors it was raining fearsomely. After
+tramping for an hour or so, soaked through, she found herself back near
+home, in Theobald's Row--a hateful street that smells of fish and rank
+cheese, where men bawl out the price of pork-chops, and women come
+furtively stealing from side-doors, wiping their lips. She made haste to
+get into Southampton Row, which has a sweeter savour to the nostrils and
+a staid, respectable air. At a corner she passed a paper shop, which had
+many news-boards exposed, with the "sheets" hanging dripping and torn
+from them. One yellow sheet stood out boldly with the words "_South
+Africa_" in black letters across it. A pang of joy shot through her. She
+could have fallen down before that tattered paper and kissed the magic
+words. The name of her own land! The land that had beaten her and
+bruised her and flung her out to seek a living and safety in another
+country--but her own land! Some words came to her lips:
+
+                "She said: God knows they owe me naught.
+                  I tossed them to the foaming sea,
+                I tossed them to the howling waste,
+                  _Yet still their love comes home to me._"
+
+So far she had forbidden herself entirely the luxury of journals and
+magazines, saying that she could not afford them; but now she went into
+the shop and recklessly bought up everything that had any connection
+with South-African affairs.
+
+Afterwards, going home, she saw a flower-girl crouching in a doorway
+with a bale of wet daffodils and narcissi in her arms. Flowers, too,
+were luxuries, concerning which she had laid down a law unto herself;
+but the girl made a piteous appeal, and without a thought of dwindling
+funds, Poppy bought up the whole wet fragrant bale. Before she reached
+home she was reproaching herself bitterly.
+
+"How _can_ I be buying magazines and flowers with money I have not
+earned?... I am becoming degraded! ... a parasite!"
+
+Only the smell of the narcissi reassured her, and changed the trend of
+her thoughts, for they reminded her of Charles Bramham and his acres of
+flowers seen from the hilltops.
+
+"He would be glad to think that his money brings this rift of blue into
+my grey sky," she thought; and she turned her dreary room into an
+enchanted spring garden, extravagantly ordered a fire and sat before it,
+tearing the news out of the papers with her eyes, searching for the name
+of Evelyn Carson. She had not far to look. In every paper she found news
+of him. His party had arrived at Borwezi, a spot in Central Africa, the
+last civilised touching-place before they plunged into the savage
+unknown. He had made a long stay there--for it was on the banks of a
+"fever river," second only to the Pungwe. Carson was reported to have
+been laid up with malarial fever for a week, and a doctor who had joined
+the expedition at Mombassa had been so ill from the same cause as to be
+obliged to abandon his intention and to be taken back to civilisation
+under the care of people who had accompanied the expedition as far as
+Borwezi. One paper mentioned the names of Mr. and Mrs. Nick Capron as
+being of the returning party. This was as far as the actual news went.
+Rumours there were in plenty. One arresting story, brought into Borwezi
+by native runners, was that the natives of Borapota were departing from
+every part of their country to assemble in the capital, where the King
+would receive Carson and his men--whether in a friendly or hostile
+spirit was unknown. Several papers devoted articles to Carson himself,
+dealing with his achievements in different parts of Africa, his
+personality, his influence with the Zulus and Basutos, and other
+less-known tribes. One journal headed an article with the
+word--_Intandugaza_: fortunately the writer did not attempt to translate
+the Zulu word, nor explain how Carson came to bear it. (Perhaps that was
+"one of the untoward things about him not compatible with reverence,"
+thought Poppy sadly.) After she had drunk in every word of him, the
+papers lay scattered at her feet, and she, lapsing from the decree she
+had made not to think of him, lost herself at last in dreams of him. She
+had lived according to the rules of Alice Meynell's _Renouncement_:
+
+          "I must not think of thee; and tired yet strong
+            I shun the thought that dwells in all delight,
+            The thought of thee: and in the heaven's blue height:
+          And in the sweetest passage of a song----"
+
+Now she forgot the fine, firm words, and long, long sat dreaming by the
+fire, with her hands before her face. Anyone looking into the room would
+merely have seen a girl lying back in her chair resting, asleep
+perhaps. But only the lesser part of Poppy Destin was there. The spirit
+of her wandered in a moonlit Natal garden, listening to a voice with a
+rustle in it, and from thence ... far, far!
+
+Afterwards, she reconstructed all the chapters of her life since the
+magic night that began so wonderfully and ended in despair with the
+uttering of another woman's name. Of that woman--_Loraine_, she thought
+little now, having fought down and killed the bitter hatred of her, as
+once she had wished to kill the woman. There was no room in her awakened
+heart for hatred--only Love could be there. Love of the man who had
+awakened it, and to whom, whether he loved her or not, she believed
+herself to be secretly linked for ever; and to whom, whether she saw him
+again or not, her hopes, her future, her life were dedicated. But she
+_would_ see him again!--of that she was blindly, fatalistically certain:
+and he would know her for his mate, as she knew him--or of what use her
+beauty, her wit, her charm, her life at all? All things would entangle
+themselves, she told her heart. As soon as she had money enough she
+meant to free herself from the marriage with Luce Abinger that was no
+marriage at all; and from which he knew a Court of Justice would free
+her as an innocent, unwitting victim. As she sat thinking, many things
+that had been dark became clear. The meaning of Abinger's fearsome
+conduct was plain to her now--he _knew_! Kykie had told him. That was
+what she had stayed up for, supposing herself to be the herald of glad
+tidings.
+
+It made the girl recoil and quiver to think that those two had known and
+spoken of what had been hidden from _her_; of what, even now, she dared
+hardly consider with herself because of its wonder and terror--something
+that no one in the world should know except just two people: so it
+seemed to her.
+
+"But, oh, Mother of God!" she cried aloud and bitterly. "Why is this
+thing so sweet, and yet so terrible to bear?"
+
+Even while she asked she knew, and gave herself the answer.
+
+"I am a Transgressor----"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last, far into the night, she undressed and went to bed; so tired
+from emotion that she fell at once into dead slumber. But no sooner was
+she asleep than she was dreaming that a woman lay by her side on the bed
+whispering into her ear, pleading, asking for something, begging,
+urgently demanding. With a wrench Poppy threw off sleep and sat up
+staring into the darkness of the room. She was only half-awake, but she
+was certain--she could have _sworn_ that a shadowy figure rose, too,
+from the bed, and slipped into the far shadows.
+
+Beads of fright sat on her forehead.
+
+"I am going mad!" she thought. "There was a woman on my bed ... she is
+still in the room. I am going mad!"
+
+She was afraid to lie down again, and afraid to get out of bed. She sat
+there in cold terror until she thought herself turned to stone. Then,
+slowly, reason reasserted itself, and courage. She clenched her teeth
+and nerved herself to move, to get from the bed and from the room. The
+whole house was wrapped in darkness. Instinctively she made for the room
+above her, where she knew the servants were. Reaching the door she
+knocked and then entered. One of them was awake at once.
+
+"Who's there? What do you want?" said an excited voice, ready to scream.
+
+"Don't be afraid, Kate ... I am the girl who sleeps in the room
+below ... Miss Chard.... I don't want to disturb you--only--let me stay
+here until morning, will you?... I'm afraid to be in my own room."
+
+Kate was "a good sort." She struck a match and stared at the intruder
+before answering; then she said: "Lock the door," and was obeyed with
+alacrity.
+
+The maid hopped out and soon had a blanket round Poppy's trembling form.
+She made room on the bed, and they sat whispering together. The other
+maid slept on like the dead.
+
+"What did you see?" asked Kate.
+
+"See? I don't know ... there was something strange----"
+
+"It was _'er_, sure enough!"
+
+"What do you mean, Kate?" Poppy felt her spine curling.
+
+"I'm new here," whispered Kate mysteriously; "but I got five minutes'
+talk with the last girl, though the missis tried hard to keep us from
+meeting. Miss--_no one ever sleeps in that room long_. A lydy cut her
+throat there!"
+
+"What!"
+
+"Yes--sure as I'm sitting here. I've been afraid to creep up the stairs
+at night for fear of _her_. How you could a _slep_ there, Heavin knows!"
+She lowered her voice to a whisper: "She used to take them drugs. She
+was a hactress, and she and her 'usbin had that room. She was very
+clever, they said, but she hadn't had no work for a long time, and she
+used to eat away at them drugs night and day, and 'er 'usbin never knew.
+And at last, one day he found 'er out, and there was an awful shindy and
+he said as 'e'd leave her if she didn't knock it off. And she tried and
+tried. For a whole three days she did without ... walked the room all
+day and would go out and no sooner out than in again ... she told the
+girl it was _'ell_. Every time anyone came to the door she would stand
+up and just say, ''ell! 'ell! ell!' very quiet to herself all the time
+they was speaking. Then on the third night she went out and got _it_.
+And the 'usbin found out as soon as he came in. She was so gentle and
+sweet-like, and began to 'elp 'im off with his coat. He gave her a
+look ... like _hanythink_, then 'e put his hat and coat on again and
+walked out. And that very night she done for 'erself with one of the
+razors 'e left behind. _She done it in the very bed you bin sleeping
+in._ I says to cook I says it's a shime of the missis to do it!--but
+there! she's one of them would sell 'er mother's shroud for sixpence.
+I shan't stay here no more after this, don't you believe it, miss--not
+for a thousand pound; and nor won't you, I reckon."
+
+Poppy's reckoning came to much the same sum. When she stole down in the
+morning light, it was to dress herself and pack her belongings swiftly
+for departure. Kate stayed by the door until all was done, casting
+fearsome glances about her, ready to fly at a sound. They left the
+flower-decked room then, to the poor, disquieted spirit that haunted it,
+and sought the mistress of the house. But she discreetly excused herself
+from an interview, and only sent the cook to demand a week's extra money
+in lieu of the notice that should have been given. Poppy expostulated,
+but it was of no use: she was told that it was the rule under which
+rooms were let and that her luggage could be detained. When she had
+paid, she realised that this extra expense would force her to seek still
+cheaper lodgings. That evening found her installed in a dingy room in
+Hunter Street--another top-floor-but-one.
+
+How she wished at this time, that she had betaken herself from the first
+to Paris, where, she had been told all top-floors are white-and-gold
+rooms, with faded true-lovers' knots festooning the ceiling, and wide
+oak fireplaces in which burnt little bright _briquette_ fires. Once,
+wishing to have a picture in the Louvre copied for Luce, she had visited
+a clever but penniless girl-artist in such a room, in quite a poor part
+of the _Quartier_; and the girl had carelessly told her that there were
+plenty of the same kind to be had.
+
+In her new quarters Poppy had barely room to turn round: but she was
+more content. No tragic ghosts kept vigil there, it was certain. A
+healthy scent of Irish stew pervaded the atmosphere, and the walls were
+decorated with smiling faces and charming figures. The landlady, a
+stout, breezy woman on the right side of forty-five, had once been a
+chorus girl at the Gaiety, and her circle of acquaintances had evidently
+been large. Little now remained to her of beauty, but she had an
+attractive _bonhomie_ and a wide charity for the world of women.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+
+In Hunter Street, Poppy put the finishing touches to her book of
+poems--as far as anything is ever finished until it appears in print.
+For it is certain that a writer will always find something new to do to
+a book as long as it is in MS. and within reach. But with Poppy, time
+pressed. She knew that shortly she would be wanting money. Moreover, she
+was horrified to reflect that after nearly four months in England she
+had nothing ready for publication but the poems, which had been the work
+of years. The thought came to her that if she could get this book
+accepted and published it would bring courage and inspiration back, and
+so spur her on that she would presently come to her own on a full tide.
+With this hope high in her, she sent the poems to a publisher whom she
+had read of in a literary journal as having a reputation for encouraging
+new authors on new subjects. The journal in question had omitted to
+mention that the new authors got very little out of the process _beyond_
+the encouragement, so poor Poppy went home gay of heart from posting her
+precious manuscript and essayed to start work on a batch of short
+stories. She had six of them in a skeleton condition; some of them
+consisting of no more than half a dozen startling phrases which were
+almost stories in themselves. These she intended to finish and get into
+the magazines.
+
+Afterwards, she would complete her book and fire it off at the world.
+She knew she could write. All she needed was time--and peace of mind.
+Alas! Time began to press terribly; and peace of mind was anywhere but
+in a little fourth-floor room in Hunter Street. Inspiration appeared to
+have fled from so commonplace an atmosphere; and again the lurking
+shadows came out of their corners, and cast themselves across the pages
+she could not fill.
+
+Her physical condition began to oppress her sorely, too, and she no
+longer _wanted_ to work, for sitting at her desk caused headaches and
+dizziness. She longed for fresh air and bracing walks across grass and
+in the wind: for peaceful and beautiful scenes. But London was stifling
+in the grip of summer, and Bloomsbury was the hottest, most stifling
+place in it. The little room was suffocating, and out-of-doors the
+conditions were not much better. The streets gave up a white, afflicting
+dust; the pavements burned the feet. The best Poppy could do was to take
+a 'bus to some park where she could seek the quiet little unfrequented
+walks. Most of all, she loved the river when it swelled serene and
+full-bosomed from Chelsea onwards to Putney and the upper reaches. Along
+the Embankment how often she lingered before the beaten-copper lilies on
+Whistler's door, wishing dreamfully that she might see that master of
+paint and satire come forth, eye-glass perched in eye and cane in hand:
+but he never did--for her. From thence she would go to the statue of
+grey old Carlyle, who sits always in his little green garden watching
+Mother Thames flow by. On, past the Rossetti Fountain, and the house
+where the poet lived; and George Eliot's dull and drearsome residence.
+The Clock House charmed her, and she thought that if she _could_ live in
+London she would choose to live there. Always she trembled a little when
+she passed Tite Street, thinking of the tragic genius who had made it
+famous and who was eating out his heart in Reading Gaol. She would
+never pass through the street, or look at No. 16, for fear her action
+might seem to savour of the cruel curiosity that lifts the cere-cloth
+from a dead face to seek upon it the marks that life has made and death
+been unable to erase.
+
+At last she would be home again, braced and fresh from her long walk and
+her thoughts--until she sat to her table. Then slowly, but unfailingly,
+physical weariness would steal upon her, and mental depression that
+could not be shaken off.
+
+The facts were to be faced at last that the six stories had sped no
+further ahead than the first few startling phrases; and that living with
+the utmost frugality she was down to the bare cold sum of ten pounds.
+She had long ago decided that she could make no further demand on
+Bramham, although he had urged her to do so if she found herself in need
+"before her ship came home" laden with the rewards of labour. She had
+received several kind and cheery letters from him, and answered them in
+the same spirit. Afterwards, she had let the correspondence lapse, for
+he wrote of a trip "home" before long, and she was afraid that he might
+seek her out.
+
+She possessed no valuables to realise on, except the piece of Spanish
+lace which had been valued by a pawnbroker at thirty shillings. She had
+nothing, in fact, but her literary genius, which had gone back upon her
+in her hour of need. Terrible doubts of her powers assailed her now.
+Could she really write? Or was she merely a scribbling woman who _might_
+be successful as the editress of a woman's dress paper?
+
+No! no! She denied it vehemently. She _knew_ that she had the "restless
+heart and plotting brain" of the born writer; the cunning hand for the
+swift, smiting word; the fine eye for the terse or sonorous sentence;
+the tuned ear for the phrase that, like a chord of music, caused her
+exquisite pleasure. And she had knowledge of a magic land full of
+strange people and cruel ghosts and dear delights: and an imagination:
+and a vocabulary.
+
+Of these things she was certain, when she was sane and calm; but she was
+not often sane and calm. No woman in her state ever is, even under the
+kindliest circumstances. Terrors, pleasures, fears, hopes--all are seen
+through the blurred, exaggerating glass of emotion.
+
+The fear began to haunt her that she would not have enough money in hand
+to pay the expenses of her approaching illness. Sometimes she threw fear
+down and trampled on it; but other times it overcame her, swept her off
+her feet, engulfed her. Lest she should succumb entirely and ignobly she
+would wrench herself free, and, hastening out of doors, spend the
+remainder of the day wandering, resting sometimes in the Abbey,
+sometimes in the Brompton Oratory, seeking always a scene of peace and
+beauty.
+
+One day her breezy landlady approached her, using all the tact and
+kindness she had command of, yet taking the girl cruelly unawares.
+
+"My dear," she said pleasantly, "I hope you have found a place to go to
+when your time comes?"
+
+Poppy sat paling and reddening before her, speechless with confusion.
+
+"Ah, my dear, you needn't mind me," said Miss Drake kindly. "I've lived
+among 'theatricals' all my days, and I know what life is for a lovely
+girl like you--and I can see you're a good girl, too!"
+
+Poppy got up and walked away to the window, so unnerved she knew not
+what to do or say. The kind woman's words threw her into a state of
+misery. She had no idea that her secret was shared by others yet.
+
+"What I wanted to say, dear," continued Miss Drake, "was, that if you
+haven't made your arrangements, you ought to do so at once: because it
+would be very inconvenient if anything happened here. You can see
+yourself, dear, the kind of house this is, full of quiet business
+people, who wouldn't like things to be upset--a doctor coming and going
+on the stairs and a nurse and all that fuss, you know. So, much as I
+shall regret losing you----"
+
+"Oh, don't say anything more, Miss Drake," Poppy interposed hastily. "Of
+course, I shall go--I am going quite soon; I haven't made up my mind
+_where_, but I will do so at once--I'll find out as soon as I can----"
+
+"Yes, yes, of course--don't worry; don't upset yourself,
+dear--_Butterton's Weekly_ is a good paper to find a nursing home in, if
+you haven't the address of any woman. But there! I expect you will get
+along all right."
+
+The moment she had gone Poppy flew out to the nearest paper-shop, bought
+a _Butterton's Weekly_, and brought it home for deep study. It is an
+odious paper. When she had read a few of its advertisements, nausea
+seized her. Was she one of the army of these asking for _secret_ and
+_confidential_ homes? And were these homes offered by _discreet nurses_
+who could _get the baby adopted if desired_, meant for people like her?
+Again shame flushed her, flooded her. She crushed the paper into a ball,
+hid it, and went out for the whole day. But when she came in she
+uncrushed it, and read in it again with dull eyes.
+
+One little shabby advertisement drew her at last. The address it gave
+was a little mean street in Westminster. But the advertiser with great
+subtlety, and doubtless at the cost of extra pence, had added the magic
+words, "_Near Westminster Abbey._"
+
+Those little words redeemed the whole of the wretched sordid rag for
+Poppy. Her soul lifted up its head once more. Westminster Abbey! The
+sight of that beautiful place was for all the poor creatures who wanted
+these homes--it was for her! _His_ son should be born near Westminster
+Abbey!
+
+The next day she sought the address--No. 10, Old Street--and found it
+after long wandering. It was, indeed, near Westminster Abbey, but the
+street was terribly poor. The minute she got into it, she cried out
+within herself:
+
+"No: it cannot be here: I will not have it here--." But at last she
+found the number staring at her from a dingy door. At that she turned
+and looked for Westminster Abbey--but there was no sign of it: only
+tall, narrow, sad houses, with frowsily-curtained windows; bleak
+children playing in the gutter and a knife-grinder wailing out his
+chant:
+
+                          "Knives to grind.
+                          Scissors to grind.
+                          Pots and tea-
+                          Kittles to mend."
+
+"I shall die if I come here," she said desperately, and turned to fly,
+but the door opened suddenly and a woman came out and ran an eye over
+her.
+
+"Good-evening, lady. I see it is me you want," was her laconic greeting.
+"Step inside."
+
+And Poppy found herself doing as she was bidden, following the woman
+into a tawdry sitting-room, which a seething gas-jet lighted with a blue
+and pallid glare. She and the woman faced each other over a
+plum-coloured table-cloth that had a border of yellow-floss flowers in
+hideous free-hand design.
+
+"Are you Nurse Selton?" Poppy asked; and Mrs. Selton smilingly
+acknowledged her name. She was a little dark villain of a woman, with a
+hard mouth full of assorted teeth, and shrewd, black eyes. Her
+expression, however, was good-tempered, and the nursing costume she wore
+gave her an air of respectability, even refinement. She proceeded to
+inform Poppy that she was well known and _esteemed_ in the
+neighbourhood; that the house was quiet and private "in the extreme";
+and that, as a nurse, she possessed all the necessary diplomas and
+certificates. (Whether this last was true or not her listener never
+discovered.)
+
+"You will be _most_ comfortable," she finished. Poppy shuddered.
+
+"What are your terms?" she asked, in a dull voice, having entirely made
+up her mind not to stay with this hateful woman in this hateful house.
+But she wished to parley and give herself time to rest, for she felt
+strangely ill. The woman named a sum ridiculously high.
+
+"I could not afford to pay that," she answered; and Nurse Selton
+regarded her coldly.
+
+"That is not much for a lady of your sort--_first_, I presume? You won't
+get lower terms anywhere else. Won't _the gentleman_ help you?"
+
+When Poppy realised the meaning of this question, the best she could do
+was to bite her lips and avert her eyes from the odious woman, who
+discontentedly continued:
+
+"Well--I'll make it thirty shillings a week _until_, and two pounds a
+week _after_. Two guineas _for the little affair_--and if you want a
+doctor, a guinea extra."
+
+"I don't think I care to stay," said the girl in a low voice. "You said
+in your advertisement that your house was near Westminster Abbey, but I
+see that it is nothing of the kind."
+
+"Well, you make a great mistake," said the nurse perkily. "I'll show you
+a room where you can see the Abbey as plain as the nose on my face.
+Follow me."
+
+And Poppy followed again, through the hall that smelled of frying
+herrings and soapsuds, up a narrow, oil-clothed staircase; across two
+landings; higher and higher, darker and darker, stumbling and kicking
+the narrow steps, to the top landing of all. There were three doors upon
+it, and one of them Mrs. Selton opened and drove forward to light a
+gas-jet. It smelled close and dank, but yet was inoffensively plain and
+simple--the ordinary bedroom furniture with no adornments of any kind.
+Straight facing the door was a little casement-window, with a wide ledge
+to lean upon; this the nurse approached and threw open.
+
+"There you are," said she stormily; and Poppy looked forth, and looked
+again, and stayed looking, for it was well worth having "clomb the
+deadly stair" to see. There was the grey old spired pile, lying lovely
+against the pale evening light.
+
+"I will stay," she said simply.
+
+The woman thought her a fool.
+
+"Everything paid in advance," said she in a business-like tone. Being
+satisfied on that point they descended. Presently, after answering a few
+more odiously piercing questions, Poppy escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+
+In the room overlooking the Abbey were spent many dark and ominous
+hours. By direction of Nurse Selton, Poppy presented herself at No. 10
+one dreary October day, and while she stood knocking at the door of the
+mean house, the grey, sad shadows of Westminster fell across her, and
+were not lifted by day or night.
+
+Each part of London has its own peculiar atmosphere. Chelsea is
+cheerful; Kensington reserved; Bayswater extremely refined; Bloomsbury
+vulgar and pathetic--and a number of other things. Westminster is
+essentially sad--sad with a noble, stately sadness.
+
+"It cannot grieve as them that have no hope," but its high towers and
+spires, its statues, cloisters, yards, hospitals, and ancient walls--all
+have an aloof air of haunting melancholy. Beautiful but unsmiling,
+Westminster dreams always and sadly of the great, noble past.
+
+So, when Poppy came into it that October day, its brooding spirit
+enfolded her, and all her life after she was never quite able to lift
+from her heart the sad, lovely hand of Westminster.
+
+At night, when she could open her little casement-window and gaze out at
+the profile of the Abbey, and hear sometimes the bells of "sweet St.
+Margaret's," life went kindly with her. Before leaving Hunter Street, at
+the last moment, a fair thing had happened. The editor of _The
+Cornfield_ had sent her a cheque for eight pounds seventeen shillings,
+in payment for a story which she had written in Sophie Cornell's
+bungalow and discovered of late at the bottom of a trunk. It was a story
+full of sunshine and gay, gibing wit, and the editor asked her for more
+work in the same vein. She had none, indeed, to send, but the request
+put her in good heart for the future. She essayed to write a little from
+day to day in the upper chamber; but the atmosphere was wrong for the
+romantic sun-bitten tales of her own land that seethed within her, and
+yet evaded her pen when she sought to fasten them to paper. Also, though
+she had but to close her eyes to see Africa lying bathed in spring
+sunshine, and to remember every detail of scents and sounds, it broke
+her heart to write of these things in a room dim with fog and full of a
+piercing smell that found its way from the kitchen up four flights of
+stairs and through closed doors--the smell of bloaters.
+
+She brightened her room as much as possible with flowers, and taking
+down Mrs. Selton's tawdry pictures, had the walls bare, except for a
+blue print of Watts's _Hope_--a statuesque-limbed woman, with
+blindfolded eyes, who sits at the top of the world sounding the last
+string of a broken viol. On a day when hope was bright in her, Poppy had
+bought the picture at a little shop in Victoria Street, and now she
+counted it one of her dearest possessions. Always it comforted and
+cheered her on.
+
+Days came when she needed all the comfort she could get. There were
+other women in the house who were apparently in the same case as
+herself, but they were haggard, furtive creatures, holding converse with
+none, shutting doors swiftly at the approach of anyone but Nurse Selton,
+creeping out for air under the cloak of night.
+
+Sometimes the woman in the adjoining room moaned all night, railing at
+Fate and God that she should have been brought to this pass.
+
+Once through an open door Poppy heard haggling going on about the
+premium to be paid with a baby that was to be "adopted."
+
+The sordidness of life, and the meanness of human nature, pressed around
+her. It was hard to keep ideals in such an atmosphere; hard to flaunt
+the green flag of love and hope, when there were so many hands eager to
+pull it down and trample it in the mire. A joyful spirit seemed out of
+place here. To the people she had got among, the thing that she thought
+wonderful and lovely was a curse and a bane! The mean house in the back
+street and the common-minded people seemed in a conspiracy to make her
+feel low, and shameful, when she wished only to be proud and happy.
+
+"This must be part of the terror that comes of breaking the moral law,"
+she whispered to herself. "One's act can bring one into contact with
+sordid people, and squalor and vice--one may become degraded and soiled
+in spite of oneself." She looked around her with hunted eyes. "There is
+nothing fine or noble anywhere here, except Watts's picture!" she
+thought; but when she opened her window and saw the grand old Abbey, she
+could think it no longer. There it lay in the gloom, grand and silent,
+standing for great, proud things: the long pile with the hunch at one
+end of it and at the other the stately twin pinnacles facing Palace
+Yard, where Raleigh's head fell, and where London goes rolling by to
+East and to West.
+
+Yes: it stood for all high and noble things and thoughts! All grand
+ideals! Nothing squalid there, or shameful! Surely it belonged to
+her--belonged to everyone who loved it, and loved what it meant. But did
+it? Was she cut off from it because--? She drew in her breath, and
+thought for a long time with closed eyes and clasped hands.
+
+"... I suppose morality is one of the high things--and I am not moral. I
+am one of the Magdalenes of the earth now!... whoever knows, will call
+me an immoral woman! I think I am only a mistaken one. I can see _that_
+now, thinking not of myself, but of my son to be. I should, if I had no
+moral instincts, at least have thought of consequences to my child!
+Well-brought-up girls are trained to think of these things, I suppose.
+But I was not well brought up--I was never brought up at all. I was a
+child of Nature. A poppy, blowing and flaming in the field--and plucked.
+If I had been anything else I should not have been in the garden that
+night at a time when well-brought-up girls were in bed! And I should
+have flown at the first sound of danger--but I didn't. Not because I did
+not recognise danger; but because I _did_ recognise something I had been
+looking for all my life--Love. And I put out both arms and embraced it.
+_Now_ it seems revealed to me that I should not have done this ... I
+should have fenced and fended ... guarded myself ... given nothing ...
+until he had asked for me and taken me, before all the world ... and
+made a nest for me somewhere away from the squalor of the world where no
+begriming thoughts could touch me and smirch the mother of _his_ son.
+_Then_ I suppose the Abbey would have been for me too!----"
+
+She twisted her lips and flung out her fingers.
+
+"And I wouldn't change a thing that is done. Not for all the world could
+give would I forget or have undone that radiant hour!... And yet ... and
+yet ... how I should love the nest for my child ... the peace and fine
+honour of a wife's bed to lay _his_ son upon! Oh! why does life tear the
+hearts of women in half like this?" She rested her head on her hands and
+shed passionate tears for herself and for all women like her. At last
+she said:
+
+"Good-night, old Abbey! You are _mine_ all the same--mine because,
+moral or immoral, I love the things you stand for. You cannot rob even
+bad people of the love of beauty. And no one can rob me of the peace you
+have put into my heart night after night."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At last illness descended upon her. She had often known torment of mind,
+now she knew torment of body, and her mind did not suffer at all; but
+was possessed of a kind of exultation that supported and refreshed her
+through terrible gaps of time.
+
+Nurse Selton came in often, but the girl preferred to be alone. Most of
+the day was spent between _Hope_ over the mantelpiece and the
+casement-window. Often she thought of the native women in her own land,
+who, when the time comes to bring forth, go quietly away and make a soft
+green bed in some sheltered place, and there suffer in silence and
+alone; then, after a few hours, return as quietly to every-day work and
+go serenely on with life, the new-born child slung behind the shoulders.
+The thought appealed to Poppy. She said:
+
+"That is the way I should have borne my son if I had stayed in
+Africa ... out in the air--with the sun shining. But oh! these terrible
+walls that shut one in!... and without--cold, fog, mud!"
+
+When evening fell, sickly and grey-green, she opened her casement-window
+and leaned upon its sill. The roar of London heard through the fog was
+like the dull boom of the breakers on the Durban back beach. Far away,
+the sky above Trafalgar Square was spasmodically lit by electric
+advertisements.
+
+In the street below, a woman's raucous voice pathetically shrieked:
+
+                     "It's 'ard to give the 'and
+                       Where the 'eart can _Nev_-ver be."
+
+But Poppy did not hear. With hidden eyes and hands clasped tight upon
+the pains that racked her, she was unravelling the mystery of Life and
+Love.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Evelyn Carson's son was born in the dawn of a late October day: heralded
+in by Big Ben striking the hour of five. Poppy gave one long, ravished
+glance at the little dimpled morsel, with its sleek, black head and
+features like crumpled rose-leaves, then lay back content and at peace
+with all the world.
+
+"How sweet it is to be a woman!" she thought, forgetting all past pain
+and despair, all anguish to come. "My heart can never be a stone again,
+nor my soul a shrivelled leaf."
+
+She drowsed happily through the days that followed, letting her mind
+rest with her body; she thought of nothing but the sweetness of being a
+mother; she was intoxicated by the cling of the little lips to her
+breast.
+
+"I am a _real_ woman," she said. "This is what I was born for and made
+beautiful for. Poor, _poor_ old Sara!"
+
+When Nurse Selton came one day and asked if she would like to get her
+child "adopted," she would have struck the woman's face if it had been
+within reach. As it was not, she said in a voice that was a drawn sword:
+
+"Go away! I hate you!" And Nurse Selton actually understood and went
+away. She considered Poppy--taking one thing with another--the craziest
+patient she had ever had.
+
+Poppy talked to her baby afterwards. "I said I would be at peace with
+the world for evermore dear one; but here I am, my old self already. And
+I see that it will always be so. I must be at war for _your_ sake now. I
+must fight _your_ enemies--until you are old enough to fight them for
+yourself. To _dare_ suggest such a thing!" A little while after she
+whispered passionately to the sleek, black head:
+
+"She did not know she was speaking of a king's son!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+
+When the time came for departure from No. 10, Old Street, Poppy did not
+go from Westminster. The grip of the place was on her and she did not
+care to leave it. But she sought and found a part of more cheerful
+aspect--a quiet square with a triangle of green in its centre, and the
+spire of an old church showing above the branches of trees in one of its
+corners. The house where she engaged two rooms had an old-fashioned air,
+though upon the opening of the front door was disclosed the depressing
+interior common to most houses of its kind--the worn linoleum in the
+hall and stairway; the inevitable pretentious hall-chair and
+umbrella-stand; the eternal smell of fish and boiling linen. But the two
+rooms were an artistic find. They had been inhabited and furnished by an
+actress, who was married to an artist, and were original without being
+uncomfortable.
+
+The walls were papered with ordinary brown paper to a ledge of painted
+wood, above which rose a smoke-grey paper with pale zigzags upon it,
+making a charming background for a number of water-colour sketches and
+black-and-white etchings of all the chief theatrical celebrities, from
+Sir Henry Irving downwards.
+
+There was also a piano--old and wicked, but still a piano, and various
+odd and quaint bits of furniture. The owners of these things had gone to
+America for a two-years' tour, and being anxious to come back to their
+rooms when they returned, had given the landlady instructions to "let
+furnished," and make what she could out of them. Poppy seized them with
+joy, glad to have so pleasant a setting for the struggle and fight she
+knew must ensue.
+
+From the first it was bound to be a handicapped fight, for the king's
+son behaved like one, and a tyrannical despot at that. It was plain that
+work would only be achieved by desperate and persistent effort at all
+sorts of odds and ends of time in the day and night.
+
+Probably things would have been more difficult still, but for the
+offices of a kindly soul who lived in the lower regions of the house by
+day, and ascended to somewhere near the stars at night, accompanied by
+her husband and two children.
+
+She had opened the door to Poppy on the first visit, and having been the
+medium through which the rooms and tenant were brought together, she
+thereafter looked upon the tenant as her special _protegee_. She was a
+real Cockney, born and bred in Horseferry Road--quite young still, but
+with the hopelessly middle-aged, slack-waisted, slip-shod look of the
+English working man's wife who, having achieved a husband and two
+children, is content to consider her fate fulfilled and herself no more
+a player, but merely a _passee_ looker-on at the great game of life.
+However, Mrs. Print did her looking on very good-humouredly. Her teeth
+were decayed, her hair in strings, but she carried an air of perpetual
+cheer and a wide smile. Her husband, a spruce, fresh-cheeked young
+cabman, looked, on the contrary, as though all the cares of the universe
+lay across his shoulders.
+
+"'E always puts on that look," smiled Mrs. Print to Poppy; "in case I
+might ask 'im for an hextra sixpence for the 'ousekeeping."
+
+She "charred" for Poppy; did various things, such as lighting the
+sitting-room fire and keeping the hearth and fire-irons clean. During
+this last business, which she always managed to prolong to the best
+part of an hour, she would give Poppy a brief summary of the morning
+news; an account of what the rest of the people in the house had been
+doing; what her George had said to her before he went to work; little
+bits of information about her two children; and advice about the
+treatment of Poppy's baby--generally sound.
+
+She nearly drove poor Poppy frantic, yet it was impossible to be really
+angry with her: she was so essentially well-meaning and so unconsciously
+humorous. Besides, she took the king's son into the garden of the Square
+for a couple of hours every fine afternoon, carrying him most carefully
+up and down whilst she conversed in loud, agreeable tones with a dozen
+and one people who passed by, exchanging chaff and banter, roaring with
+laughter, scolding her own children--Jimmy and Jack--who were left to
+amuse themselves by staring at the immaculate plots of arsenically-green
+grass and the bare branches of the trees. If they did anything else,
+their mother's tongue would wag and her finger threaten.
+
+"Come off there, Jimmy! Jack, if you do that again, I'll pay you--I'll
+pay you _somethink merciful_!" Jack, a stolid, emotionless boy, looked
+as though he had been badly carved out of a log of wood; but Jimmy was
+of a more vivid appearance, being afflicted with what his mother called
+_St. Viper's Dance_.
+
+In her window Poppy would sit at her table, her eyes occasionally
+glancing at the figures in the Square, her pen flying over the paper
+before her. She was writing for money. Thoughts of Fame had slipped away
+from her. She put her child before Fame now: and wrote no better for
+that.
+
+Day by day she grew paler, and the high cheek-bones had shadows beneath
+them that might easily turn into hollows. She had not regained flesh
+much, and a little of her buoyancy was gone. What she needed was to sit
+in the air and sunshine all day playing with her baby's dimples. Dank
+Westminster, built on a swamp, low-lying and foggy, when all the rest of
+London was clear, was no place for her or for her baby; but she did not
+know it, and had no time to find out, so wrapt was she in the business
+of making money that would assure home and life for her child and
+herself.
+
+The days were all too short, and soon the midnight-oil began to burn.
+Thereafter, shadows really _did_ change gradually into hollows--very
+soft hollows, however. Still, her eyes were always blue and brave. Mrs.
+Print used to observe her disapprovingly and tell her that she should
+take a leaf out of the book of the _lydy_ upstairs, who lay on the sofa
+all day reading novels.
+
+"Miss Never-Sweat--that's what I calls her!" she said, contemptuously
+dismissing thus an anaemic blonde damsel on the first floor, who
+mysteriously did nothing except take a fat poodle for half an hour's
+walk every day. Mrs. Print's attitude towards this graceful _dilettante_
+was one of resentful suspicion--resentful because she did nothing:
+suspicious for the same reason!
+
+"With everybody helse in this 'ouse, including you, Mrs. Chard, it is
+
+                    "'Come day, go day,
+                    Please, God, send Sunday.'
+
+"But all days looks the same to _'er_," she remarked, as she diligently
+polished the fire-irons in Poppy's sitting-room. The latter, intensely
+bored, knew that it was no use trying to divert Mrs. Print from the
+subject until it was exhausted; _then_, mayhap, she would depart.
+
+"When I went up to do 'er fire this morning, she says to me, she says"
+(here Mrs. Print pitched her voice high and fell into a drawl), "'Oh,
+Mrs. Print, _dear_, I _do_ feel so hill this morning. I've got pains in
+my 'ead and chest, and I can't henjoy my food at all. And my nerves is
+quite _rore_.' I gives one look at her yeller skin, and I says: 'Why,
+you've got the _boil_, that's what _you've_ got, for want of getting
+about on your two pins. Wot you want to do is to go to the chimist's
+round the corner, and arst him for a pennorth of ikery-pikery. When
+you've took _that_, come back 'ome and turn out these two rooms of yours
+and cook your dinner--' She give me a look like a mad hyhena, and
+slabbed the door."
+
+"Now, Mrs. Print," said her listener wearily, "do make haste and finish
+that fender. I want to work while baby is asleep."
+
+"Yes ma'am, I shan't be another minit. I must just give the 'earth a
+brush up, 'a dirty 'earth makes dinner late,' and that's what mine'll be
+to-day, same as breakfast was, and Old George gone off in a dandy
+because he was late."
+
+She always spoke of her husband as Old George, her children as _our_
+Jack and _my_ Jimmy.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the days went by, writing became more and more impossible to Poppy.
+It had begun to be a weary grinding out of words, common-place, and
+uninspired. She came to hate the sight of her writing-table, because of
+the torment of disgust that seized her as she sat at it and read over
+such things as she had been able to write. And her longing to be out in
+the air became almost intolerable. She felt like a starved
+woman--starved for want of the wind and trees and flowers, anything that
+smelt of open free spaces such as she had known all her life until now.
+
+And nothing happened to encourage her. She had no news of her _Book of
+Poems_, and when she called to see the publisher, he was never visible,
+and when she wrote she got no answer except that the reader for the firm
+had not been able to look through the book. Her story had not yet
+appeared in _The Cornfield_, and the one she had followed it up with
+came back, accompanied by a little printed paper, which read to the
+effect that the editor was at present "overstocked." Of course, this was
+a polite way of saying that the story wasn't up to the standard of the
+magazine. She burned with chagrin when she first read it. Afterwards,
+she became hardened to the daily sight of intimations of the kind, and
+to the sickening thud of returned manuscripts in the letter-box.
+
+The day when she had no money in the world but the thirty shillings
+realised by the sale of her piece of Spanish lace, she left the baby
+with Mrs. Print and walked all the way to Hunter Street, on the forlorn
+hope that some editor might have addressed a letter to her there,
+enclosing a cheque. Miss Drake, the good-natured landlady, was alarmed
+to see her looking so ill.
+
+"You are sitting to your desk too much, dear, and losing your
+beauty--and you know no girl can afford to do _that_ until she has forty
+thousand in the bank," she said with a broad smile. "Why don't you chuck
+writing over and try the stage? A girl of your appearance could get into
+the Gaiety or Daly's any day, especially if you have any kind of a
+voice. The change of life and scene would do you a lot of good--and take
+it from _me_, dear, there's nothing so comforting in this world as a
+regular salary."
+
+On top of the 'bus she was obliged from sheer weariness to take back to
+Westminster, Poppy turned the idea over in her mind. The stage had never
+had any attraction for her. Unlike most girls, she did not hold the
+belief that she had only to be seen and heard upon the boards to become
+famous. But she could not turn away from the thought of the change from
+sitting at her desk; and the regular salary had its potent charm,
+too--Miss Drake spoke like an oracle there!
+
+However, she put the thought by for another day or two. She would give
+literature another chance, she said, with an ironical lip, and she
+essayed to finish her novel. For three days and the better part of three
+nights she hung over it in every moment she could spare from her child;
+at the end of that time she thrust the manuscript into the drawer of her
+table and locked it up.
+
+"Lie there and wait for the inspired hour," she said. "I must look for
+other ways and means to boil the pot."
+
+The wrench was to leave the "king's son" at home crooning in hired arms
+beneath the eye of Mrs. Print.
+
+It did not take long to find out the whereabouts of theatrical agents
+and managers. She presented herself at the office of one of the
+best-known agents in London.
+
+The staircase that led to his waiting-room was crowded with lounging,
+clean-shaven men, and the waiting-room hummed with the voices of girls
+and women and more men, all gabbling at once. Phrases made themselves
+heard above the din.
+
+"No: I won't go into panto--not if Frankie goes down on his knees to
+me."
+
+"Oh, he's sure to do _that_, dear!"
+
+"She says that her figure is her stock-in-trade--musical comedy, of
+course."
+
+"H'm! more stock than trade, I should say."
+
+A score or so of made-up eyes raked Poppy from under heavy
+_complexion_-veiling; she became aware of such strong scents as
+_frangipani_ and _chypre_; many ropes of large pearls; heavy fur coats
+flung open to reveal sparkling _art_-chains slung round bare,
+well-powdered necks. A wry-lipped quotation of Abinger's flitted through
+her memory:
+
+                        "Diamonds me.
+                        Sealskins me,
+                        I'm going on the stage."
+
+When, after weary waiting, her turn came to be admitted to the agent's
+inner sanctum, she found a clean-looking, brown young man, with grey
+hair and a shrewd eye. He shot an enveloping glance over her while she
+was closing the door.
+
+"Well, dear, what do _you_ want?" he asked briskly, but pleasantly--all
+theatrical people "dear" each other automatically, but Poppy, not
+knowing this, flushed at the term. She explained that she was seeking
+work on the stage.
+
+"Any experience?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Can you sing?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Dance?"
+
+"Yes." (Abinger had allowed her to take lessons in Florence.)
+
+"Good legs?"
+
+He regarded her puzzled eyes with impatience.
+
+"Any photographs in tights? I like to know what I'm engaging, you know.
+A lot of you girls come here with your spindle-shanks hidden under
+flounced petticoats and flowing skirts; and your bones wrapped up in
+heavy coats and feather boas, and you cut a great dash, and when we get
+you on the stage in tights it's another story altogether--not that I'm
+saying it about _you_, dear, for I can see----"
+
+"I don't think I am what you require in any case," she said as she
+reached the door. "Good-morning."
+
+She fled through the waiting-room and down the stairs. Some of the
+loungers shared a smile.
+
+"A greenhorn, evidently!" they said. "What has Frankie been saying?"
+
+The next day she beat her way through wind and rain to another office.
+And the next day to yet another. Within a week she did the whole dreary
+round. All the waiting-rooms were crowded, for the spring provincial
+tours were coming on, and engagements were being booked briskly; also,
+there were many vacancies occurring in the pantomimes.
+
+Several managers, taken with Poppy's appearance, offered her small parts
+(with a good understudy) in touring companies. But she knew that it
+would be impossible to think of travelling with her baby, and she did
+not for a moment contemplate leaving him.
+
+By talking to all the people who talked to her, and "theatricals,"
+generally, are a kindly, sociable people, she learned that it was of no
+great use to try the agencies for London engagements.
+
+"Go to the theatres themselves," they said; adding cheerfully: "not that
+_that's_ much good either. Every stage manager has a gang of pets
+waiting for an opening to occur, and they never let an outsider get in."
+
+One agent, rather more kindly than the rest, suggested that she should
+try the Lyceum Theatre.
+
+"Ravenhill is taking it for a Shakespearian season," he said. "And I
+should say that class of work would just suit you."
+
+Poppy thought so too, and wasted no time about finding the Lyceum.
+
+"Yes, Mr. Ravenhill is seeing small-part ladies and walkers-on to-day,"
+the door-keeper informed her confidentially, and after a long waiting
+she was eventually shown into the Green-room, where she found the
+well-known Shakespearian actor sitting on a trunk, reading his letters,
+in the midst of piles of scenery and robes.
+
+He was a thin, Hamlet-faced man, with a skin of golden pallor and
+romance-lit eyes, and he looked at Poppy with kindness and comradeship.
+
+"Have you had any experience?" he asked.
+
+"None at all," said Poppy sadly. She was getting tired of the question,
+and felt inclined to vary the answer, but the truthful, kind eyes
+abashed the thought.
+
+"Is there anything you could recite to me?"
+
+Poppy thought swiftly. She knew volumes of prose and poetry, but at the
+word everything fled from her brain except two things--Raleigh's "O
+Eloquent, Just and Mighty Death!" which she in somewhat morbid mood had
+been reading the night before, and a poem of Henley's that had been dear
+to her since she had loved Carson. In desperation, at last she opened
+her lips and gave forth the sweet, tender words, brokenly, and with
+tears lying on her pale cheeks, but with the voice of a bird in the
+garden:
+
+            "When you are old and I am passed away--
+            Passed: and your face, your golden face is grey,
+              I think--what e'er the end, this dream of mine
+              Comforting you a friendly star shall shine
+            Down the dim slope where still you stumble and stray.
+
+            "Dear Heart, it shall be so: under the sway
+            Of death, the Past's enormous disarray
+            Lies hushed and dark. Still tho' there come no sign,
+            Live on well pleased; immortal and divine
+            Love shall still tend you as God's angels may,
+            When you are old."
+
+When she had finished she stood, swaying and pale, tears falling down.
+Ravenhill looked at her sadly. He thought: "This girl has more than her
+share of the world's hard luck."
+
+"I will take you as a walker-on," he said, "with an understudy and with
+the chance of a small part. You have a fine voice, and a
+temperament--but I need not tell you that. Of course, if you want to get
+on, you need to study and work hard. I can't offer you more than thirty
+shillings a week--with a difference if you play."
+
+He did not mention that all other walkers-on with understudies were only
+getting a guinea; some of them nothing at all. He only looked at her
+with kindness and comradeship.
+
+As for her: she could have fallen at his feet in thankfulness. The
+contract was signed and she went home happy.
+
+Thirty shillings a week _certain_!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII
+
+
+It was in bitter February weather that Poppy's engagement began, and
+there had been a week of heavy rehearsing before the opening night. She
+soon felt the strain of the unaccustomed work. Ravenhill's was a
+Repertoire-Company, and the bill was changed every week, so that while
+they played one play at night they were busy most of the day rehearsing
+another for the coming week. This meant that from ten o'clock in the
+morning until three or four in the afternoon, and again from seven until
+eleven at night, Poppy was parted from her baby. She was obliged to
+permanently employ a little nursemaid, and also, to her bitter sorrow,
+to wean her baby.
+
+She comforted herself disconsolately with the thought that the change
+was better for him, because she was not so vigorous now as at first. But
+many a time the silky black head was scalded with its mother's tears,
+for that she might no more feel the cling of little lips.
+
+The theatre began to interest her from a literary point of view. The
+writing of plays suggested itself as a fascinating medium for the
+expression of herself; she saw that knowledge of stage-craft would be of
+enormous use to her in this direction, and she became absorbed in
+observing and making notes on everything concerning stage technique and
+production.
+
+Her appearance, when "made up," was quite charming, and Ravenhill was
+always glad to put her into a scene, and would give her a one-line part
+whenever it was possible. Often she would find herself "on" alone with
+the "star" in a scene--a court lady, perhaps, lingering by a window
+while the Queen gave forth an impassioned soliloquy; or a picturesque
+figure in the background of a garden-scene; but terrible shyness and
+emotion affected her when she had to open her lips on the stage, if only
+to say "Good-morrow" or "Come hither"; and her voice was altogether too
+delicate and canorous for stage use. She preferred to be on with the
+crowd--a peasant woman in a tattered skirt and kerchief, leading a
+hooting riot in _Richard II_, or a stately lady dancing in the house of
+the _Capulets_, or an Egyptian girl in the streets of Alexandria
+carrying a torch to light _Antony_ and _Cleopatra_ to bed. Ravenhill was
+disappointed in her that she did not work at her voice, nor seem anxious
+for parts. He did not know that she was trying to serve two gods; and
+that all her incense was burnt at the altar of literature, for still she
+returned and returned again to the mistress she loved, but whose face
+was turned from her.
+
+She could not afford to ride to and fro from the theatre, for there were
+four journeys to be made on ordinary days, and on _matinee_ days six,
+and tenpence a day made too large a hole in a salary needed for many
+things. So at night she took a 'bus to Westminster Bridge at the cost of
+a halfpenny and from thence, in all weathers, she faithfully
+padded-the-hoof for home. The shelter of the long stretch of St.
+Stephen's and the Houses of Parliament was always grateful; sometimes,
+just as she turned the corner of the Victoria Tower, the wind from the
+river would sweep and curl around her, nearly rushing her off her feet.
+Then came the long, cutting tramp along the Embankment. Often in those
+midnight walks she thought of Charles Bramham. He, too, had known
+walking in the biting cold on tired feet and with a painfully empty
+stomach! The fatigue that got hold of her sometimes was terrible. But
+always for the sake of the silky black head of a king's son, she laughed
+and worked on.
+
+The people at the theatre were kind and pleasant, and she made many
+friends. But they were friends of the theatre only, she kept them all
+rigidly out of her private life; and that not without effort, for her
+personality was magnetic and people always wanted to know her. She was
+interesting and mysterious, they thought, and presently she became the
+enigma of the theatre because she never lied about her salary, nor
+bragged of her genius, nor repeated fascinating things that "someone in
+front" had said about her voice and her face, nor bored anyone with
+tales of the great future predicted for her.
+
+Indeed, she was at this time striving with a valorous heart to live
+according to Stevenson's creed:
+
+            "To be honest: to be kind:
+            To earn a little--and to spend a little less."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+One day when she had got home early from rehearsal, and was spending
+some rapturous moments over the adored silken head asleep on its pillow,
+Mrs. Print came to her very much _en deshabille_, her head wrapped in a
+towel, full of excitement.
+
+"There's a gentleman at the front door, knocking," she said; "and, oh,
+ma'am, Mrs. Chard would you be so kind as to open it? As sure as I wash
+my 'ead, it always 'appens so!"
+
+Poppy, good-naturedly, complied, giving a switch of her eye at a mirror
+first, for vanity was far from being dead in her yet. She opened the
+door to--Charles Bramham!
+
+Pale with amazement, she stood glimmering at him through her hair.
+
+"You!" she cried; then held out her hands in welcome, for welcome he
+truly was, with the smell and burn of Africa on him.
+
+"Yes; me! I bet you didn't think I'd have the cheek to come and find you
+out. I had a great time digging your address out of Miss Drake. But why
+should you hide? Mayn't I come in?"
+
+"Of course," she said, and led the way; but her manner was a little
+constrained. It had not been on her programme at all to let Charles
+Bramham, or any other man, into the secret of her life.
+
+"What do you want?" she asked half crossly, when they were in the
+sitting-room.
+
+"To see you. And you looked mightily glad to see me, at first. Don't
+tell me now, that you are not! But what have you been doing to yourself?
+London is killing you. You'd better come back to Africa, or you'll pass
+out. You're so thin I can see through you, and your eyes are too big for
+your face."
+
+He sat down and they talked eagerly. She told him something of her
+disappointments, more of her hopes, and at last, of being obliged to
+take to the theatre as a stop-gap "until such time as she began to
+succeed in literature."
+
+"But why work like this?" he said discontentedly. "You'll kill yourself
+burning two candles at once."
+
+"Not I?" said she gaily. She had no intention of letting him know that
+but for her stage salary she would be penniless.
+
+"I don't see any sense in it," he muttered. "It can't be because you
+like work. No woman ever yet liked work--they weren't meant to. Anyhow,
+you can knock off for to-day. Put your hat on and come out for a drive
+and to dinner. I'll drive you to your theatre afterwards."
+
+"I'm afraid I can't," Poppy faltered. "I never go out ... I can't leave
+my work ... I am tired." She stopped lamely. He knew that she was not
+speaking the truth. The fact was, that she had given the little
+nursemaid an hour or two off.
+
+"Ah! there's something you don't care to tell me," he said with a
+half-smile; but a shadow crossed his face. At that moment they were both
+transfixed by a sound. The king's son began to lament in the next room.
+Bramham would never have guessed, but he happened to see the look that
+leapt into her eyes at the sound; then he stood staring at her with a
+question in his, while the scarlet slowly mounted to her cheeks.
+
+In truth, she was filled with confusion, and did not know what to say.
+She remembered the time she had accepted his offer of money and help;
+how she had talked to him then of her work and aspirations, but had
+breathed no word of _this_. How could he know that the truth had been
+hidden even from her? What could he think but that she had deceived him,
+made use of him?
+
+The king's son cried again, indignantly, beseechingly. Again Bramham saw
+the mother-look leap to her eyes. With no word she flew from the room.
+When she returned she was carrying a little fragrant bundle, and she
+came to Bramham, who was apparently rooted to the spot where she had
+left him. He had heard her crooning to the child in the next room, but,
+like an unbelieving Thomas, he wanted still more proof. Her face gave it
+to him. Confusion was gone. Only tender, brooding peace and love was
+there. She held the baby under his eyes.
+
+"My son, Charlie!"
+
+He stared down blankly at the little lovely thing, and it stared back at
+him.
+
+"Good God!" said he; "am I dreaming? I could swear that was Eve Carson's
+child!"
+
+"Yes," said Poppy softly, and her voice was _ci risuoniamo in
+cristallo_. "It is. But how did you know?" she wonderingly asked.
+
+Charles Bramham was dumb. He could only stare. Later, he sat down
+heavily in a chair and used his handkerchief.
+
+"Life has held a good many surprises for me, but never one like this.
+_Carson!_ ... and _you_!... He my dearest friend! You, well, you know
+what I feel about you. Yet you two have deceived me! Sprung this amazing
+thing on me. Why! I _can't_ understand it.... Good God! I love that
+fellow! ... _he_ could--?"
+
+"Oh! Charlie, dear friend, you go too fast. Don't judge or misjudge.
+Nothing is as you think. He did not deceive you ... nor did I. That
+night you offered to help me and I accepted, I ... _I didn't know that
+this wonderful thing was going to happen to me_ ... and _he_ knows
+nothing. It is _my_ secret."
+
+Bramham digested these things as best he might. Later, he said:
+
+"Well he's _got_ to know--and I shall tell him. Why, he's not that sort
+of fellow at all, Rosalind ... he would throw everything to Hades for
+the sake of a woman he loved ... and, of course, he loves you, and would
+be here with you if he knew.... The whole thing is the craziest mystery
+I ever heard of ... _of course_, he can't know ... but I shall tell him,
+if I have to go up to Borapota after him."
+
+"Never, _never_!" said she. "No one shall ever tell him. It is _my_
+secret. You dare not interfere. I would never forgive you."
+
+He turned away from her, angry, sore, bitterly puzzled.
+
+"Oh, Charlie," she said wistfully. "Don't be angry. This is _my_
+life--my secret.... Leave me to do as seems best to me.... Tell me," she
+said softly, "how did you know that my child ... is ... _his_ son?"
+
+"Know? Why, anyone would know. He is the dead image--and there are Eve
+Carson's eyes staring at me. No two men in the world have eyes like
+that."
+
+"Are they not beautiful? And yet so strange!--one blue and one brown! I
+never--" she stopped suddenly. She had almost told Bramham that she did
+not know that Carson's eyes looked thus, since she had never seen them,
+except in the darkness. But much as she liked Bramham, she could not
+share with him _that_ strange, sweet secret.
+
+Only one more question Bramham asked her.
+
+"Was it Karri you told me of that night, Rosalind?--the man you loved?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "The only man I have ever loved, or will love."
+
+She dined with Bramham, after all, and before they parted she had bound
+him by every oath he honoured never to reveal her secret to Carson.
+
+"If you do," she passionately told him, "you may precipitate both him
+and me into terrible misery, and neither of us would forgive you. We
+should probably hate you for ever. Leave alone things that you do not
+understand.... How _should_ you understand! You have accidentally
+touched on the fringe of a strange story ... something you would never
+have known except by accident. For I don't intend the world to know this
+when it knows _me_ some day, Charlie."
+
+"Why?" said he, looking keenly at her. "Are you ashamed of your child?"
+
+"Ashamed!" she laughed happily. "Ashamed of the greatest joy that ever
+came to a woman; the son of the man she loves!"
+
+A happy look came into his face, too, for the first time since he had
+known the truth.
+
+"That's the spirit! If a woman has the courage to take the big jump, she
+should have the grit to face the fences all round the course ... but I
+don't believe many do; and you can't blame them for that either.
+Rosalind, I want to tell you something. I'm a rich man, and I ... I have
+no children." He swallowed an odd sound in his throat and averted his
+eyes for a moment, but went on calmly: "I long ago made up my mind to
+leave every rap, when I die, to women who have done what you have
+done--and had to suffer for it."
+
+She looked at him thoughtfully for a while.
+
+"I think you would be wrong, Charlie. People would call it putting a
+premium on sin, and--you couldn't really help the woman who suffered.
+Nothing could help her. The right kind of woman would value her
+suffering more than your money, believe me." Then, as she saw his
+saddened face, she said, "Help the little love-babies, if you like, and
+bring them up to be as kind and sweet a friend as _you_ are to women--"
+Impulsively he put his hand on hers lying on the dinner-table.
+
+"Let me--" he began.
+
+"But never offer to help _my_ love-baby," she said warningly, "as long
+as he has a mother to work for him, and a king for his father somewhere
+in the world."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX
+
+
+At the end of April the season at the Lyceum drew to a close, and
+Ravenhill re-formed his company to tour the provinces.
+
+Many of those who had worked with him throughout the season were moneyed
+girls, with such a passion for the stage, that they were only
+too glad to give their services--"walking-on," dancing, and
+understudying--without salary, for the sake of the experience in a
+London theatre; and it would have been an easy matter for the manager to
+have composed his touring company largely of such people. But he
+happened to be a man with a big heart for the stragglers of the
+profession; those who were in it for the love of their art, too, but
+incidentally obliged to make a living. And so, though he did not disdain
+to employ occasional rich amateurs, he never allowed them to usurp the
+work of legitimate actors and actresses.
+
+In making a selection of people who would be useful to him by reason of
+their looks, or talent, or both, he included Poppy on his list, and
+forthwith she received a little notice during the last London week to
+the effect that if she cared to go on tour (with the hope of advancement
+if she studied) the offer was open to her. But the salary offered was
+smaller than she had been receiving, and she knew that it was useless to
+think of travelling with her small Pat and supporting herself and him on
+it. (Ravenhill was unaware, of course, that there was any question of
+supporting a child.) She was obliged to refuse the offer.
+
+With the closing of the theatre the face of the future took on a blank
+and appalling expression. Exercising the greatest economy, she had yet
+not been able to save more than three pounds out of her long engagement;
+and she knew not where the next money was to come from. The stories she
+wrote still faithfully returned. The _Book of Poems_, the one brave
+string in her viol of hope, had been lost. The publisher said that it
+was only mislaid and might be found at any moment; but Poppy felt a sick
+certainty that she would never hear of or see her darling book again.
+Most foolishly, she had kept no copy of it, and though she believed that
+by turning up the pages of her memory she might re-write it, she could
+not spare the time it would cost to do this. Even if she had the
+necessary leisure, she despaired of ever writing her poems again in all
+their first perfection--a thought would surely be lost here, a line
+missing there!
+
+Heart-broken, rage seized her when she first received the news. She saw
+a red haze before her eyes as in the days when she hated Aunt Lena, and
+she longed for a hammer and the publisher's head on a block. Afterwards
+she achieved calmness that was not resignation, and went to interview
+the publisher and find out what he meant to do. Apparently he had not
+meant to do anything except take up the bland and Micawberesque attitude
+of waiting for the book to "turn up." But Poppy's heart was full of the
+rage and fear of a mother-wolf who sees famine ahead, and though she
+successfully hid these primitive emotions under a composed manner, there
+was a feverish urgency about her which, strangely convincing, subtly
+communicated itself to the publisher, so that presently, quite
+unintentionally, he found himself promising (in the event of the book
+not being found within three months) to pay her a sum to be agreed upon,
+but not less than twenty pounds. In the meantime he engaged, if the
+book should "turn up," to read it and make her a _conscientious offer_
+for it. He did not forget to add that poems were unmarketable ware at
+the best of times, and that he could not hold out hope of any specially
+high price for hers.
+
+With these conditions Poppy was fain to be content, though there was
+poor comfort in them for her. Three months is not long if fame and name
+wait at the end. But it is a long time to wait for twenty pounds. And it
+is too long to starve. In a panic she started out once more on the
+dreary round of agents' offices and theatres. At the end of a week's
+wasted walking, and talking, chill despair began to eat its way into her
+brave heart; in the second week the chill was freezing bitter cold that
+enwrapped, and seemed to paralyse her senses, so that she could feel
+nothing but dull fear, not for herself, but for little crowing, merry
+Pat. At that time her thoughts turned to Bramham, her friend. But he was
+gone, and she knew not where to find him. He had bidden her good-bye and
+sailed for South America on a prolonged visit. It would be many months
+before he returned to Durban.
+
+In the third week, while she was eking out her last ten shillings, still
+desperately seeking work at the theatres, she met in the Strand a girl
+who had been with her at the Lyceum--one of Ravenhill's moneyed girls,
+pretty and charming, with a host of friends and acquaintances, of whom
+she bitterly complained that they would not allow her to fulfill her
+destiny and become a _Sarah Bernhardt_. She and Poppy had shared the
+same mirror in a Lyceum dressing-room, and become friendly over their
+"make-up" boxes.
+
+By many little marks and signs that women judge on, Marion Ashley had
+concluded that Miss Chard needed every penny of the small salary she
+earned. Her idea was that Poppy probably had an invalid mother or sister
+to support; and she had often wished for an opportunity to lend a
+helping-hand to a girl whom she sincerely liked and admired. When, in
+the Strand, she met Poppy, pale and harassed, in worn shoes and an
+unseasonable gown, a thought shot through her quick mind and she
+advanced gaily, holding out her hands.
+
+"You are the _very_ girl I wanted to see," she cried. "Come into
+'Slater's' for tea, and _do_ see if you can help me in a _great_
+difficulty."
+
+While Poppy took off her gloves Marion Ashley poured out the tea and her
+tale. It transpired that she had a cousin who was young and pretty and
+rich, but with a broken back. She had injured herself in the
+hunting-field and would never be able to walk again.
+
+"Ever since, she has become the most awful peevish creature in the
+world, poor thing, and one can't be surprised at that! But no one can
+put up with her temper, and no one will stay with her, though she has
+had companion after companion. She insists on their being young and
+pretty, and afterwards she is jealous of them and fires them out. Then
+her mother and her husband come and fetch _me_ round, no matter where I
+am, and really, you know, dear, it's a _little_ hard on _me_ to have my
+_career_ interfered with ... it isn't as though I can be of any real
+use, for Frances is jealous of me too, if I am in the house much. Well,
+I'm looking out for someone for her now, and--I thought perhaps you
+could help me. _Do_ say you can?"
+
+She looked appealingly at the pale face opposite her, but Poppy gave no
+sign. She had considered the matter rapidly, but--companionships were
+badly paid, as a rule, and she would have to be separated from her
+little Pat. Marion Ashley's face fell.
+
+"To tell the truth, dear," she said, "I thought you might undertake it
+yourself. Of course, I know you're far too good for that sort of thing;
+but I thought you might make a stop-gap of it--and the salary would be
+good--a hundred a year Frances pays, and you'd have no expenses."
+
+Poppy's face changed. A hundred a year! If she _must_ part with Pat that
+would at least ensure him a home in the country, and she could save the
+rest.
+
+"It is very good of you, Miss Ashley.... Will you let me think it over?"
+
+"Oh, yes--_anything_, if you will only take it on. I should be _so_
+glad. Her husband is always round bothering the life out of me to find
+someone. Oh! I must tell you, dear there's _one_ thing besides Frances's
+temper ... _he_ is difficult."
+
+"Bad-tempered, too?" smiled Poppy.
+
+"_Far_ from it--altogether too good-tempered and fascinating--especially
+where a pretty girl is concerned. In fact, my dear, he's rapid--and
+Frances is jealous; so there you have the trouble in a nutshell.
+Tiresome, isn't it? It's just as well to know these things beforehand.
+But I daresay you'll be able to keep him in his place."
+
+This information depressed Poppy more than a little. She was beginning
+to realise that whether she liked them or not, she attracted men, and
+she would rather have heard of some place where there was no man on the
+scene. As it happened, she was still smarting from an experience of the
+night before. She had, in mistake, opened the door of a first-class
+carriage in the underground station at Victoria. She speedily closed it,
+but the one occupant, a man, had had time to observe her, and instantly
+he whipped the door open again and was out on the platform. A minute
+afterwards she found an almost empty "third" and stepped into it just as
+the train started, someone hard on her heels. When she looked up there
+was the first-class passenger opposite, smiling at her. For the rest of
+the journey he made ardent love to her with his eyes, and she sat,
+flaming and paling there with anger. The man was serenely handsome, a
+gentleman in appearance at least, but his eyes had a look that angered
+and terrified her; a look that now she seemed to know the meaning of.
+
+"It is terrible to have no innocence left! to know the meaning of a man
+like that!" she thought shudderingly, and she would not meet his eyes.
+Only she resolved that _always_ she would turn her feet away from the
+paths frequented by men.
+
+"Where does your cousin live?" she asked at last. "Perhaps, I'd better
+go and see her, if I make up my mind I can take the engagement."
+
+"Yes, _do_, dear--Lower Sloane Street--I'll write the number down for
+you. I must fly now for rehearsal. I'm going to be in the new romantic
+play at The York. Send me a line there after you've seen Frances. _Do_
+take it on, there's a darling--good-bye."
+
+Poppy spent the afternoon crooning and weeping over Pat's head. It
+seemed to her that she died a little death every time she thought of
+parting with him. But--was it not true that the little face had lost
+some of its pink tints of late?--that the odd eyes were growing larger?
+After she had dried her desperate tears and could trust herself to speak
+equably and reasonably, she called Mrs. Print into consultation.
+
+Mrs. Print had a sister-in-law who lived in a rose-clad cottage in
+Surrey, and adored babies. Poppy had often seen and talked to her, and
+let her take Pat out; for she came up to London constantly to try to
+beguile Mrs. Print to part with one of her little boys--even the
+vivacious Jimmy would have been made welcome.
+
+Mrs. Print assured Poppy that no _Dook's_ baby would be better looked
+after than a child in Sarah Print's care, and that she (Poppy) could go
+and stay down in the little rose-clad cottage whenever she was free,
+for Sarah had lots of room, a lovely garden, and corn-fields all round
+her.
+
+"You can't see nothing but 'ills and corn-fields wheresumever you look!
+It would drive me off my nut to live there a week, but Sarah likes it.
+You tike baby down and go and 'ave a look to-morrow, ma'am."
+
+"Nothing but hills and corn-fields!"
+
+The words brought a mist over Poppy's eyes. _That_ was what she wanted
+for her son. She kissed him and asked Mrs. Print to mind him for an hour
+while she went to Sloane Street.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+In a bright room, among flowers, the invalid woman lay on a couch, with
+an embroidered coverlet of crimson satin drawn up to her chin. Her face
+was pale and petulant, with great brown eyes that roamed restlessly and
+were full of peevish misery. She was of the fickle, impetuous nature
+that indulges in groundless hates and likings, and the moment she saw
+Poppy standing there, she put out her hands feverishly, as if for
+something she had long wanted. Poppy, indeed, was sweet and
+dewy-looking, as always when she came from her little love-baby, and now
+the added beauty of courageous renouncement lighted her lilac eyes.
+
+"Ah! I _know_ you are the girl Marion was talking about," cried the
+invalid. "You _will_ come, won't you? How lovely you are--I shall just
+_love_ having you with me! Come and sit here where I can see you--but
+don't look at me; I can't bear to be looked at."
+
+Poppy sat down by the couch and submitted to being stared at, even
+touched by the pale, restless hands. Mrs. Chesney did most of the
+talking. She only required a monosyllable here and there, and her manner
+varied oddly, from a cold hauteur which she vainly tried to make
+indifferent, to entreaty that was almost servile.
+
+"Do you like reading aloud?" she demanded, and before Poppy could speak,
+continued swiftly: "Oh, never mind, I don't care if you don't--_of
+course_, everybody _hates_ it. Can you play?"
+
+This time she waited for an answer, and Poppy saying yes, was waved
+towards a beautiful Erard that stood in a far corner. Taking off her
+gloves, she went over to it, and immediately her fingers fell into a
+soft and haunting melody of Ireland. The woman on the couch closed her
+eyes and lay like one in a trance.
+
+While she played, Poppy resolved to take the opening offered her here.
+It was a living and a well-paid one. Little Pat could be sent away
+to a good home in the country, and though the parting must be
+bitter--bitter-- Ah! she could not think of it! What she _must_ think of
+was food to keep life in his little loved body, health for him in fresh
+sweet air; money to keep herself alive to work for him.
+
+As she rose from the piano there was a prayer of thankfulness on her
+lips for this fresh chance to live. A door opened and a man came
+nonchalantly in.
+
+"Oh, Harry!" cried the invalid. "This is Miss Chard--she is going to be
+my new companion. Miss Chard--my husband."
+
+Poppy bowed to the man, meeting the amused cynicism of his glance
+gravely. Not by word or look did she betray the fact that she had ever
+seen him before. But thankfulness died away in her, and once more the
+face of the future lowered.
+
+Harry Chesney was the hero of the adventure in the underground railway
+carriage.
+
+While she was putting on her gloves, preparing to go, she told Mrs.
+Chesney that she would call in the morning, when the engagement could be
+finally arranged.
+
+It would have been awkward and painful to have told the sick woman _now_
+that she was not able to accept the engagement. Being of so jealous a
+temperament, the invalid would probably suspect that the decision had
+something to do with her husband and would be caused misery in this
+thought.
+
+"It will be simple to write to-night that circumstances have occurred
+which prevent me from coming," was Poppy's thought as she said good-bye.
+
+"Touch the bell twice," said Mrs. Chesney.
+
+"Oh! I'll see Miss Chard down," said Chesney, but Poppy had made no
+delay in touching the bell and a maid magically appeared.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The next day she waited at the York Theatre and saw Marion Ashley after
+rehearsal.
+
+"I wanted to thank you," she said, "and to tell you that after all I
+couldn't undertake that companionship. Something has happened that makes
+it impossible for me to leave home. I wrote to Mrs. Chesney last night."
+
+The brightness of Marion's smile was dashed for an instant, but she
+speedily recovered.
+
+"Never mind; a lucky thing has happened here. One of the walking-on
+girls dropped out to-day and they want another. Mr. Lingard is a friend
+of mine, and he's sure to have you when he sees you--you've just the
+face for romantic drama. Come along and see him; he went into his office
+a minute ago--don't forget to say you've been with Ravenhill."
+
+And so through Marion Ashley's kindly offices Poppy found herself once
+more signing a contract to "walk-on-and-understudy" at a guinea a week!
+
+But the romantic drama was an unromantic failure.
+
+Long before the end of the first week, the principals were looking at
+each other with blank faces, and holding conclaves in each other's
+dressing-rooms for the purpose of exchanging opinions and reports on the
+probable duration of the run. In the "walkers-on" room they gave it
+three weeks, and _that_ playing to "paper houses" every night.
+
+Marion Ashley met Poppy in the wings during a quarter of an hour's wait
+that occurred in the second act.
+
+"Isn't this an awful disappointment?" she said. "Have you anything in
+view, dear, if we come to a full-stop here?"
+
+"Nothing!" said Poppy, with a brave, careless smile. "Divil a thing!"
+
+"Well ... wouldn't you ... what about Mrs. Chesney? She's hankering
+after you still. In fact, she appears to have developed a craze for your
+society. She wrote to me this morning, asking me to search you out."
+
+Poppy flushed slightly. "I'm afraid I should be a failure as a
+companion," was all she could say. Marion looked at her with curiosity,
+vexation.
+
+The next day a terrible thing happened. For the first time in his short
+life little Pat was ill. Not very ill, just white and listless and
+disinclined to eat. Poppy, like a pale and silent ghost, held him in
+tender arms every moment of the day, except while he slept, when for his
+own sake she put him into his bed, but hovered near, watching, praying.
+Mrs. Print pooh-poohed the sickness as nothing but teething-fever, but
+the wild-eyed mother begged her to go out and find a doctor. A grave,
+kind man was found, and his words were not comforting.
+
+"He is not very ill, but he wants care. London is hardly the right place
+for babies at this time of the year. If it is possible, I should advise
+you to take him away into the country."
+
+When the hour came for her to go to the theatre, Poppy called in the
+faithful Mrs. Print once more to watch over the sleeping child. It
+broke her heart to leave him, but there was nothing else to be done. She
+might forfeit her engagement if she did not appear at the theatre; or,
+at any rate, she would forfeit part of her salary, and she needed that
+more than ever.
+
+She took a halfpenny tram to Victoria Street, meaning to walk from there
+to the theatre. Someone had left an evening paper on the seat, and she
+took it up to glance at the advertisements, and see if any hope for the
+future might be gleaned from them. As she turned over the pages her
+distracted eyes caught the impression of a name she knew, printed large
+among several other names. She looked again, and flame came into her
+face, light to her eyes.
+
+It was, indeed, a name she knew: and yet did not. _Sir_ Evelyn Carson!
+His name was on the Birthday List of Honours. He had been made a baronet
+_for services rendered to the Empire_. Swiftly she scanned the column,
+until she found the short biographical paragraph which told in brief
+outline of his daring expedition into Borapota; of the extraordinary
+personal influence he had speedily acquired over the warlike people of
+that country and of the remarkable concessions he had gained for the
+Empire. He had, in fact, without bloodshed or political complications,
+succeeded in establishing a British Protectorate in a rich and
+profitable country.
+
+At the end of the column there was a further piece of information
+concerning Carson. It was embodied in a cablegram from Durban, which
+stated, with the convincing brevity peculiar to cables, that Sir Evelyn
+Carson, having arrived from Borapota, was to be married immediately to
+Miss May Mappin, only daughter and heiress of the late Mr. Isaac Mappin,
+former Mayor of Durban.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On her dressing-table at the theatre Poppy found a little envelope,
+pale-tan in colour, containing a week's salary and a note from the
+manager, saying that after the next night (Saturday) the play would be
+taken off the boards; no further salaries would be paid. Every member of
+the company had received a similar notice.
+
+During the wait in the second act she sought out Marion Ashley.
+
+"Does Mrs. Chesney still want me?" she briefly inquired, and Marion
+turned to her eagerly.
+
+"Of course she does. Will you go? Oh, you dear girl! I'm _so_ glad. When
+will you be able to take up your residence with her?"
+
+"On Monday next, I think. I can't go before as I have to ... take some
+one ... who is ill ... into the country. I shall stay a day there
+only ... unless, unless ... the ... person is ... _worse_."
+
+"And if the person is better?" asked Marion quickly. "Oh, my dear, you
+won't fail poor Frances, will you, if you can help it?"
+
+"No." Poppy spoke in a perfectly calm and composed voice now, though her
+eyes were strange to see. "If I am alive, and have any reason to wish to
+continue living, you may rely upon me not to fail Mrs. Chesney."
+
+Marion did not quite understand this, but she came to the conclusion
+that some man Miss Chard was in love with was desperately ill, and that
+that accounted for her distraught look and strange words.
+
+
+
+
+PART IV
+
+
+          "This bitter love is sorrow in all lands,
+          Draining of eyelids, wringing of drenched hands,
+          Sighing of hearts and filling up of graves."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX
+
+
+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 the _Field_ for 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 than _ennui_: 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 an advantage 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 just _that_," 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 with
+_gaiete de coeur_.
+
+"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 pretty
+_then_; 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. Gruyere 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 a _penchant_ for 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.
+Gruyere 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 a _mot_ which 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 in the 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
+is _diablerie_ in 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 literally
+_couldn't_ be her ... I wonder if I should go round and----"
+
+"If I _could_ be interested in a girl," thought Carson, "I might.... _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 you remember? When you
+potted the big fellow in the _umpas_ tree!... 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--chief _Gaarons_, one of their best
+leaders ... a sure shot ... he got ten of our men ... but Bram got _him_
+all 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 we _are_ getting 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 over during 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--_you_ know 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, and I 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 a _menage-a-deux_ in 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 a _menage-a-deux_ was, 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, and when 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 want _a_ wife,
+but _the_ wife, and I haven't met her yet--the woman who could stand the
+test of five years of _wattle-and-daub_, and boot-and-saddle, and
+sleeping under the stars for a change when one gets tired of the
+_wattle-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. _We_ know 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 has secretly
+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 with gold 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 said _the_ wife ... 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 of _that_.... 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 in _that_ tale!... 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 XXI
+
+
+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."
+
+That, at least, was the line from the poets which flashed into Bramham's
+head, as Abinger grinned upon him.
+
+"What do _you_ want?" 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 and see 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 said _he_ would 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.
+
+_Ennui_ engulfed 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 Royal
+_boys_. 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 crepe, with silken 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 of grief 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, _Hope_ sitting 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, through tessellated
+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 have _got_ on. 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 of _Eve Destiny_? Here are 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 in _that_, 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
+from wailing 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 is _persona
+grata_ there."
+
+"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
+their engagement 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, otherwise _Eve
+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 XXII
+
+
+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
+to _tete-a-tete_ feel 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, _must_ have 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. Gruyere, 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 the _cheep-cheeping_ of some tame guinea-fowl in a
+neighbouring garden.
+
+If only Mrs. Gruyere 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
+could say "Oh!" and "Really?" quite prettily at appropriate intervals,
+and he much preferred her to Mrs. Gruyere, 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. Gruyere'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. Gruyere, who had been educated at a Colonial _seminary_,
+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, _dear_ Mrs. Portal, desirable qualifications are not always
+sufficient ones. _Where_ did she come from, and who are her people, I
+wonder? It seems _strange_ in 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. Abinger began 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. Gruyere.
+
+"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. Gruyere 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. Gruyere 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, _much_ more eligible for the post? (Her own
+brother, in fact--_hinc illae!_) 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. Gruyere, and remarked with great emphasis
+and point:
+
+"Rot!"
+
+Mrs. Gruyere 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 never _dream_ of marrying a Colonial: Gerald told me so."
+
+Mrs. Gruyere'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, _how_ Mrs. Gruyere
+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. Gruyere 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. Gruyere 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. Gruyere," 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."
+
+"When _I_ am in love!" said Mrs. Gruyere 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. Gruyere.
+
+"There is a form of colour-blindness that makes its victim see
+everything black!" said Mrs. Capron drily. Mrs. Gruyere 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, _dear_ lady," said Abinger, with great _tendresse_, "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. Gruyere neatly--for her.
+
+At this opportune moment Carson sauntered round the corner and joined
+them, and Mrs. Gruyere'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. Gruyere 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. Gruyere,
+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. Gruyere 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.
+
+"So _this_ is Miss Rosalind Chard!" he said softly, but not too softly
+for Carson to hear him.
+
+"_Who_ is 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 very _un-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.
+Gruyere 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 that _you_
+are--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--my _first_ visit."
+
+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 tasting
+the 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. Gruyere ...
+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 was wondering 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. Gruyere, who always came and stood near him and began
+telling someone in a loud voice about his poor 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 he _is_ one, 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 "Cafe 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 role--dressed by _Paquin_," said Cora de Grey
+drily. _She_ never 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. "What _can_ you 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 know_ we have met."
+
+Her tone expressed extraordinary conviction, and everyone gazed at Poppy
+with curiosity and even a faint hint of suspicion--except Clem, whose
+eyes were full of warmth and friendliness, and Carson, who pretended to
+be bored.
+
+But Poppy only laughed a little--and by that had her will of Carson at
+last. He forgot to be bored, and gave her a long, deep look.
+Unfortunately, she was obliged to turn to Mrs. Capron at this moment to
+make an answer.
+
+"Perhaps," she said pensively, "we were rivals for a king's affection in
+some past age----"
+
+Mrs. Capron's proud, valuable look came over her, and she stiffened as
+if she had received a dig with a hat-pin: the men enjoyed themselves
+secretly. But no one was prepared for the rest of the context.
+
+"--Of course, _I_ was the successful rival or it would have been I who
+remembered, and not you."
+
+This solution left Mrs. Capron cold-eyed and everyone else laughing in
+some fashion; but there was a nervousness in the air, and Clem vaguely
+wished that the gong would sound; for long ere this the dusk had fallen
+deeply, and little Cinthie was asleep in the hammock. It appeared that
+Carson still held to his plan to depart, and chose this moment to make
+his farewells in a small storm of abuse and remonstrance. One person
+minded his decision less than she might have done ten minutes before.
+The eyes veiled behind mists of hair knew that their service had not
+been in vain. The invisible hands, that had dragged and strained at Eve
+Carson's will, slackened their hold and rested awhile. Only: as he went
+down the flight of shallow stone steps that led to the gate--a tall,
+powerful figure in grey--a woman's spirit went with him, entreating,
+demanding to go with him, not to Bramham's home, but to the ends of life
+and death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII
+
+
+Nearly a week passed before Bramham again saw Poppy, for private affairs
+unexpectedly engrossed him. He made time, however, to write her a letter
+full of excellent business advice. Later, he called at the Royal with
+her papers, and found her writing letters in the library. She had just
+come in, and a big, plumed, grey hat, which matched her pale grey voile
+gown, lay on the table beside her. Moreover, the flush of animation was
+on her cheek and a shine in her eye.
+
+"Oh! come now; you look as if you had taken fresh hold," said Bramham
+approvingly. "I've brought back your papers, and thanks awfully for
+letting me look through them. It is pretty clear that if you would only
+work, you could be coining money as fast as you like. You've caught on
+at home and everywhere else. Your books have been the wonder of this
+country for months, and descriptions of your plays have been cabled out
+to every big centre--but, of course, you know all this."
+
+She nodded.
+
+"And, of course, you know how your little book of poems rang up the
+country from end to end! By Jove! if the Durban people only knew who
+they had in the midst of them----"
+
+She looked at him quickly, apprehensively.
+
+"It is more important than ever to have no one know. Since I saw you and
+talked to you I have reconstructed my plans entirely. Life seems to mean
+something to me again for the first time since--" She closed her eyes.
+He did not speak, only looked at her with compassionate eyes and waited.
+
+"I have made up my mind not to let everything go to wreck," she began
+again presently. "I'm going to work again--I _am_ working." She threw
+back her head and smiled.
+
+"Hurrah!" cried Bramham. "I can't tell you how pleased I am to hear it.
+As a business man, I hated to see such a chance of making money chucked
+to the winds--and as a--well, as a plain man, I can't help applauding
+when I see what it does to your looks."
+
+"You are certainly plain spoken," said she, smiling. "But I want to tell
+you--I've taken a little house. I've just been there with the painter,
+and it's all going to be ready by the end of the week."
+
+"Where is it?"
+
+"Facing the bay--a funny little bungalow-cottage, with an old-fashioned
+garden and a straggly path through sea-pinks right down to nearly the
+edge of the waves."
+
+"It sounds altogether too romantic for Durban. I expect these features
+exist only in your imagination. But can you possibly mean Briony
+Cottage?"
+
+"But, of course."
+
+"Good--it _is_ a dear little place--and with the bay right before you,
+you'll hardly know you're down in the town."
+
+"I'm having a companion." She made a mouth, and Bramham himself could
+not disguise a faint twist of his smile.
+
+"Mrs. Portal said it was necessary, if I didn't want to be black-balled
+by the Durban ladies, so she found me a Miss Allendner, a nice little
+old thing, who is lonely and unattached, but eminently respectable and
+_genteel_."
+
+"Ah! I know her--a weary sort of plucked turkey," said the graceless
+Bramham, "with a nose that was once too much exposed to the winter
+winds and has never recovered. Never mind, you'll need someone to keep
+off the crowd as soon as they find out who you are----"
+
+"But they are not going to find out! Charlie, I see that I must speak to
+you seriously about this. I believe you think my not wanting to be known
+is affectation; it is nothing of the kind. It is _most imperative_ that
+my identity should be kept secret. I must tell you the reason at last--I
+am working now for money to fight out a case in the Law Courts before
+anyone in Africa knows who I am. Under my own name no one will recognise
+me or be particularly interested; but, of course, pleading as _Eve
+Destiny_ would be another matter. I couldn't keep that quiet."
+
+"A law case! Great-- Well, Rosalind," he said ironically, "you certainly
+do spring some surprises on me. Is it about your plays? Why can't you
+let me manage it for you? But what kind of case can it be?"
+
+"A divorce case--or, rather, I think a nullity case is what it would be
+called."
+
+"A _what_?" Bramham could say no more.
+
+"Don't look at me like that, best of friends ... I know, I know, you are
+beginning to think I am not worth your friendship ... that I don't seem
+to understand even the first principles of friendship--honesty and
+candour!... Try and have patience with me, Charlie.... Perhaps I _ought_
+to have told you before ... but I've never told a single soul ... in
+fact, I have always refused to consider that I am married. It is a long
+story, and includes part of my childhood. The man who adopted me and
+brought me up in an old farmhouse in the Transvaal allowed me to go
+through a marriage ceremony with him without my knowing what I was
+doing ... an old French priest married us ... he couldn't speak a word
+of English ... only Kaffir ... and he married us in French, which I
+could not understand at that time. Afterwards, my life went on as usual,
+and for years I continued to look upon the man simply as my guardian.
+At last, here in Durban, when I was just eighteen, he suddenly sprang
+the story upon me, and claimed me for his wife. I was horrified,
+revolted ... my liking for him, which arose entirely from gratitude,
+turned to detestation on hearing it.... I believed myself to have been
+merely trapped. In any case, whatever I might have felt for him didn't
+matter then. It was too late. I belonged to ... the man you know I
+belong to ... I didn't know what to do at first. There were terrible
+circumstances in connection with ... the man I love ... which made me
+think sometimes that I could never meet him again ... I would just keep
+the soul he had waked in me, and live for work and Fame. But the man I
+was married to wanted to keep me to my bond ... and then suddenly he
+found out ... something ... I don't quite know how it came to pass, but
+he _knew_ ... I was obliged to fly from his house half clad.... It was
+_then_ I found refuge with Sophie Cornell."
+
+"And these things all happened here? Do you mean to tell me that
+blackguard was some Durban fellow?"
+
+"He did live here at that time."
+
+"And now?"
+
+"He appears to be here still ... I saw him the other day. He behaved to
+me as though I were really Miss Chard ... but I know him. He will fight
+tooth and nail ... I don't suppose he cares about me in the least, but
+he will lie his soul away, I believe, and spend his last penny for
+revenge."
+
+"Well, upon my soul! I can't think who the fellow can be!" said Bramham
+artlessly, and Poppy could not refrain from smiling.
+
+"I don't think there would be any good in telling you, Charlie. You may
+know him ... in fact, you are sure to, in a small place like this ...
+and it would only make things difficult for you."
+
+Bramham was plainly vexed that she did not confide in him, but she was
+perfectly well aware that he knew Abinger intimately, and fearing that
+something might leak out and spoil her plans, she decided not to tell
+him.
+
+"You should have tackled the thing at home," said Bramham thoughtfully.
+"They'd have fixed you up in no time there, I believe."
+
+"No, I had advice about it, and was told that as the ceremony had taken
+place in the Transvaal, and the man is out here, I must go to the Rand
+Courts ... and, by the way, I must tell you--I wrote to the mission
+monastery which the old priest belonged to and made inquiries. They
+wrote back that old Father Eugene was dead, but that they had already
+gone into the matter on behalf of _my husband_, who had made
+representations to them. That they could only inform me that the
+ceremony performed by the Father was absolutely valid, and they were
+prepared to uphold it in every way. They added that they were well aware
+that it was my intention to try and disprove the marriage and for my own
+purposes escape from my sacred bond, but that I must not expect any
+assistance from them in my immoral purpose.... So, you see, I have them
+to fight as well. Another thing is, that the only other witness to the
+ceremony was a woman who would swear her soul away at the bidding of the
+man who calls himself my husband."
+
+"By Jove! It looks as if you're up against a tough proposition, as they
+say in America!" was Bramham's verdict at last. "But you'll pull
+through, I'm certain, and you've pluck enough. As for money--well, you
+know that I am not poor----"
+
+He stopped, staring at her pale face.
+
+"Don't ever offer to lend me money," she said fiercely rudely.
+
+"Why, you let me lend you some before! And were unusual enough to pay it
+back." Smiling broadly, he added: "I never had such a thing happen to me
+before!" But she would not smile. The subject seemed an unfortunate one,
+for she did not regain her joyous serenity during the rest of the
+interview.
+
+He went home wrapped in cogitation, turning over in his mind the name of
+every man in the place on the chance of its being the name of the
+culprit. Abinger's name, amongst others, certainly came up for
+consideration, but was instantly dismissed as an impossibility, for he
+had plainly given everyone to understand that--after the time of his
+disappearance from the Rand, until his readvent in Durban on the day
+Bramham had met him coming off the Mail-boat--he had been travelling
+abroad, and there was no reason to disbelieve this statement. Moreover,
+Bramham was aware of other facts in Abinger's private life which made it
+seem absolutely impossible that he could be the villain of Rosalind
+Chard's tale.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The day Poppy moved to her new home, Clem Portal was the first person to
+visit her and wish her luck and happiness there.
+
+They took tea in the largest room in the house, which was to be Poppy's
+working-room and study. It was long and low, with two bay-windows, and
+the walls had been distempered in pale soft grey. The floor was dark and
+polished, and the only strong note of colour in the room a rose-red
+Persian rug before the quaint fireplace. The chintzes Poppy had come
+upon with great joy in one of the local shops: ivory-white with green
+ivy leaves scattered over them--a great relief from the everlasting
+pink roses of the usual chintz. The grey walls were guileless of
+pictures, except for the faithful blue _Hope_ which overhung the
+fireplace above vases full of tall fronds of maidenhair-fern, and some
+full-length posters of the Beardsley school in black-and-white wash.
+Poppy's writing-table was in one window, and on the wall where she could
+always see it while at work was a water-colour of a little boy standing
+in a field of corn and poppies. The tea-table was in the other window.
+She and Clem sat looking at the blue bay flapping and rippling under the
+afternoon sunlight, with the long bluff ridge sleeping sullenly beyond.
+
+"You've found the sweetest place in Durban," said Clem. "Whenever I feel
+like a mealie--a _green_ mealie--which, alas! is very often, I shall
+sneak down here to 'simplify, simplify.' While you work I'll sit in the
+sun in the Yogi attitude and triumphantly contemplate eternity and
+jelly-fish."
+
+Later, she said:
+
+"Mary Capron wanted to come too, but I told her I must have you all to
+myself to-day. I'm afraid she was rather hurt, but ... I was not sure
+whether you liked her, Poppy. I do hope you are going to, dear, for I
+love her, and we shall be a triangle with sore corners, if you _don't_."
+
+Poppy was dreaming with her tea-cup in her lap, and the glitter of the
+bay in her eyes.
+
+"Do you think three women ever get on well together?" she asked
+evasively. "There is always one out."
+
+Clem was quick to see the meaning of this. A look of disappointment came
+over her gay, gentle face.
+
+"Mary and I have been friends for years," she said. "She is the only
+woman I have never had any inspiration about; but though I am blinded by
+her beauty, I know her to be good and true. It would be a terribly
+disloyal thing if I deserted her for you ... what am I to do if you two
+don't like each other?"
+
+"If _you_ love Mrs. Capron, Clem, she won't need to bother about the
+liking of a woman like me."
+
+"She likes _you_, however. And I'm sure when you get to know her better,
+you'll like her.... I daresay when two beautiful women first meet, a
+feeling of antagonism is natural. But _you_ should be above that, Poppy.
+And poor Mary is a subject for pity rather than dislike--any woman is
+who has drawn blank in the big lottery. I daresay you know _that_ about
+her--most people do."
+
+"I have gathered that she is not very happily married," said Poppy.
+
+"Have you ever seen him?"
+
+"I believe the first time I ever saw you, Clem, he was with you."
+
+"Ah, yes, I remember now--and we talked of you, the girl with the
+Burne-Jones eyes." Most women would have made this an easy
+stepping-stone into the flowing brook of confidences, and found out
+where Poppy was going to on that sunny day, and where she had been all
+the long years since; but Clem Portal had an instinct about questions
+that hurt. Her husband often said of her:
+
+"She is that lovely thing--a close woman!" Now, the peculiarity of a
+close woman is that she neither probes into the dark deeps of others,
+nor allows herself to be probed.
+
+"Nick Capron was not _quite_ impossible in those days," she continued;
+"but now a good place for him would be under the debris heaps outside de
+Beers'. When she first met him he was a romantic character on the
+down-grade. Had been all over the world and gone through every kind of
+adventure; lost a fortune at Monte-Carlo on a system of his own for
+breaking the bank; written a book (or more probably got it written for
+him) about his adventures as a cowboy in Texas; and made quite a name
+for himself as a scout in the war between Chili and Peru. Amongst other
+things he has an intimate knowledge of torpedoes and is supposed to have
+been the author of the plan that sent the Chilian transport, the _Loa_,
+to the bottom by a torpedo launched from an apparently harmless
+fruit-boat. At any rate, he was seen on the fruit-boat, and when he came
+to Africa shortly afterwards, they said it was to escape the vengeance
+of the Chilians. Mary, who was on a visit to this country, met him at
+the Cape when everyone was talking about him. Unfortunately, when women
+hear sparkling things about a man, they do not always think to inquire
+about the sparkling things he drinks--and how much _that_ has to do with
+the matter. She fell in love with him, or his reputation, and they were
+married in a great whirl of romantic emotion. Well, you know what
+happens to people who engage in whirling?"
+
+Poppy looked up, anxious to learn, and Clem continued with the air of an
+oracle of Thebes:
+
+"After a time they find themselves sitting still on the ground, very
+sick. That is Mary's position. She sits flat on the ground and surveys a
+world that makes her feel sick. Nick Capron, however, continues to
+whirl."
+
+"She must have great courage to face the situation," said Poppy
+sincerely.
+
+"She has more than courage," said Clem, alight with loyal enthusiasm.
+"She is one in a thousand. You know enough of Africa, I daresay, Poppy,
+to know that life out here is just one huge temptation to a beautiful
+unhappily-married woman. The place teems with men--good, bad, and
+indifferent, but all interesting (unless drink is sweeping them down
+hill too fast), and they all want to be kind to her. Many of them are
+splendid fellows. But the best of men are half-devil, half-child, and
+nothing more, where a beautiful woman is concerned. You know that, don't
+you?"
+
+What Poppy _did_ know was that Clem had far greater knowledge of the
+world of men and women than she had, and she was only too interested to
+sit and imbibe wisdom. She frankly said so.
+
+"I thoroughly understand these things," Clem replied without pride.
+"Sinners can never take me by surprise, whatever they do. Perhaps it is
+because I might easily have been a devil of the deepest dye myself, but
+for luck--Billy is my luck."
+
+This from the most orthodox woman in Africa! Poppy could not refrain
+from a trill of laughter.
+
+"I think you are one of those who paint themselves black to be _en
+suite_ with the people you like, Clemmie," she said; "but you're not
+extraordinarily clever as an artist."
+
+"Not so clever as _you'll_ have to be when Mrs. Gruyere comes round to
+have her miniature done," said Clem maliciously. "I must think about
+going, darling. Mary is coming to fetch me in her carriage and she will
+be here in a minute or two now. Before I go, I want you to promise me to
+steal away whenever you can. If you sit too much over work you will fall
+asleep, and have to be put in the poppy-garden instead of flaunting and
+flaming in the sunshine and being a joy to behold. What a fascinating
+flower it is! Both your names are fascinating ... _Eve Destiny!_ ...
+what could have prompted it, I wonder?"
+
+"Simply an idea. I am a child of destiny, I always think--at least, the
+old blind hag seems to have been at some pains to fling me about from
+pillar to post. Eve--" She turned away, knowing that she could not
+mention that name without giving some sign of the tumult it roused
+within her. "Eve--was the most primitive person I could think of" (the
+lie did not come very glibly), "and _I_ am primitive. If I were my real
+self I should be running loose in the woods somewhere with a wild-cat's
+skin round me."
+
+"Well, you wouldn't run alone for long, that's very certain," laughed
+Clem.
+
+"No, I should want my mate wherever and whatever I was"--Clem laughed
+again at her frankness, but she went on dreamfully--"a Bedouin, or a
+shaggy Thibetan on the roof of the world, or a 'cassowary on the plains
+of Timbuctoo.' Oh, Clem! the sound of the wind in forest trees--the
+sea--the desert with an unknown horizon, are better to me than all the
+cities and civilisation in the world--yet here I sit!" She threw out her
+hands and laughed joylessly.
+
+"You ought to marry an explorer--or a hunter of big game," said Clem
+thoughtfully, and got up and looked out of the window. "Here comes one
+in the carriage with Mary. But he is an Irishman, so I wouldn't advise
+you to look _his_ way.... An Irishman should never be given more than a
+Charles Wyndhamesque part on the stage of any woman's life ... a person
+to love, but not to be in love with...."
+
+"Oh, Clem! You are Irish yourself----"
+
+Clem did not turn round. She went on talking out of the window and
+watching the approaching carriage.
+
+"Yes, and I love everyone and everything from that sad green land ...
+the very name of Ireland sends a ray of joy right through me ... and its
+dear blue-eyed, grey-eyed people! Trust an Irish-woman, Poppy, when she
+is true-bred ... but never fall in love with an Irishman ... there is no
+fixity of tenure ... he will give you his hand with his heart in it ...
+but when you come to look there for comfort, you will find a bare knife
+for your breast ... unstable as water ... too loving of love ... too
+understanding of another's heart's desire ... too quick to grant, too
+quick to take away ... the tale of their lips changing with the moon's
+changes--even with the weather.... Hullo, Mary! Here I am.... How do you
+do, Karri?"
+
+Mrs. Capron's carriage had pulled up before Poppy's little side-gate,
+which gave on to the embankment. She was gowned in black, a daring
+rose-red hat upon her lovely hair, and by her side was Evelyn Carson.
+She waved at the two women in the window, but did not leave the
+carriage. Carson came instead, making a few strides of the little
+straggly, sea-shelled path.
+
+"We've come to drag Mrs. Portal away," he said to Poppy, after shaking
+hands through the window, "having just met her husband taking home two
+of the hungriest-looking ruffians you ever saw."
+
+Clem gave a cry of woe and began to pin on her hat.
+
+"The wretch! I thought he was going to dine at the Club."
+
+"He gave us strict orders to send you home at once," laughed Carson, "so
+Mrs. Capron won't come in."
+
+"Who are the men?" demanded Clem.
+
+"Two brutes just arrived by to-day's boat, with a sea-edge to their
+appetites. I should say that nothing short of a ten-course banquet would
+appease them."
+
+Clem's groans were terrible.
+
+"Cook will have prepared half a chicken's wing for me. She always
+starves me when I'm alone. You come back with me," she commanded Carson.
+"If you talk beautifully to them they won't notice the lightness of the
+_menu_."
+
+"Oh, but I'd rather come when you are prepared," said the graceless
+Carson. "I'm hungry, too. When you've gone I'm going to ask Miss Chard
+for a cup of tea." Smiling, he plucked a sea-pink and stuck it in his
+coat. They were in the garden now on the way to the carriage.
+
+"Deserter! Well, Mary, _you'll_ have to come and let them feed upon your
+damask cheek--something has got to be done."
+
+Poppy exchanged greetings with Mrs. Capron, and presently the two women
+drove away, leaving her and Carson standing there with the gleam of the
+sunlit bay in their eyes. Turning, she found him staring in an odd way
+at her hair, which she was wearing piled into a crown, with the usual
+fronds falling softly down. Her lids drooped for a moment under his
+strange eyes, but her voice was perfectly even and conventional as she
+asked if he would really care for tea.
+
+"I should, indeed--and to come into the restful grey room I got a
+glimpse of through the window. It reminded me of a cool, cloudy day in
+the middle of summer."
+
+Pleasure at his approval brought a faint wave of colour into the face
+she was determined to mask of all expression. She led the way indoors,
+he following, his eyes travelling swiftly from the crowned head she
+carried with so brave an air on her long throat, down the little
+straight back that was short like the classical women's, giving fine
+sweeping length from waist to heel.
+
+She rang for fresh tea and went to the tea-table. Carson stood about the
+room, seeming to fill it.
+
+"If you are fond of grey, we have a taste in common," he said, and she
+gave him a quick, upward glance. The face which Africa's sun had branded
+her own looked extraordinarily dark above the light-grey of his clothes
+and the little pink flower stuck in his coat. It seemed to her that no
+woman had ever loved so debonair a man as this Irishman with his
+careless eyes and rustling voice.
+
+"I love _green_ best of all colours," she answered steadily; "but one
+gets tired of green walls now that they are fashionable and everyone
+has them--" her voice broke off suddenly. In his looming about the room
+he had stopped dead before _Hope_ over the mantelpiece. The cup Poppy
+held rattled in its saucer. He presently asked who the picture was by,
+and where he, too, could get a copy of it.
+
+"I like it," he said. "It seems to me in a vague way that I know that
+picture well, yet I don't believe I have ever seen it before ...
+strange...!" He stared at it again, and she made no response. For the
+moment she was back in a little upper chamber in Westminster.
+
+He came presently over to the tea-table, and was about to sit down when
+another picture caught his eye--the water-colour of the little child
+among the poppies and corn. He stepped before it and stayed looking for
+a long time. At last he said, laughing constrainedly:
+
+"You will think I am mad ... but I imagine I know _that_ picture too ...
+that little chap is extraordinarily like someone I know ... I can't
+think who ... but I'm certain ... is it some of your work, Miss Chard?"
+
+He looked at her with keen inquiry, but his glance changed to one of
+astonishment. Her eyes were closed and she was pale as a primrose; her
+hands had fallen to her sides.
+
+A moment afterwards she recovered herself and was handing him a cup of
+tea with some inconsequent remark. She had made absolutely no response
+to his questions about either picture, and he thought the fact rather
+remarkable.
+
+Afterwards they talked and he forgot surprise (for the time being) in
+listening to the shy graces of thought to which she gave utterance and
+watching her inexpressibly charming delicacies of manner. When he left
+her the magic of her was on him; she had bound him with the spell of
+his own country; but he did not know it. If he _had_ known it he would
+have repudiated it with all his strength, for already he was a bound
+man.
+
+"His honour rooted in dishonour stood."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV
+
+
+The women of Durban received Poppy into their midst with suspicion and
+disfavour, which they carefully veiled because they could find out
+absolutely nothing, damning or otherwise, about her, and also because
+Mrs. Portal's introductions were as good as a certificate of birth,
+marriage, and death, and to be questioned as little; and Mrs. Portal's
+position was such that no woman dared assail her for exercising her
+privileges. What they could do, however, was narrow their eyes, sharpen
+their claws, and lie in wait, and this they did with a patience and zest
+worthy of their species.
+
+Meanwhile, those who sought Poppy might sometimes find her at the house
+of Mrs. Portal; but not as often as she wished, for work chained her
+almost perpetually, and she was working against time. She was straining
+every nerve to have her work finished and paid for, and her law case
+quietly settled in Johannesburg, before the time came for Carson to set
+out for his five years' exile in Borapota. She was working for freedom
+and bondage and life--for, indeed, all that life had to offer her now
+was the word of a man bidding her to follow him into bondage. It was
+hard on her that while she worked she must lose time and opportunities
+of meeting him and winding more spells to bind him. But--she had grown
+used to fighting her battles against odds. So she gave up six solid
+hours of daylight and two of the night to hard labour; and she made a
+rule never to count the hours, which were many, that were spent at her
+desk _dreaming_. For no writer does work of any consequence without
+dreaming, even if the dream is not always of work.
+
+Miss Allendner might have found life a dull affair in Briony Cottage had
+she not been of that domesticated type which finds satisfaction and
+pleasure in managing a household and ordering good meals. Under her rule
+the little cottage became a well-ordered, comfortable home, where things
+ran on oiled wheels, and peace and contentment reigned. No one and
+nothing bothered Poppy, and the long, bright hours of day were hers to
+work in uninterruptedly. Such visitors as called, and some did call, if
+only out of curiosity, were received by Miss Allendner, and regaled with
+dainty teas and mysteriously impressive statements as to Miss Chard's
+_work_ which unfortunately kept her so busy that she could see no
+one--_at present_. The companion had of necessity been let into the
+secret of her employer's work and identity, for Poppy was a careless
+creature with letters and papers, and it irked her to have to exercise
+caution with an intimate member of her household. Poor Miss Allendner
+almost exploded with the greatness and importance of the information.
+But she was a faithful and trustworthy soul, and happy for the first
+time in all her needy, half-rationed life.
+
+If Poppy had been a bread-and-butter woman she might have been happy,
+too, in some fashion, within the trim, well-ordered confines of
+comfortable mediocrity. But it was not there that her desire lay. She
+had tasted of the wine and fruit of life--Love, and wanderings in far
+lands, and vagabondage. Bread-and-butter could never satisfy her again.
+
+Work was wine, too. She felt the fire of it circling in her veins, even
+when wearied out she flung her books and pencils from her and ran out to
+the sea. And play was wine--when on some lovely evening she arrayed
+herself amazingly, took rickshaw and Miss Allendner and ascended the
+wide, sloping road that led to Clem Portal's home on the Berea.
+
+The Portals' social circle varied, because it was constantly being
+enlarged or decreased by the comings and goings of travellers and
+visitors; for, besides knowing everyone worth knowing in South Africa,
+they could beckon friends and acquaintances from the four poles. Add to
+this that they were both charming, witty, cultivated people, with the
+true Irish love for bestowing hospitality and the true Irish grace in
+bestowing it, and it will be easily understood that all delightful and
+interesting people who came to South Africa sought them as the bee seeks
+clover.
+
+As a background to new faces could always be found those of fixed and
+steadfast friends--Mrs. Capron's--the de Greys'--the Laces'. Always
+Carson, when he came to Natal; and Abinger, because he was both
+interesting and something of a crony of Bill Portal's.
+
+A sprinkling of Durban people came and went.
+
+Evening is a pleasant time in Natal, and the Portals' moonlit gardens
+and lawns and long verandahs lent themselves agreeably to strolling
+people, tired of the clang and glare of the day. With someone always at
+the piano to sprinkle the still air with melody, it was pleasant to
+saunter, the dew in your hair and all the sounds of the night-things
+about you, while you talked with someone whose interest interested you,
+or gossiped of life as it could, or would, or might be, or of "Home,"
+meaning England, which through the glamour of an African night seems the
+moon of all men's Desire. There are more intense sudden joys in Life
+than these, but few more poignantly sweet.
+
+To be Mrs. Portal's friend was to share her friends, to know them, to
+gossip with them, to criticise and be in turn criticised by them.
+Sport, books, music, pictures, people--all that goes to the making of
+life worth the living, came under discussion; and in Africa, where
+everyone is using every sense of mind and body, living and feeling every
+moment of life, there are always new things to be said on these
+subjects--or perhaps only things that are so many centuries old that
+they sound new. Truth, after all, is older than the everlasting hills.
+
+Naturally, there was never much grouping. General conversation has more
+than a liability to platitude, or, at best, to flippancy, and the finest
+talking is never done in groups, but _tete-a-tete_. Indeed, it is on
+record by a thinker of some importance that the best things men say are
+said to women who probably don't understand them:
+
+                "To the women who didn't know why
+                (And now we know they could never know why)
+                  And did not understand."
+
+That is as may be. Remains the fact that the best talkers (apart, of
+course, from orators, politicians, and professional diners-out) do not
+talk for a crowd, and the most potent phrases and epigrams--when
+epigrams are not _vieux jeu_--are made for one, or at the most, two
+listeners.
+
+Poppy's ears took in many pretty and many witty things.
+
+Bill Portal was a blithe soul, overflowing with gay parables and maxims
+for the unwise, whom he claimed to be the salt of the earth.
+
+Abinger was epigrammatic, sardonic, and satanic, and he never asked for
+more than one listener--a woman for preference, as she would certainly
+repeat what he said--and there were other reasons. But the women of the
+Portals' circle recognised a serpent when they met him, however leafy
+the garden, and always preferred to listen to his wisdom in twos and
+threes. With Poppy he never encompassed any talk at all, unless she
+felt Clem strong at her back. He smiled at this: the smile of the
+waiting man to whom everything cometh at last.
+
+Nick Capron never graced the assemblies with his handsome dissipated
+presence. His lust was for poker and his fellow-men--which meant the
+Club and small hours. He was never even known to fetch his wife. But
+many a man was pleased and honoured to do his duty for him. Sometimes
+she stayed all night with her friend Clem. Sometimes Carson took her
+home in a rickshaw.
+
+The women with attentive husbands pitied her amongst themselves; but she
+gave no sign of discontent, and they never ventured to offer sympathy.
+Invariably she looked wonderfully beautiful--and, therefore, it was not
+necessary for her to exert herself to much conversation. Since Poppy's
+soft thrush-note had first been heard in Clem Portal's verandah, Mrs.
+Capron's laugh had been silent: though it was a pretty laugh, too. But
+her smile was as alluring as the sound of a silvery brooklet, and
+sometimes the sympathetic wives trembled when they saw their husbands
+lingering near her--not to talk, but to look. She sat so fearlessly
+under bright light, and looked so flawlessly good. It was, indeed, a
+comfort to remember that she was as good as she looked, or she would not
+be Mrs. Portal's closest friend. It was remembered, too, that she had
+never tried to beguile any woman's man away from her.
+
+When one wife after another had ceased to tremble for her man, realising
+that this Circe did not use her toils, they rewarded her by saying
+amongst themselves that it must be sad to be so _cold_. This warmed the
+coldest of them--with a glow of self-satisfaction.
+
+Mary Capron did not bother about any of them. The riddle she
+sought to read was Rosalind Chard. Always she watched Poppy,
+and pondered where she had seen her before. Poppy suspected
+this, but it did not agitate her. She had prepared another
+soft-answer-warranted-not-to-turn-away-wrath if Mary Capron should
+attack her in the open again. But Mary Capron, if she was not witty,
+was wise. She was no fencer, and had no intention of encountering Miss
+Chard's foil with the button off. She preferred to choose her own
+weapon, time, and place, and to pursue the little duel in her own
+fashion. She was merely "getting her hand in" when she said to Abinger,
+looking dreamily at Poppy the while:
+
+"Did you ever hear of a Sphinx without a secret?"
+
+"It's what Wilde taxed the modern society woman with being, I believe,"
+he answered idly; he was easily one of the best-read men in Africa. "But
+it would not apply out here."
+
+"No," she said dreamily. "Everyone has a secret in this country, haven't
+they? even girls."
+
+At another time she and Carson were near when Poppy, with her arm in
+Clem's, presented Luce Abinger with a suave answer, so heavily encrusted
+with salt, that even his seasoned tongue went dry. However, his
+impertinence had warranted punishment, so he bore it as best he might.
+And Clem's tact oiled the troubled waters.
+
+But Mary Capron said something to Carson that kept him awake that night.
+
+"She's _quite_ clever, isn't she? Only it's a pity she has to begin at
+the beginning for herself."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carson had scarcely been struck by Miss Chard's
+_cleverness_--considering that on both his first and second meeting with
+her she had had odd lapses of something very like _gaucherie_. But he
+thought her interesting, arresting, and beautiful. He knew of no reason
+why he should think of her at all; but he sometimes found her face and
+her voice amongst his thoughts and considered the fact a curious and
+rather annoying thing.
+
+And the sight and sound of her had an extraordinary power at times to
+rouse to active, vivid life, a dream of the past that was old grief and
+pain.
+
+Circumstance sometimes threw them together in the verandahs or out under
+the Southern-Cross flaming above the garden, and Poppy's low laugh might
+be heard mingling with his voice; but she did not always laugh because
+she was amused.
+
+Carson's silver tongue could take on an amazingly sharp edge. Being an
+Irishman, he was a law unto himself, with a fine taste for
+unconventionality in other people. But if he knew South Africa from one
+end to the other, he also knew men and cities, and the rules that govern
+women all the world over. Gradually he had become to be aware that Miss
+Chard outraged the most important of these by being both unclassifiable
+and mysterious. Even in what calls itself society in South Africa, women
+and their belongings and connections must be above-board and open to
+inspection. An unattached woman has got to prove her right to social
+status there, as elsewhere. If she cannot, she must prepare to take the
+consequences--and the least unpleasant of these is to have the worst
+believed of her.
+
+Of course, Rosalind Chard was backed by Mrs. Portal, but that did not
+prevent tongues from wagging.
+
+Carson took it upon himself to let Miss Chard know something of these
+things whenever Fate ordained that he and she should walk under the
+stars together.
+
+It was wittily done, by the delicate instrumentality of chosen
+implication, and it never missed the mark: the arrow quivered in Poppy
+every time. Hot and cold, with sudden rages and terrors, she would turn
+on him only to find the strange eyes so pleasantly indifferent; his
+expression so guileless that it was hard to suspect him of malicious
+intent. Her refuge was a little laugh. Carson told himself sardonically
+that the game amused him. It may have done so. Doubtless Indians were
+amused when they threw barbs at their staked victims. But as a fact,
+something more than an Indian sense of humour would have been appeased
+in him, if, instead of the brave smile that flickered across his
+victim's face, or the little dry retort that her lips gave out even
+while they quivered, she had answered him haughtily with the pride of
+race or family or position--the pride of _anything with a root to it_.
+That was the important point: what were the roots of Rosalind Chard?
+That she had pride was plain enough--the fine pride of courage; the
+pride of a slim, strong young tree that stands firm in winds that tear
+and beat, flaunting a brave green pennon.
+
+But what was the name of the tree? In what strange garden had it first
+grown? Was it of a garden at all? Or a highway? Whence came the
+suggestion that it had bloomed in the desert?
+
+Carson scarcely realised that he fiercely desired information on these
+matters. He supposed it to be curiosity about a pretty and interesting
+girl--pure curiosity. He had heard things said, a word dropped here and
+there--mostly by women, and he knew that harsh winds had begun to blow
+round the young slim tree with the brave green pennon.
+
+So out of _pure curiosity_ he tormented her when opportunity arose; and
+she--gave him witty, gentle little restrained answers, with her hand
+against her heart when the shadows allowed. Or if she could touch a tree
+she had greater strength to bear her torment and to laugh more easily.
+
+Of all the rest she was careless. Let them think what they would--Clem
+was her friend.
+
+If her personality and appearance had been less fascinating, probably
+the gossip about her mysterious appearance in Durban without friends or
+connections, or a known home, would have died a natural death. But with
+her first coming to Clem's house, her loveliness seemed to have grown.
+In the heat of a room there was a dewiness about her that began in her
+eyes, and was wonderfully refreshing to the jaded spirit. In the chill
+of the late evening she seemed to glow with a warmth that was cheering
+to the coldest heart. Unfortunately, she sometimes forgot to be
+conventional and ordinary in little social matters. Clem never took
+notice of such trivialities, but Mrs. Capron and the other women would
+raise delicate eyebrows and even the men exchange inscrutable glances.
+
+One day Mrs. Capron said:
+
+"Clem, didn't you tell me that Miss Chard was a Cheltenham College
+girl?" in an incredulous voice. (It is not always convenient to be faced
+with your statements made at a pinch.)
+
+"Mary," was the answer, after a little pause, "that girl has got a wound
+that bleeds inwardly, and has spent her life trying to hide it from the
+world. She has had no time to notice the little conventionalities and
+banalities that count with us."
+
+"One wonders sometimes if she ever had the opportunity--that is all. She
+walked into the dining-room ahead of Lady Mostyn and everybody else last
+night----"
+
+Clem winced; then, remembering Lady Mostyn's outraged face, laughed.
+
+"Well, one hardly picks up those things at school, _cherie_--and she may
+have been on a desert island ever since."
+
+"That would be an interesting reason for her bad manners, darling,
+but----"
+
+"I won't admit that they are bad--only unusual; and, besides, she has
+the excuse of genius. If I might only tell you what I know of her
+work----"
+
+"_Miniatures?_" asked Mrs. Capron wickedly.
+
+"No: lovey-dovey darling--don't tease and don't be uncharitable--you are
+much too beautiful to be a cat. Some day that girl will burst forth upon
+us all in the glory of fame."
+
+"Clem, you are infatuated."
+
+"You'll see," said Clem. "Only be patient and kind--I must really go and
+see what cook has for lunch. If she gives us curried mutton once more
+and stewed guavas and custard, Billy will calmly proceed to bust."
+
+She escaped.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+
+
+Mrs. Portal knew that Poppy was working as for her life, but she did not
+know why. Only, sometimes, out of the deep love and sympathy she felt
+for the girl, she longed to know the truth. The truth was far even from
+her far-seeing eyes.
+
+She believed that there must be a man somewhere in the world whom Poppy
+loved, for well she knew that such a wound as Poppy hid could only have
+been dealt by a man's unerring hand--and none but a loved hand could
+strike so deep! With all the mystical-religious, loving side of her
+nature, Clem prayed that life might yet do well by her friend and give
+her her heart's desire; but hope did not rise very high. She was fond of
+quoting that saying:
+
+"The things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. Everything that
+belongs to thee for aid or comfort shall surely come home through open
+or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the
+great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace."
+
+--and she would have liked to believe it, but Life had taught her
+differently. In the meantime, in so far as she was able, she watched
+faithfully and anxiously over Poppy's destiny, dragging her from her
+desk when the lilac eyes grew heavy and the tinted face too pale for
+health; making up gay little parties to drive or walk or go to the
+theatre, arranging merry dinners and excursions--anything that would
+distract, and presently bring back vivacity and strength, and renew
+courage.
+
+If it had not been for these things it is very certain that Poppy, with
+all her resolution and purpose, must have broken down from overwork and
+the strain of seeing the man she loved turn his eyes from her
+perpetually. For there were desperate hours when she obliged herself to
+face the fact that Evelyn Carson gave no sign of any feeling for her but
+a certain polite curiosity. In the black, despairing days that never
+fail to come to highly-strung, temperamental people, she bitterly
+derided herself, her work, her cause, asking what it was all for?
+
+To win freedom from Luce Abinger and cast herself into the arms of Eve
+Carson? But were his arms open to her? Plainly not. Plainly here was
+another of the "little songs they sing in hell"--of the woman who loves,
+but is beloved not by the beloved.
+
+Oh! she had her black and desperate days--
+
+         "And the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night."
+
+But afterwards _Hope_ played for her on the one brave string--and she
+took up her pen and worked on.
+
+On a stormy, sullen day towards the end of April she wrote the
+concluding words of the two things she had been working on at the same
+time--a play and a novel. They contained the best work she had ever
+done, for though they were begun for the love of a man, they were gone
+forward with, for the love of her craft, and, as all good craftsmen
+know, it is only in such spirit that the best work is achieved. All that
+remained to do was to go over and through the manuscripts once more,
+when they had been typed, to polish here and re-phrase there; and just
+to linger over all for a day in sheer delight and surprise. She was not
+peculiar among writers, in that, apart from the plan and construction of
+a thing, she never remembered from day to day what she had written, and
+always felt the greatest surprise and freshness in re-reading passages
+which had sped from her mind to paper in inspired moments, and which, if
+not written at those moments, would have been lost for ever.
+
+Schopenhauer was not the only person in the world to discover that a
+beautiful thought is like a beautiful woman. If you want to keep the one
+always you must tie her to you by marriage, if the other, you must tie
+it to you with pen and paper or it will leave you and never return.
+
+On that morning when she made her finished work into two tall piles of
+exercise-books before her on her table, the measure of content was hers
+that is felt by even the heaviest-hearted when they look upon good work
+done.
+
+She laid her head on the books and tears fell softly down, and her heart
+sang a little song that was pure thankfulness and praise for the
+goodness of God.
+
+And while she sat, there came a little tap at the door.
+
+Miss Allendner entered with a letter, and Poppy, taking it from her, saw
+that it was addressed in the small, strong writing she had not seen for
+years, but which she instantly recognised as Luce Abinger's. She laid it
+down mechanically on the table.
+
+"Mr. Abinger brought it himself," said Miss Allendner, "and would not
+leave it until he heard that you were here and would receive it at once.
+He said it was _very_ important."
+
+"Thank you," said Poppy quietly, and sat staring at the letter long
+after her companion had left the room.
+
+Afterwards, she laid her head on the books again, but wearily now, and
+the tears of her eyes were dried up and so was the little chant of
+praise in her heart. She was afraid--afraid of the letter; of the look
+she had seen in Luce Abinger's eyes of late--the old, hateful look--and
+of the fight before her. Now that she had done the work and would have
+the money to fight with, she was afraid. But only for a time. Those who
+have fought with any of the grim forces of life--sorrow, pain, poverty,
+despair--and defeated even the least of these in battle, have strength
+to fight again, and secret springs of courage to drink from in the hour
+of need. Poppy rose from her table at last with such new courage in her,
+that she could laugh disdainfully at the sealed letter and all it
+contained of threats, or commands. She left it sealed and lying there
+for some other hour's perusal. It should not spoil _this_ her glad day
+of finished tasks.
+
+She locked the door upon it and her work, and went to her room to change
+her gown and get ready to spend the rest of the day with Clem Portal.
+She would probably stay the night, but she took nothing with her, for
+she had now quite a collection of clothes at Clem's for emergencies.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+On the afternoon of the same day she sat dreaming in a Madeira-chair in
+Clem's drawing-room, while the latter meditated on the piano, trying to
+compose an air sufficiently mournful to set to the words of a little
+song of Poppy's called "In Exile." Softly, she sang it over and over to
+long slurring chords--curiously sweet and strange.
+
+                                I.
+
+                   Across the purple heather
+                     The winds of God blow sweet.
+                   But it's O for the smell of London
+                     And the roar of a London street!
+
+                                II.
+
+                   Upon the wine-dark waters
+                     The sun strikes clean and hot.
+                   But it's O for a London garden
+                     And the woman who loves me not!
+
+"You say you are no musician, Clem, but I never knew anyone who could
+make lovelier sounds come out of a piano," Poppy said.
+
+Clem laughed.
+
+"Dear, I can't play at all: it is this little song that sets chords
+singing in my head. What were you thinking of when you wrote it?"
+
+"Of Dr. Ferrand, I think, that first Sunday I came here. You remember
+how he talked of London?--and you said that he had 'his own box of
+matches and could make his own hell any day in the week,' like poor
+_Dick Heldar_. The circumstances seemed to indicate that there was some
+woman in England who didn't love him--but I daresay that applies to a
+good many men out here."
+
+"The most usual circumstance," said Clem laughing, "is that the woman
+loves too well. Some men find that hardest of all to bear."
+
+Poppy reflected on this for a while.
+
+"I suppose you mean wives! It is curious how many people seem to marry
+to live apart, isn't it, Clem?"
+
+"Yes; I call it the cat-and-reptile game," said Clem, swinging round on
+the music-stool and beginning to run her hands through her crinkly,
+curly, fuzzy dark hair with seven red lights in it. "The cat catches the
+reptile, scratches him, bites him, wounds him, puts her mark on him for
+good, and as soon as he has no more kick left in him, off she goes and
+leaves him alone."
+
+Poppy was laughing.
+
+"Well, some of the reptiles make marvellous recoveries," said she,
+remembering one, at least, whom she had known.
+
+"You can't blame them for _that_--it isn't very interesting to be dead,
+I suppose."
+
+"As for the cats who don't leave their reptiles," continued Poppy,
+thinking of some of the dull people she had recently met, "nothing could
+be deader than the pair of them. And then they label themselves
+'happily married.'"
+
+"Now, Poppy, I won't have you walking over my cabbages and onions."
+
+"I'm not, Clem--but they don't make marriage look alluring to anyone
+with an imagination, do they? Of course, it is wonderful to see your
+happiness----"
+
+"Yes; Bill and I _are_ rather wonderful"--Clem jumped up in a hurry--"I
+must _absolutely_ go and get some socks and stockings to mend. There is
+a pile as big as a house waiting--" She flashed out of the room.
+
+"She won't discuss her happiness with me," thought Poppy. "It is too
+sacred!"
+
+By the time Clem came back a settled gloom was over everything; the rain
+was heavily pelting against the windows; occasionally a bright beam of
+light shot through the room, leaving it as grey as a witch; afterwards
+the thunder groaned like some god in agony.
+
+"You won't be able to see to darn holes," said Poppy.
+
+"Ah! you don't know Billy's holes," Clem answered sadly. "And Cinthie
+inherits the gentle trait. It is _too_ bad, for I hate darning."
+
+She settled as near the window as she dared, and sat peering her
+glimmering head over her work, while they talked in desultory fashion:
+but the storm got worse, the thunder groaned more terribly.
+
+"God sounds as though He is tearing His heart out to throw it under the
+feet of dancing women and men," said Poppy, in a voice that rang with
+some unusual emotion.
+
+Clem Portal looked at her in astonishment.
+
+"Darling, I ought to rebuke you for blasphemy."
+
+To her astonishment the girl burst into wild weeping.
+
+"No ... it isn't blasphemy ... I am in pain, Clem ... these storms ... a
+storm like this reminds me of when I was a child ... I was once out in
+a storm like this."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes ... once ... on the veldt ... for three days."
+
+"On the veldt!" repeated Clem; a streak of lightning tore through the
+room, showing her for an instant a tortured face. She reached out and
+took the girl's hands in hers, gripping them tight. Dimly, through the
+rumble of the thunder, she heard Poppy's voice.
+
+"Yes ... out on the veldt ... I, whom you think have only been in Africa
+for a few months at a time ... I, the gently-nurtured English girl! ...
+educated at Cheltenham College! ... I did not actually tell you these
+things, Clem, but I let you believe them ... they are all lies ... I was
+born in Africa ... I have roamed the veldt lean and hungry ... been a
+little beaten vagabond in the streets."
+
+"Dear," said Clem, with the utmost tenderness and gentleness; "what do
+these things matter--except that they have made you suffer? ... they
+have made you the woman you are, and that is all I care to know.... I
+have always known that there was a wound ... don't make it bleed
+afresh ... I love you too well to want to hear anything that it hurts to
+tell ... always believe this, Poppy ... I love and trust you above any
+woman I have ever known."
+
+"Clem, you are too kind and good to me.... I am not worthy even to speak
+to you, to touch you.... It is nothing when I say I love you ... I bless
+you ... I think there is nothing in the world I would not do for you....
+I did not know one woman could be so sweet to another as you have been
+to me ... you are like the priceless box of sweet-smelling nard that the
+harlot broke over the feet of Christ ... and I ... Ah! Christ! What am
+I?"
+
+Dense blackness filled the room. In it nothing was heard but the sound
+of deep weeping. Outside the storm raged on. But when next a gleam of
+light flashed through the windows, the figure of a kneeling woman was
+revealed clasped in another woman's arms.
+
+"I am weary of falseness, Clem ... weary of my lips' false tales ...
+since I have been near you and seen your true unafraid eyes ... the
+frank clear turn of your mouth that has never lied to anyone ... I have
+died many deaths ... you can never know how I have suffered ... pure
+women don't know what suffering there is in the world, it is no use
+pretending they do ... they are wonderful, they shine.... O! what
+wouldn't _we_ give to shine with that lovely cold, pure glow ... but
+they can't take from us what our misery has bought."
+
+"Poppy, don't tell me anything," the older woman said steadily. "I don't
+want to know ... whatever Life has made you do, or think, or say ... I
+don't care! I love you. I am your friend. I know that the root of you is
+sound. Who am I that I should sit in judgment? It is all a matter of
+luck ... God was good to me ... I had a good mother and a fleet foot ...
+when I smelt danger I ran ... I had been trained to run ... you had not,
+perhaps, and you stayed ... that's the only difference----"
+
+Poppy laughed bitterly at the lame ending.
+
+"The difference lies deeper than that ... you are generous, Clem, but
+truth is truth, and I should like to speak it to you now and always ...
+confession has no attractions for me, and I once told a man I should
+never confess to a woman----"
+
+"Silence is always best, dear," Clem said. "When a woman learns to be
+silent about herself, she gains power that nothing else can give her.
+And words can forge themselves into such terrible weapons to be used
+against one--sometimes by hands we love."
+
+"It would be a relief to clean my heart and lips to you, dear, once and
+for all. Let me tell you--even the name I use is not my own!"
+
+"I don't care. What does a name matter?"
+
+"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny,
+nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all
+of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an
+Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"
+
+"What do these things matter?"
+
+"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters
+to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps----"
+
+"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever
+weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."
+
+"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have
+been--lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years
+cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ...
+you hate me!"
+
+"No, Poppy--only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"
+
+"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is
+where you will not understand."
+
+"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of,
+it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."
+
+"_Miserable!_ I am misery's own!" she cried passionately. "She marked me
+with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have
+you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem?
+More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not
+innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand
+the untold tale of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had
+only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home
+and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the
+sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover
+left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a
+paean of praise to the gods that _my_ lover would never go lacking the
+gift of my breasts. I made a song--all Africa knows it now:
+
+           "'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts----'"
+
+"And what harm in that?" cried Clem, staunchly. "When Cinthie is twelve,
+will you want her to be thinking of lover's caresses?"
+
+"You would not have been, either, if you'd had a mother's caresses. Your
+nature was starving for love, poor child!"
+
+"You have a tender heart for sinners."
+
+"I don't consider you a very bad sinner, darling."
+
+"You don't know all the lies yet.... I am going to tell you _something_
+of what the last three years have been ... three years of lying to get a
+living ... lying to get money: the stage, governessing, serving in
+shops, nursing invalids, reading to old women ... there was a great
+variety about my _roles_ in life, Clem, except for one faithful
+detail.... Everywhere I went and in everything I undertook, a man
+cropped up and stood in the path. There was something special about me,
+it seemed, that brought them unerringly my way--nothing less than my
+_wonderful innocence_. That drew them as the magnet draws steel ...
+lured them like a new gold-diggings.... And they all wanted to open the
+portals of knowledge for me ... to show me the golden way into the
+wondrous city of Love. And I?... I had the mouth and eyes of a saint!
+Sin was not for me.... I was pure as the untrodden snow! I looked into
+their eyes and asked them to spare me ... I told them I was good and
+adjured them by their mothers to leave me so. At first they were always
+deeply impressed, but later they became slightly bored.... The affair
+nearly always ended in weariness and a promise on my part never to
+forget that I had a _real_ friend if I should ever want one, and I
+understood very well what _that_ meant, but invariably I pretended that
+I did not, and went my way innocent-eyed.... But there were variations
+on this ... sometimes they insisted on showing me devoted friendship in
+the meantime ... and their purses were to hand. In such cases I always
+helped myself liberally ... I had an unerring instinct that I should
+shortly be seeking a new home--a new friend ... and that instinct never
+played me false ... soon I was on the 'out trail' once more, looking for
+a way to earn a living and stay _pure_ and _innocent_. Once I was almost
+content with an old woman. I washed her and dressed her, and,
+incidentally, was sworn at by her ... but the salary was high.... Alas!
+like the widow of Nain she had an only son ... a decent boy, too ... but
+when he had looked into my eyes and found me good, there was the old
+tale to tell.... _He_ used to give me lovely presents ... I was never
+too good to take presents, Clem--under protest.... He wanted to marry
+me, but marriage was not in my plan ... then the old mother found out,
+and I had to go. Another man in Birmingham, whose children I taught,
+gave me _hundreds_--just for being good! would have given me thousands
+only that his wife read memoranda of some sum once and flew to the worst
+conclusions ... she believed I had stolen her husband and was as bad as
+I could be ... no one could be surprised at what she called me ... but
+it was quite untrue in its literal meaning. I had to go back to London,
+and there was nothing at first to go back to but the stage.... I did not
+stay _there_ long ... innocence is not very valuable on the
+stage--except in the play!... and though I have a special talent for
+acting _off_ the stage, I am too nervous _on_ it to open my lips ... so
+there was no hope for advancement that way ... I had to begin again on
+the old round."
+
+"But, Poppy, dear, forgive me, I can't understand--why? _why?_... what
+was it all for?"
+
+"For money, Clem. I wanted money."
+
+"I can't believe it!--Oh! _not_ for money!"
+
+"Yes; for money. Some women are bad for money; there is nothing they
+will not do to get gold in their hands. I was _good_ for money ... a
+saint, an angel, a virgin--most especially a virgin."
+
+"Don't hurt me like this," Clem said. "Whatever you say can make no
+difference to me. I _will_ love you. I _will_ be your friend. But--is
+there anything in the world that money can get that was worth it all? I
+ask out of sheer curiosity--_is_ there?"
+
+Poppy answered her "Yes!" And after a long time a few words dropped into
+the silence of the room.
+
+"I wanted the money for my child."
+
+The storm had died away at last, leaving a terrible peace behind it. The
+colour of the evening sky was sard-green, than which nothing can be more
+despairing.
+
+Mrs. Portal sat with her head drooped forward a little as if very tired,
+and Poppy arose from her seat, pushed open a window, and stood looking
+out. The smell of wet steaming earth came into the room. Presently,
+speaking very softly, she continued her narrative:
+
+"I wanted all the money I could get for my son. He had no name, no
+heritage ... his father ... had, I believed, married another woman. I
+was resolved that he should at least have all money could give him.... I
+thought that when he grew up he would turn from me in any case as a
+woman who had shamed him and robbed him of his birthright, so that it
+did not matter _what_ I did while he was yet young, and yet loved me,
+to insure him health, a fine education, and a future. First it was to
+give him the bare necessaries of life, later to provide a home in the
+country where he could grow up strong and well under good, kind care ...
+then, my thoughts were for his future ... Oh! I hoped to redeem my soul
+by his future, Clem!... So I worked and lied ... and lied and took ...
+and lied and saved ... not often with my lips did I lie, Clem ... but
+_always_ with my eyes. I had at last amassed nearly eight hundred
+pounds ... you will think that remarkable, if you will remember that
+always I amassed it virtuously ... that there is no man of all I met
+in those years who can call me anything but a good woman--abominably,
+disgustingly, vilely _good_.
+
+"And then ... I was introduced to a financier, who, because of the charm
+of my innocent eyes, told me that, in a few weeks, he would transform my
+eight hundred pounds into eight thousand pounds. Incidentally, he
+remarked that we must see more of each other ... and I looked into _his_
+eyes and saw that they were _not_ innocent,--and that there would be a
+difficult day of reckoning for me later on ... but for eight thousand
+pounds, and secure in mailed armour of _purity_, I risked that ...
+especially as he was just leaving England for a few weeks ... I handed
+over my eight hundred pounds without a qualm, for he had a great name in
+the financial world. In less than three weeks his dead body was being
+hauled over the side of a yacht in the Adriatic, and my eight hundred
+pounds was deader than Dead-Sea fruit, for I never heard of it again ...
+nor wanted to ... the need of it was gone ... my boy was dead!"
+
+"Poppy! Poppy!" Clem got up and drew the girl down to the floor by her
+side. "Rest your head on me dear ... you are tired ... life has been too
+hard for you.
+
+                   "'Dost thou know, O happy God!----'
+
+"Life has been brutal to you. I think of my own sheltered childhood, and
+compare it with yours--flung out into the fiery sands of the desert to
+die or survive, as best you might!... The strange thing is that your
+face bears no sign of all the terrible things that have overtaken you! I
+see no base, vile marks anywhere on you, Poppy.... It cannot all be
+acting ... no one is clever enough to mask a soiled soul for ever, and
+from everyone, if it really _is_ soiled.... You _look_ good--not
+smirking, soft goodness that means nothing, but brave, strong
+goodness ... and I _know_ that that look is true ... and so I can love
+you, after all these things you have told me ... I can love you better
+than ever. But _why_ is it, Poppy?"
+
+"I don't know. If it _is_ so, the reason must be that all was done for
+Love, Clem ... because always I had a sweet thing at my heart ... the
+love I bore to my child, and to the father of my child. Because, like
+the mother of Asa, 'I built an altar in a grove' and laid my soul upon
+it for Love. I want to tell you something further. Being _good_, as the
+world calls it, has no charm for me. Many of the men I have spoken of
+had a sinister attraction. _I understood what they felt._ I looked into
+eyes and saw things there that had answers deep down in me. I am a child
+of passionate Africa, Clem ... the blood in my veins runs as hot and red
+as the colour of a poppy.... It is an awful thing to look into the eyes
+of a man you do not love and see passion staring there--and feel it
+urging in your own veins, too. It is an awful thing to know what it is
+that he is silently demanding, and what that basely answers in your own
+nature.... Yet there are worse things than this knowledge. A worse
+thing, surely, would have been to have gone hurtling over the precipice
+with some Gadarene swine!... Clem, if I had been _really_ innocent those
+years, nothing could have saved me. I should have gone to the devil, as
+they call it, with some vile man I had no love for, just because I
+didn't know how to keep out of the traps laid for me by my own
+nature--and then I should have 'been at the devil' indeed! But I had
+bought knowledge with the price of my girlhood ... and I had mated with
+my own right man.... I had looked at life, if only for an hour, with
+love-anointed eyes ... and so, it came to pass that I had a memory to
+live for, and a child to fight for ... and courage to fight my greatest
+enemy--myself. I think no one who knew the workings of my heart would
+deny me courage, Clem."
+
+"No, and it is a noble quality, child--the noblest, I think, when it is
+used to fight one's own baser nature. That only would keep a woman
+beautiful ... it is to _that_ you owe your beauty, dear."
+
+"Then it is to you I owe it to a great extent--for it was you who first
+put the creed into me of courage--and silence--and endurance. Do you
+remember the night you wished me good-bye over your gate, Clem?"
+
+"I remember everything--but, dear, there is one thing that grieves and
+bewilders me--why, _why_ could you not have earned a clean, fine living
+with your pen ... where was your gift of writing?"
+
+"It left me, Clem, when I tried to earn money with it. I could not
+write. I tried and tried. I sat to it until my eyes sank into my head
+and hollows came to my cheeks--until we were hungry, my little Pat and
+I--and cold. For bread and firing I had to leave it, and turn to other
+things. After the boy died ... it came back and mocked me. I wrote then
+to ease my pain ... and everything I have written since has been
+successful ... found a ready market and in some sort Fame ... but it was
+all too late!"
+
+"Poor child! everything has mocked you!" Clem put her arms round the
+girl and kissed her tenderly; then drew away and assumed an ordinary
+pose, for a maid had come into the room bringing lights, and with the
+intimation that she was about to sound the dressing-bell, as it wanted
+only half an hour to dinner-time.
+
+"Heavens!" cried Clem; "and I hear Billy's voice in the garden; Eve
+Carson's, too, I believe. _Fly_ to your room, Poppy. I expect Sarah has
+laid out one of your gowns."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI
+
+
+It was, indeed, Carson whom Portal had brought home with him. They had
+encountered in West Street, and Bill had insisted on bringing him back
+just as he was in the inevitable grey lounge suit, assuring him that
+there would be no one to find fault with his appearance but Mrs. Portal,
+who was notoriously forgiving.
+
+So Carson came, and had no faintest inkling that Poppy was there too.
+Being an old _intime_ of the family, he knew his way about the house and
+after leaving Portal's dressing-room, he sought the nursery, was
+admitted by Cinthie's nurse, and stayed talking and romping with the
+child long after the second bell had sounded and dinner been announced,
+with the result that Portal insisted on taking Poppy into dinner, while
+Clem sought the recalcitrant in the nursery. Later, they came laughing
+to the dining-room, and for the first time Carson knew of Poppy's
+presence. She was sitting facing the door, and a big silver candlestick,
+with wide branching antlers, framed her in a silver frame. With her
+mysterious, tendrilly hair, her subtle scarlet mouth and Celtic
+cheek-bones, she had the alluring appearance of a Beardsley-drawing
+without any of its bloodlessness, for her gown was as scarlet as the
+poppies of the field, and she glowed with inward fires at seeing Carson.
+The deep, sweet glance she gave him as they greeted made him glow too,
+with gladness of living, and some other radiant reason that for the
+moment was not clear to him. He only knew that weariness was gone from
+his veins and that the splendour of life had come back at last with the
+rush and swell of full-tide.
+
+After dinner they all went into the verandah and the men smoked there.
+Clem never smoked, but she liked the smell of cigars. Poppy had long
+broken herself of the cigarette habit. Later, Portal said he must go and
+write two important letters to catch the mail--after that they would
+have a game of Bridge if anyone liked. Clem said she would go and play
+to the others her setting to "In Exile," of which she was very proud.
+She sang it softly over and over to them for a while. Afterwards she
+wandered through Chopin's "Prelude" into Schubert's gentle "Andante."
+Then unaccountably she began to fling out into the night the great
+solemn chords of a Funeral March. It was a wonderful thing, full of the
+dignity of sorrow, underlaid by thin wailings that spoke of little
+memories of all the past sweetnesses of the dead. There was a place in
+it that made Poppy think her dead child's arms were round her neck, and
+another where Carson thought of Alan Wilson and his thirty-one brave
+companions lying under the stars up in lonely Zimbabwe. At another time,
+he remembered a man dear to him, killed at Gwelo in the second native
+rising; he seemed to see the fellow with his hands in his pockets
+whistling to his dogs in a peculiar way he had.
+
+Through all the playing Poppy and he sat in the verandah, side by side,
+in two low canvas chairs. A fold of her gown lay across his feet. They
+were absolutely silent and they did not look at each other. Carson was
+staring straight before him, but without a turn of his head or flicker
+of his eyelids he was conscious of every tiniest detail of the woman by
+his side. He saw the gracious line of her cheek and throat and thigh and
+foot; but, more than that, he believed he saw the spirit of her too,
+gentle and sad, but brave and desirable to him beyond the soul of any
+woman--_and his_. She was his. He was certain of that now. He had taken
+the knowledge from her eyes when they met that night; and yet it seemed
+old knowledge to him, something he had known since the beginning of
+time.
+
+Her hand lay within reach of his, but he did not touch it. Only too
+conscious of the mysterious magnetism of the flesh, he strove with all
+the fine instincts and high aspirations his spirit had ever given birth
+to and his body honoured, to free himself from the shackles of the flesh
+and give to this woman whom he loved and blessed a greater salute than
+the mere touching of hands.
+
+As for her--her eyes were closed. She, too, was reaching out with
+spirit-hands to him. Inasmuch as human souls which are aloof and lonely
+things can communicate--theirs met and hailed each other as mate until
+the end of time.
+
+Suddenly Clem freed them of sorrow. She began to play something that was
+like an old piece of brocade all flowered over quaintly with tiny
+leaves, true lovers' knots, and little pink-and-blue rose-buds.
+Presently the brocade became a stately dress, worn with powder and
+patches and high scarlet-heeled shoes.... Portal, having finished his
+mail, came back to the verandah, and Clem closed the piano then and came
+out too. They sat and talked, and no one again suggested cards.
+
+The night was fresh and sweet after the rain, and the sky above alive
+with newly-washed stars. Far away, Durban flashed and sparkled, and just
+above the bay there was a great splash of vermilion against the darkness
+of the bluff--sometimes it showed streaks of carmine in it. They
+discussed the phenomenon, and eventually concluded that a boat out on
+the water was afire. Whatever the cause, it certainly gave the finishing
+touch to the picturesque beauty of the night.
+
+A little after eleven Carson left. He shook hands with everyone at
+parting, and for a brief instant he and Poppy drank another deep
+draught of joy from each other's eyes.
+
+No sooner had he gone than Clem said:
+
+"Poppy, you are to go to bed instantly, and stay there until I give you
+leave to get up. You look like a spectre."
+
+Poppy took her hand and kissed it. She was trembling with happiness, but
+she dared not speak of it. Clem put an arm round her.
+
+"I must come and see if your room is all right."
+
+"Yes, but who are these midnight vigilantes in the garden?" exclaimed
+Portal. "I believe I hear Bramham!"
+
+Bramham, indeed, it was who came into the light with a crumpled and
+weeping woman clinging to his arm.
+
+"What the----?" softly demanded Portal of Heaven, and Clem stared. Poppy
+swiftly recognised Miss Allendner.
+
+"What is it?" she cried, stepping forward.
+
+Miss Allendner only wept more violently.
+
+"This poor lady has been greatly upset," said Bramham, and placed her in
+a chair. Then he spoke with the brevity of a good man with a bad tale:
+
+"Miss Chard's house has been burnt to the ground; fortunately no one is
+hurt, but everything is destroyed."
+
+"Burnt! _burnt?_... _everything?_ My work ... my freedom--" cried Poppy
+wildly with clasped hands.
+
+"Everything! Nothing left but a few bricks and some melted iron. I
+wonder you didn't see the flare-up--it lighted the whole bay. The thing
+was discovered too late to do anything but get Miss Allendner out." His
+firm brevity left him. "Oh, Lord, I _am_ sorry!" He stared dismally.
+
+"Oh, Poppy!" cried Clem, with pitiful voice, and they all drew round the
+pale girl. She did not speak for a time--just stood there in the light
+streaming from the drawing-room windows, white and still; and presently
+some tears fell down her face. Then she said:
+
+"Poor Miss Allendner. Shall we put her to bed, in my bedroom, Clem? She
+is worn out!"
+
+The women went away. At the gate Bramham said to Portal:
+
+"And there is worse to come.... That crazy Allendner turkey was
+shrieking round the fire like a lunatic ... imploring the crowd to save
+the writings of _Eve Destiny_, the South African writer--everybody knows
+who she is now ... the place is humming like a beehive with the news ...
+and it will be in all the news-rags in the morning.... She'll be more
+broken up over that than anything ... for reasons of her own she didn't
+want it known.... Oh, it's a hell of a country, Portal."
+
+This thing was news also to Portal. Mrs Portal being that lovely thing,
+a close woman, he knew nothing of Poppy's identity with _Eve Destiny_.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII
+
+
+When Carson left the Portals he did not go home. He turned his face
+towards the higher heights of the Berea, and those surmounted, tramped
+on--on past darkened blind-drawn, lonely houses, and long stretches of
+gardens and vacant lands, until he came at last to the cliff-side that
+overlooks Umgeni. Afterwards he tramped and tramped, without knowing or
+caring where he went, but always with the light silent feet of the
+athlete. Irishmen are natural athletes. Also, if they are _real_
+Irishmen, that is, born and brought up through boyhood in their own
+land, they have learned to play "Handball"; and so their feet are as
+light as their hands are swift to feel and their eyes to observe. For a
+man whose lot must be cast in the sinuous paths of Africa--jungle or
+money-market--there could be no better training than constant play in
+his youthful days in an Irish ball-court, for it teaches quickness of
+wit and limb more than any game ever played, as well as developing both
+sides of the body, thus making for perfect symmetry. Carson had a
+passion for the game, and he went hot with anger when he thought how
+neglected and ignored it was amongst the fine sports of the world.
+"Pilota," the Spanish national game, has some resemblance to "Handball,"
+and is played by men of all classes in Spain. But in Ireland with the
+exception here and there of a gentleman enthusiast, who has learnt his
+love of the pastime at his college, only the poor fellows play it now,
+and those usually the roughest of their class, who are obliged to depend
+for their "courts" on the proprietors of public-houses.
+
+All young Irish boys love "Handball," however, and Carson had often
+thought it a wistful thing to see little ragged chaps watching a game
+with eyes alight, holding the coats of players, on the chance of getting
+a chance to play themselves when the "court" was vacated.
+
+In the Protectorate he had established, he meant to build "ball-courts"
+and teach the fine stalwart Borapotans to play the finest game in the
+world.
+
+But to-night, as he tramped, he did not think of these things. The
+sports and pastimes of his boyhood were as far from his mind as was the
+innocence of his boyhood from his heart. He was trying to tramp out the
+remembrance of a sin. Trying to obliterate from his memory the face of a
+woman he did not love, never had loved, never would love--but to whom
+honour held him fast. A woman who had nursed him in sickness with
+devotion and care--and who, when he was still physically weak, had flung
+herself into his arms--at his feet, offering her life, her love, her
+honour. And he had weakly fought, weakly resisted, and at the last most
+weakly taken--taken just for the love of pity, and the love of love and
+all the other loves that Irishmen, above all men, know all about, and
+that have nothing to do with Love at all.
+
+The bitter cud to chew now between his gritting teeth was that he had
+never reaped anything but soul-misery and sacrifice of fine resolves
+from the thing. Yet here it was holding itself up before him like some
+pure star that he must never cease from following after: a creed never
+to be forsaken; an idol before which to sacrifice the rest of his
+life--to sacrifice the most wonderful love that ever thrilled a man's
+veins and shook from his life all mean and paltry things.
+
+Oh, Lust past and Love present had a great fight in the heart of Evelyn
+Carson, Bart., D.S.O., C.M.G., in the early hours of that April morning.
+It must have been close on six hours that he tramped and fought, for
+when at last he came by devious ways to Sea House, the shroudy dawn was
+breaking over the face of the Indian Ocean.
+
+And Bramham was in his dining-room insanely drinking whiskies-and-sodas.
+
+"What the----?" Carson stood in the doorway staring.
+
+"Waiting up for you, of course! Where have you been?" said the drunk and
+dauntless Bramham.
+
+"I can't remember engaging you to wet-nurse me." Carson was too savage
+with life to be polite even to the best friend he had ever possessed. He
+strode into the room, threw his soft hat rolled into a ball into a
+corner, and would have passed through, but Bramham detained him with a
+word.
+
+"Miss Chard's house was burnt to the ground last night!"
+
+Carson came back and stood by the table. It seemed to him that a good
+thing to do would be to mix a strong whiskey-and-soda, and he did so,
+and drank it thirstily.
+
+"What was that you said, Bram?" he asked, later.
+
+"Miss Chard's house is burnt to the ground. The whole town knows now
+that she is _Eve Destiny_, the South African novelist----"
+
+"The how much?"
+
+"The South African novelist. The woman who wrote the book of poems that
+set all the African mothers flying to lock the nursery doors--and the
+plays _In a Tin Hotel at Witpoortje_ and _A Veldt Ghost_. Why, Carson,
+you don't seem to know anything! You ought to employ someone to dig you
+up every five years."
+
+Because of his desire for further information on this interesting
+subject, Carson kept his temper between his teeth and bore as best he
+might with Bramham's unusual wit. It was to be remembered, too, that
+Bramham was a "good man," and as such permitted a lapse. However, if
+the latter had anything more to tell he kept it to himself, and only
+gave a repetition of his former statements with a graphic description,
+which Carson was not at all interested in, of the fire.
+
+One thing alone, stood out, a salient point in the narrative:
+
+"And I happen to know that everything she has is burnt. With the
+exception of a few royalties, she is penniless. All her finished work is
+burnt--everything she had in the world. She had a face like a banshee
+when I told her," was his complimentary conclusion.
+
+Carson departed and took a bath and shave on this information.
+Afterwards he went down and looked at the sea. When he came in to
+breakfast, a sane and calm Charles Bramham was seated there before
+him--bathed, groomed, dressed, eating an orange with a tea-spoon.
+
+They took breakfast with the appetites and serenity of good men, who
+having passed an excellent night, were about to attack the problems of
+the day with clear consciences. There was nothing noticeable about
+Bramham, except a thirst for tea.
+
+Just before they had finished, Carson casually said:
+
+"I'm going up to the Rand to sell everything I hold."
+
+Bramham regarded him piercingly, and at the moment a _boy_ entered with
+the morning papers. Each man reached out for one, and turned with
+striking unanimity of interest to the Market reports.
+
+"Good Lord!" cried Bramham instantly. "_East Rands_ at 5.5.0, and still
+sinking."
+
+Carson gave a groan, which meant, "Oh, Hades! why didn't I sell at L10?"
+
+Bramham continued his dolorous tale, quoting all the prices in which he
+and Carson were interested.
+
+"Main Reefs, Randfonteins, Crown Reefs, Knights--all steadily sagging in
+sympathy; if you sell now, Karri, you'll be in the cart."
+
+And Carson knew that Bramham spoke the thing that was. In the state of
+the market it would mean ruin to sell. The loss would be so great that
+he doubted if he would be able to pay up the inevitable deficiency at
+his bank. He reflected that possibly a few of his syndicate shares might
+pull him through, but what good was that! He wanted _money_--money to
+marry Rosalind Chard and take her with him to Borapota; to free _her_
+from the cares of life and money for evermore.
+
+As he stared gloomily at Bramham, the colour of his prospects were of
+the same hue as the black scowl on his brow. But like all speculators,
+he was not long without a ray of hope. His face suddenly cleared.
+
+"What about my claims on the South Rand?" he demanded blithely.
+
+"Have you still got those?" cried Bramham in surprise. "Good! How many?"
+
+"Half interest in a hundred?"
+
+"By George! Well, you'd better go up and see what Charlie Rosser can do.
+If there's anything to be made he'll do it for you."
+
+They rose from the table.
+
+"When shall you go? To-day?"
+
+"No; to-day I have every moment occupied until six o'clock."
+
+"There's a good train to-night at nine."
+
+"I can't go to-night--I have something else to do."
+
+A transforming look flashed across Carson's face. Whatever grace of
+heart was his showed in his eyes for a moment as he thought of the girl
+who would be waiting for him to-night.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII
+
+
+"Clem, scuttle up--we'll be late," shouted Portal. "What _is_ she doing,
+Miss Chard?"
+
+"Hearing the bratiken's prayers, I think."
+
+"I wish you'd hurry her up."
+
+Poppy went out into the hall and stood at the nursery door, which was
+ajar. Clem's voice could be heard inside arguing with a small, sullen
+one.
+
+"Say them now, Cinthie--'Gentle Jesus----'"
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+"Yes, darling."
+
+"I want you to sing 'Bye-low Lady.'"
+
+"Not to-night, my dearest" (sound of a kiss); "there isn't time. Daddy's
+waiting for me to go to the theatre; we'll have longer sings to-morrow
+night. Say prayers now, Cinthie."
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+"Go on now, darling. Mother'll be cross with you in a minute. 'Gentle
+Jesus----'"
+
+"No, mummie."
+
+A silence.
+
+"'Gentle Jesus'--Go on now, Cinthie--'Gentle Jesus--'"
+
+"'Gentle Jesus'--sat on a wall," said the small voice, and burst into a
+peal of laughing. There was a rustling and Clem appeared at the nursery
+door gowned and gloved, her face bearing traces of smothered laughter.
+But from the door she called back, in a voice intended to be most
+hauntingly sad:
+
+"Mother's sorry her little girl is so naughty to-night. Good-night,
+Cinthie."
+
+"G'night," was the cheerful response.
+
+Clem came out into the hall and shut the door, and putting her arm in
+Poppy's hurried to the drawing-room, where Portal was offering up loud
+prayers for patience, and bemoaning the miserable, wasted lives of all
+married men.
+
+"Time is simply nothing to them, I tell you!" he chanted. "It is no
+concern of theirs! They cannot wear it, nor give it to their offspring
+to play with! As for punctuality, it is a rule invented for men and dogs
+only--and rickshaw pullers. Ours has been waiting at the gate for twenty
+minutes--but _that's_ all right--what do _we_ care for the first act of
+a play?"
+
+Clem took not the slightest notice. She turned to Poppy.
+
+"And, darling, when you've finished your coffee I wish you'd go in and
+hear her prayers. She feels very much injured to-night--you will, won't
+you? I am so vexed that we have to go out and leave you--and _I do_ wish
+you would have come too. It might have made you forget all about that
+wicked fire."
+
+"I shall be quite happy here, Clem. I have much to think of and plan;
+and, of course, I'll mind Cinthie. Be off now."
+
+Poppy hustled her into her cloak and laces and saw them both off into
+the rickshaw. Afterwards she returned to the drawing-room, poured out
+her coffee, and took it into the nursery. Cinthie's little straight,
+white bed stood in the centre of the room, and she was lying with the
+sheet drawn up to her chin, two long pigtails stretching down on either
+side of her, and two big, dark eyes glooming out of the little, soft,
+dark face. Beside her on the pillow two still, inanimate forms glared
+glazily at the ceiling.
+
+"Cinthie!"
+
+"Eum!"
+
+"Hallo, Cinthie!"
+
+"Hallo!"
+
+"You asleep?"
+
+"No, not yet."
+
+"Sure you're not?"
+
+"No, I'm not, Poppy." She sat up in bed and gave a lively prance to show
+she was awake.
+
+"Well, I've come to have a little talk."
+
+Cinthie made a joyful noise that sounded like _corn-cookoo_, and gave
+another prance.
+
+Poppy sat on the edge of the bed and sipped her coffee, tendering to
+Cinthie an occasional spoonful, which was supped up rapturously.
+
+"Who've you got there with you?"
+
+"Two my chil'ren."
+
+"Which ones?"
+
+"_Daisy-Buttercup_ 'n _Oscar_"
+
+"Oh! have they said their prayers yet?"
+
+A pause, then:
+
+"I didn't tell them to say prairses to-night."
+
+"Not?" cried Poppy, in shocked surprise.
+
+"No." (A pause.) "They's too tired."
+
+"Oh, but Cinthie! Fancy, if they died in their sleep! How sorry they'd
+be they hadn't said their prayers."
+
+An uncomfortable pause. Poppy drank some more coffee.
+
+"I know _you_ would never go to sleep without saying _your_ prayers."
+
+A silence.
+
+"I hope you prayed for me to-night, sweetness?"
+
+A silence.
+
+"--And for that darling mummie of yours?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"--And your lovely daddie?"
+
+Silence.
+
+"--Because I know they couldn't enjoy themselves at the theatre, or go
+to sleep to-night, or anything, if you didn't. But of course, you did.
+Good-night, sweetness--give a kiss."
+
+"G'night!" The little figure bounced up and put its arms round her and
+kissed her all over her face. Poppy tucked her in carefully.
+
+"I'm so glad you prayed for mummie and daddie and me," she said
+fervently. "Good-night, darling-pet."
+
+"G'night."
+
+"You don't have the candle left, do you?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Shall I put the mosquito-curtain round?"
+
+"Yes, please."
+
+Poppy flicked it well with her handkerchief and arranged it round the
+bed like a big, white bird-cage; then taking the candle in her hand,
+walked slowly to the door.
+
+"Well, good-night."
+
+"G'night."
+
+She opened the door and went out slowly.
+
+At the last conceivable instant, as the door was on the point of
+closing, a little voice cried:
+
+"Poppy!"
+
+"Yes, sweetness."
+
+"I want a drink of water."
+
+Poppy went back, poured a glass of water, and carried it to the
+delinquent, who took a mouthful; then said, slowly and sorrowfully:
+
+"I think I'll say prairses, Poppy."
+
+"All right darling!" She sat down on the bed again and put her arms
+round the slim figure, who, kneeling with her nose snuggled into the
+soft, white shoulder, said her "prairses" at express-speed down into
+Poppy's evening-gown:
+
+                      "Gen-tuljeesus, meek n' mil',
+                      Lookup pon a little chil';
+                        Pitimysimplisitee,
+                        Suffer me t' come to Thee.
+
+"Our Fath 'CHART in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy King and come, Thy
+will be done 'Nearth as 'tis 'Neaven. Give us 's day our _DAILY BREAD_
+N' forgive us our trespasses 'gainst us. But 'liver us from evil. For
+Thine's kingdom, Power and GLORY, frever and ever, Amen.
+
+"Our Father, please bless my darling Mummie, and take care of her at the
+theatre, and my lovely Daddie, _and_ Grannie, _and_ Grandad, _and_
+Poppy, _and_ all the servants in _this_ house, _and_ all the little
+children in the world, _and_ fill our hearts with love 'n kindness,
+Amen--now I must say my _Latins_."
+
+Clem was Catholic and Bill Protestant, and the result was a strange
+medley of prayers for Cinthie. She kneeled up, crossed herself solemnly
+in Latin, and began to chant the lovely words of the Angelical
+Salutation:
+
+"_Ave Maria! gratia plena, Dominus tecum: benedicta tu in mulieribus, et
+benedictus fructus ventris tui Jesus._"
+
+"_Sancta Maria! Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus, nunc et in hora
+mortis nostrae. Amen._"
+
+Afterwards she fell into a peal of laughing.
+
+"Why do you laugh, darling?" Poppy gravely asked, and the answer was:
+
+"Oh, Poppy! Wouldn't _Nunc_ be a funny name for a dog!"
+
+Then once more the sheets were tucked in, the mosquito-net arranged, and
+a kiss blown through it.
+
+"Good-night, Pansy-face!"
+
+"G'night, Red-rose!" responded Cinthie ardently.
+
+"Good-night, Gold-heart!"
+
+Cinthie thought laboriously for a few seconds, struggling for a fitting
+response. At last, just as Poppy reached the door, she shouted
+breathlessly:
+
+"G'night; White-soul!"
+
+At that Poppy gave a cry and ran back once more and hugged her.
+
+When at length she tore herself away from the warm, loving little arms
+and went alone to the drawing-room, heavy tears were splashing down her
+cheeks and her lips were like a wistful, sorrowing child's. She stood in
+the open window and stared out at the beauty of the night. Above in the
+solemn purple sky was the Cross, picked out in scarlet stars. Far below
+twinkled the town lights, and at quick intervals the Bluff Lighthouse
+sent long, sweeping, golden lines across the bay, revealing for an
+instant the shadowy fabrics of ships and sailing craft lying safe in
+dock.
+
+Out at sea a great liner steamed slowly to anchorage, hundreds of lights
+flashing from her three tiers, and presently the rattle of her cable
+through the hawse-pipes floated distinctly up to the heights, the
+throbbing in her breast died away, and she lay rocking softly like some
+great tired bird nested at last.
+
+In the dim valley a Zulu boy, heart-hungry for his home-kraal, was
+making music of an infinite sweetness and melancholy on that oldest
+instrument in the world, a reed-flute. The sound brought further tears
+to Poppy, and a burning in her throat. It seemed the voice of her heart
+wailing, because she had never been a child, because "earth was so
+beautiful and Heaven so far"; because she loved a man and was beloved of
+him and darkness lay between them! At that, she longed passionately with
+every sense and nerve in her for Evelyn Carson. She ached in the very
+bones and blood of her for a sight or sound of him. If he would only
+come----!
+
+"Oh, God! be good to me for once!" she cried with soundless lips. "Let
+him come--I will do the rest. There is no barrier I cannot break down
+between him and me. He is mine--dear God, you _know_ that he is mine! I
+bound him with my hair, my lips, my soul. I gave him of my best, I gave
+him my girlhood--_I bore his son_." The green leaves of the
+passion-plant trailing over the window lapped gently against her cheek,
+and she put up her hands to them. "Oh, trees, leaves, all green things,
+help me--let him come----"
+
+And he came, through the open gate, up the broad pathway, straight to
+her.
+
+Her eyes were closed tight to stop her tears, but she heard him coming
+as she stood there with the shaded lamps behind her in the empty room,
+and the silver night on her face. He came so close to the verandah that
+he could look in upon her, and plainly see her pale emotion-wrung face
+and the tears urging through her tightly-closed lids and dripping from
+her lashes. Her lips opened and her breath came heavily, and the sight
+of her took strange hold of him. His own lips unclosed; the marks
+self-mockery had made about them had been wiped out; his handsome,
+haggard eyes had changed, boyhood had come back to them.
+
+"Won't you come into the garden?" His voice had all the sweetness of
+Ireland in it. She unclosed her eyes and came out to him, the tears
+still shining on her cheeks: a pale, ardent woman--strangely like a
+narcissus.
+
+He put an arm through hers and they walked together in the gracious
+dimness.
+
+Down the centre of the garden dividing two lawns ran a high hedge of
+Barbadoes-thorn. It is a shrub garlanded with white tiny flowers of a
+perfume probably the most pungent in the world--much like the gardenia,
+or tuberose, but heavier, sweeter. To-night this perfume hung upon the
+air, and stayed with these lovers all their lives after. They sat on the
+grass under a giant flamboyant tree and a tiny green tree-frog sang a
+love-song to its mate in the branches over their heads. But they did not
+hear. They were deaf to everything now save the drumming in their hearts
+and the urging of their pulses. Carson had his arm about her, half for
+her support, wholly because he could not help it. Her tears were still
+on her face, and he leaned so close that his cheek was wetted by them.
+One heavy drop fell on his lips and he tasted the salt of it, and it was
+as if he had tasted blood. Suddenly he turned her lips to his and began
+to kiss her with a mouth of flame.
+
+"Eve! Eve!" she cried, afraid of her gladness. He did not speak; nor
+could he, if he would. Only he dragged kisses from the mouth he had
+desired so long; the eyes he had looked away from; the curving, cloven
+chin; the throat that shone in the darkness like a moony pearl. And when
+he came to her lips again, they kissed him back with wild, sweet kisses.
+Her arms were round him too. One held his throat and her eyes were shut
+and sealed.
+
+After some short, blind moments, in which she was lost, and he torn in
+two between desire and iron-determination, he lifted her suddenly to her
+feet.
+
+"Darling, my heart, good-bye--for a little while," he said; "and
+then--_never_ good-bye again. The next time we kiss, you must be my
+wife."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX
+
+
+Carson left the next day for Johannesburg as he had intended, speaking
+to no woman after he had parted from that pale, ardent one under the
+flamboyant tree. Other women, indeed, had ceased to exist for him. With
+_one_ he knew there must yet be a scene, most painful and bitter, which
+could not be shirked; the thought of it, _when_ he thought of it, turned
+his heart cold--but it must be confessed that he did not think of it
+often. He was too busy in his first weeks of absence to think of any
+woman much--even the best-beloved. Up to his eyes in affairs, and among
+a hundred old friends and haunts in the busy, virile life of the Rand,
+he had scarcely time to turn up the book of his mind for a page he knew
+was there, illumined with letters of fire and gold. But always he wore a
+red rose in his heart. Always a star glimmered at the back of his life,
+colouring the days golden.
+
+Sometimes in the night-hours, or with the dawn, a vision of her face
+would come to him, so sharp and clear, that it seemed her body must be
+in the room, as well as her spirit, and almost she would fill the arms
+he put out for her. In those hours it was made clear to him how Love can
+wrench the spirit from the body and send it speeding across the miles to
+the Beloved.
+
+He had not asked her to write, nor did he write himself. Their love was
+not one which needed to be kept afire by words; already it burned too
+fiercely for peace. Letters would have been a delight, it is true; but
+he was artist enough to realise the value of restraint from small joys
+that a great joy may be more complete, and he knew that their meeting
+would be the dearer and sweeter for this intervening silence "too full
+for sound or foam."
+
+Moreover, his affairs were critical. He required all his coolness and
+judgment for the share market, and the letters he must write if he wrote
+at all to her, though they would not have disabled him for the fight,
+must at least have left him less calm and unshaken than he desired to be
+at this juncture. Fortune is a woman, and a jealous one at that. She
+must be wooed and worshipped, and all others forgotten for her sake
+before she will bestow her smiles. Carson approached her in a spirit of
+ravishment. His desire was for her favours, and he was prepared to drag
+them from her, if she would not give. He was prepared to buy and sell as
+never before in all his gay, careless life--feverish for gain.
+
+The glance with which he searched the face of Fortune was neither
+imperialistic nor altruistic now, but purely personal; he was thinking,
+plotting, planning for the future; but the details of that same future
+were too wild and sweet to be thought upon. They sang a song in his
+veins that would not be silenced.
+
+His first business was to find Charlie Rosser, his broker, the
+shrewdest, straightest man on 'Change,' and a personal friend at that.
+But the slump was affecting people's health. All Johannesburg was laid
+up, nursing its lungs, its hump, or its pet stocks, and Rosser was
+amongst the invalids. So Carson's first week was spent at a loose end,
+for he was too wise a citizen of the world to venture upon the seas of
+finance, of which he had no great knowledge, without a good man at the
+helm. Most days, however, found him making his way through the crowded
+streets to "the Chains" for news of the market. Things were as bad as
+they could be, and every man had a tale of dolour to pitch, but no one
+looked dolorous. The high, fine air of Johannesburg is a wonderful thing
+for making people think they are all muscle and no nerves--and they
+don't find out their mistake until after they have made their pile, or
+lost it, when the "finding out" doesn't matter, anyway.
+
+The place was always home to Carson, and "full of friendly faces," and
+he trod its streets as familiarly as the decks of his own soul.
+
+One morning, just before High Change, he found an extra jostle going on
+amongst the crowds of brokers and dealers "between the Chains." Everyone
+was agog. The market had come better from London. In anticipation of a
+demand at High Change, shares were changing hands merrily. Carson was
+hailed blithely by friend and foe alike, offered everything he didn't
+want, and alternately elated and depressed by the news that came to him
+concerning the stocks in which he was interested. But on the whole, the
+outlook was bright.
+
+"Boom!" was the hilarious word that cleared the horizon of clouds.
+"There's going to be a boom!" men shouted, and their eyes were full of
+the bland joy of piracy. Rumours had come that the "Corner House" was
+supporting the market for _their_ special stocks, and other houses
+followed the lead. Johannesburg is the most sensitive market in the
+world--it responds to outside influence as the violin to Sarasate.
+
+In the midst of the dust and din Carson caught sight among the crowd of
+a puffy red face, with grim eyes and the sweeping moustache of an
+Algerian pirate. He was waving frantically at Carson and yelling:
+
+"My office! Come and pow-wow!"
+
+In five minutes Carson had trailed Rosser to his lair, and they were
+deep in a discussion of prospects. Rosser's tips were no better than any
+other, but his opinion on the trend of the market was always worth
+hearing, and usually as nearly right as possible.
+
+"Shall I sell or hold?" demanded Carson, when his affairs had been laid
+upon the board and swiftly scanned.
+
+"Hold?" screamed Rosser. "Everything is going to the devil. Do you think
+I take any stock in this good news? Why--_the country is rotten_. The
+British public is steadily selling. This improvement can't last--it's
+only a flash in the pan. Sell! This is your chance. Sell all you've got.
+Sell calls--sell your shirt--sell _anything_--up to ninety days.
+Destruction comes after."
+
+This was Carson's mood also. But he had an anchor now that deterred him
+from advancing too gaily towards the breakers. He first examined Rosser
+from top to toe with steely eyes, then advanced the objection that if he
+had to pay brokerage on the whole amount out of his call-money, he
+wouldn't make a heap of profit. Rosser began to prophesy, but without
+sanctity.
+
+"No calls will be taken up this year. Hell! I've a good mind to run the
+biggest bear account you've ever dreamt of, Carson. Take my advice and
+sell, man. Sell on 'fixed delivery' and 'buyer's option' and 'to
+arrive'--play bear till all is blue." He suddenly became calm and
+business-like. "Think it over for a few moments while I read my letters,
+and then decide."
+
+In old days Carson would have embraced the proposition with the
+devil-may-care philosophy of the usual Rand man, that if "bearing"
+smashed him up he'd be no worse off than a hundred better men who'd done
+the same thing before him. But now--he was feverish for gain--the
+thought of loss was unendurable. Rosser suddenly looked up at him with a
+waiting smile.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Damned if I don't do it, Charlie. You can sell calls on everything I've
+got, this morning--here's the list, and in the afternoon you can sell
+everything I haven't got on 'fixed delivery,' or 'to arrive.'"
+
+"Good, man!" cried Rosser.
+
+"And what about my block of South Rands?"
+
+This was Carson's hold-by. The biggest stone in his box. He had bought
+these fifty shares at a sheriff's sale for twenty pounds each, years
+before, and though he had often wanted the money, some indefinable
+superstition had kept him cheerfully paying up licences and hanging on.
+_Now_ rumour went, the Big House wanted them.
+
+"What will you take for them?" asked Rosser, grinning. "Cost?"
+
+"No!" said Carson violently, "nor double, nor quadruple. I'll do or die
+by those damned things."
+
+Rosser regarded him cynically, but with affection. It had not escaped
+the grim eyes that Carson here present was not the notoriously careless,
+indifferent Carson of the past.
+
+"You sound to me like a man who wants to buy a trousseau for himself,"
+he remarked, but his gibe brought no blush to the brazen cheek before
+him, and he did not dream that he had made a bull's-eye.
+
+"But you're quite right, Karri.... You're going to make a big bag out of
+that little preserve ... only keep cool ... and if Wallerstein asks you
+about them, say they're not for sale ... I haven't time to tell you any
+more now." He was looking at his watch. "By Cli! I must get away to
+'Change. Where shall we meet afterwards?"
+
+"At the Club," said Carson briefly. "One sharp. My table is third on the
+left as you go in ... don't be late."
+
+They parted. Rosser for 'Change, and Carson to walk swiftly
+away down Commissioner Street towards Jeppestown, past the
+City-and-Suburban-Township-blocks, with the fine buildings that look so
+substantial and impressed every new-comer with the stability and
+security of life and fortune in the great mining centre. The place was
+teeming with life and apparent prosperity. But a grim smile hovered on
+Carson's lips. He knew, as well as Rosser, that things, so far from
+being secure and stable, were, under the corrupt Boer Government, rotten
+to the core, and could never be on a sound basis until England
+intervened. But this was '98, and the time was not yet.
+
+Punctually at one Rosser arrived at the Rand Club. Carson was deep in an
+_indaba_ with two men he knew well, and the talk was all of shares and
+money--big business had been done on 'Change. Rosser was cold-eyed and
+inaccessible until the other men went, then he brightened and told
+Carson what he had done.
+
+"I've sold everything on time!" he said. "Committed you--roughly--to ten
+thousand pounds of sales ... sixty days ... buyer's options."
+
+If Carson's spirit groaned, his face gave no sign; but the little broker
+was as sensitive as the market. He looked at the other keenly.
+
+"Don't do the business if you're afraid; I'm perfectly satisfied to go
+into it alone. Why! I'm so certain of the coming fall that I advise you
+to run a bear account up to fifty thousand pounds. Hell! Carson, what's
+come to you? I've never known you like this before."
+
+"I've got a touch of fever," said Carson irritably, but he did not
+specify the peculiar brand he was suffering from. He was ashamed of his
+funk--but the best of men get attacks of it in certain circumstances.
+
+"Well, if you'll make up your mind to stick to it for three months
+you'll make ten thousand pounds at least."
+
+"Three months!" It was Carson's turn to cry "Hell!" But presently he
+said firmly: "Go ahead, Rosser, and sell another ten thousand--buyer's
+options, this afternoon."
+
+"Right!" cried Rosser gaily, and with a heart at peace proceeded to
+acknowledge his friends at various tables, while Carson turned up the
+wine-list. They had been eating and drinking steadily through lunch.
+
+"Coffee, 1830 Brandy, and '94 Coronas," was Carson's order, and when the
+waiter had come and gone, Rosser sadly said, looking at his glass:
+
+"I wonder how long it will last!"
+
+"What, the market?" Once more the teeth of Carson's soul chattered.
+
+"No--Karri, you're all to bits--the brandy. There can't be much of it
+left. Now let's get to this South-Rand proposition. Look here--you know
+I'm a few pounds to the good ... and I'm really smitten with my bear
+scheme. If you're anxious about it, I'll stand in with you ... share and
+share. But only on the condition that you give me a share in your South
+Rand claims."
+
+"Let's hear the proposition," said Carson, beginning to take a more
+cheerful view of life through his smoke rings.
+
+"You have fifty claims? Wallerstein will give you one hundred pounds
+each for them; but they are worth five times that if the business is
+properly engineered. They're a long way from the out-crops, but the reef
+_must_ be found dipping through them, and the Big House _must_ have them
+to make up their area. Now what I propose is this: You leave the
+business to me. Value the claims say at two hundred pounds each, and
+give me half of what I can get over that."
+
+It did not take Carson very long to come to a conclusion. He knew he was
+dealing with one of the straightest men and best fellows in
+Johannesburg, and there was no faintest chance of his confidence being
+abused. He closed.
+
+"I'll have an agreement drawn up, relating to the claims, at once," said
+Rosser. "What about the bear scheme? Shall I stand in with you, or will
+you stand alone?"
+
+"I'll stand alone, thanks, old man." All Carson's careless nerve had
+come back to him, with the memory of a face fair to see. He knew, in
+spite of his words, that whatsoever fortune befell--poverty or
+riches--he would never again stand alone in the world.
+
+"Good, man!" cried Rosser. "I must scoot. I've two appointments before
+'Change this afternoon--so long!"
+
+Carson was left to his own many and various devices.
+
+The market rose steadily for a week. The air was full of good and gentle
+rumours. An Industrial Commission was to be appointed! The iniquitous
+Dynamite Monopoly was to be smashed! Native labour was to be guaranteed
+at lower wages! Everything in the garden was to be lovely! And everyone
+wore a brow unsullied by care! And bears were tumbling over each other
+in every direction to cover.
+
+Carson had some bad times with himself, but his under-lip never
+slackened. Rosser's grip on the market was firm and unhesitating. He
+sold heavily "to arrive."
+
+"I have never known anyone who made money--worth talking about--by
+buying and holding," was the creed he offered to Carson. And in this
+case he was right. Suddenly the reaction began. Shares fell with a bump,
+and kept steadily on the down-grade for months.
+
+At the end of the first month Carson's bear account closed with a
+handsome profit to himself of twelve thousand pounds.
+
+In the meantime, negotiations had been proceeding over the South Rands.
+The lifelessness of the market did not affect the fact that the "Big
+House" wanted Carson's claims, and was steadily working to get them by
+hook or by crook. But Carson and Rosser were both up to every hook and
+crook of the game. They held the cards and they knew it, and when four
+hundred pounds each was offered for the shares, they only sat and smiled
+like little benign gods. Further, Rosser airily informed Wallerstein,
+the representative of the "Big House," that he would not consider
+anything under one thousand pounds. However, in secret conclave, the two
+conspirators agreed to take eight hundred pounds apiece--not bad for
+claims that had cost Carson twenty pounds each at the sheriff's sale.
+Rosser was for holding out for a thousand, but Carson's time was running
+out, and his patience.
+
+"No: get a definite offer for eight hundred pounds, and close on it,"
+were his orders, and on that decision he rested, as much as a man _can_
+rest in Johannesburg, taking the days quietly and dining sanely at
+nights with old friends. But he got little joy of their society, for the
+reason that though he knew their lives and interests, they knew nothing
+of the most vital and important part of his. They had never seen those
+lilac-coloured eyes with the big, black velvet centres; they could know
+nothing of the sweet, wild strain on his heart. He felt like a man who
+stood on the walls of a citadel filled with treasure, parleying with
+friends and enemies alike, but allowing no one to enter.
+
+Suddenly he grew horribly lonely; the days dragged and the nights
+brought memories that set him in bodily torment.
+
+Fortunately at this juncture Forsyth, an old crony, carried him off to
+the Potchefstroom district for some veldt shooting. The air, the long
+tramps, and the joy of sport, filled in the days, and found him too
+tired at nights to do anything but fall log-like into the blankets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX
+
+
+Poppy and Cinthie were sitting in the garden together under an
+orange-tree, which was set in the midst of the thick fence of
+Barbadoes-thorn. Poppy's muslin gown was of a colour that made her look
+like a freshly-plucked spray of lilac, and she wore a wide white hat,
+trimmed with convolvulus.
+
+Every ornament she possessed had been burnt except a jewelled pendant
+she always wore round her neck, and her big malachite brooch; but now on
+the third finger of her left hand she wore a ring--a great, gleaming
+emerald, which had arrived in a little box that morning from
+Johannesburg.
+
+She had seen Clem looking at it with wondering eyes, but as yet she had
+not been able to explain, for Clem that day was rather more especially
+busy than usual. During breakfast she had been flitting in and out
+constantly to her husband's bedroom. Portal had been suffering from a
+bad attack of slump fever, and instead of doing the "camel-trick," and
+feeding on his hump, he required a special _menu_ which kept the cook
+and his wife busy. He had been more or less confined to his room for
+three days. It is true that he made wonderful recoveries in the
+evenings, and rising up donned glad raiment and went to the Club to
+dine. But when the morning papers arrived he was worse than ever.
+
+The moment breakfast was over Clem had flown to prepare the drawing-room
+for a committee-meeting of ladies interested in the fate of fifty
+able-bodied domestics arriving by the following week's mail-boat.
+
+So Cinthie and Poppy had taken to the bush for shelter. For since
+Poppy's identity had become known, everyone was anxious to examine her
+closely, to see what colour her eyes were, whether her hair was real,
+and how she behaved generally in the strong light of notoriety which
+enveloped her. The feeling about her had entirely changed. People said
+they understood _now_ why she should be so strange-looking, and alone.
+She was a genius--the newspapers said so! And as such they opened their
+arms to her, and their doors, and bade her enter. But instead, she
+invariably fled with Cinthie into the bush.
+
+Cinthie was six now, and growing tall. Her brown holland overall was a
+mere frill about her neck, and looked anaemic beside the deeper colouring
+of her legs. Her sailor-hat hung at the back of her by its elastic, and
+in the corner of her mouth she thoughtfully sucked the end of one of the
+long streaks of hair. In her fingers she held a large and discoloured
+lump of dough, which she was kneading and pinching with the busy
+concentration of a beetle rolling a _mis bolitje_. Her nine dolls were
+seated, some against a flat rock, some against the tree, but all gazing
+stonily at their mother, except the banshee, who lay prone on her back,
+her arms extended as if to embrace the universe, her beady eyes fixed
+revengefully on Heaven.
+
+Poppy, sharing the trunk of the tree with the dolls, leaned lazily
+peeling an orange, which had kindly dropped from the branches above.
+Other oranges were lying about on the short grey-green grass.
+
+"What are you going to do with that dough, Cinthie?" she asked.
+
+"Make pudding."
+
+"Who for?"
+
+"For my chil'ren." She dipped her fingers into a doll's tea-cup full of
+water, which stood at the elbow of the banshee, and continued to knead;
+the dough now clung to her fingers in long, elastic threads, and her
+face showed a deep and vivid interest in her occupation.
+
+"Are these all the children you've got?"
+
+"No; _Minnie-Haha_ and _Danny Deever's_ inside. They been naughty.
+They's in bed."
+
+"What on earth did they do?"
+
+"Wouldn't say they prairses last night."
+
+"Oh, how naughty!"
+
+"Yes; I don't love them when they don't say prairses for their daddy."
+
+"Their daddy?"
+
+"Yes; he lives in England. He has been living in England for twenty
+years. They have never seen him."
+
+"Goodness!"
+
+"Yes; it's very sad." She wagged her head dolefully.
+
+Presently she unplucked the dough from her fingers and began to spread
+it out on the large, flat stone, patting it smooth with the palm of her
+hand. Thereafter, she made a pattern round its edges with a doll's fork,
+as she had seen cook do.
+
+"I wish I could make puddings like you," said Poppy, lying on her elbow
+and eating her orange.
+
+"I can make nicer ones'n this," said Cinthie boastfully. "I can make
+Best-pudding-of-all."
+
+"Oh, do tell me, Cinthie, so when I have nine children I can make it for
+them too."
+
+Cinthie looked at her dreamfully.
+
+"Perhaps you won't have any children," she said. "Perhaps you'll be a
+widow."
+
+"Oh, Cinthie, don't be unkind--of course, I shall have some! Go on now,
+tell me about the pudding."
+
+Cinthie rubbed her nose and reflected for a long time. At last,
+solemnly, with a long think between each sentence, she delivered the
+recipe.
+
+"Get some dough ... dip it in water for a minute or two ... get some
+pastry ... dip it into water twice ... roll it hard ... put it into the
+dish on top of everything--" Long pause.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Straighten the edges ..." (she carefully cut all round the dough on the
+stone with the handle of the fork); "bang it with your hand and it will
+come straight" (she banged the dough with the palm of her hand); "then
+spread a little water over it ... and there!" She sighed and took a
+fresh mouthful of hair.
+
+"Well, I shall just make a pudding like that," said Poppy determinedly.
+
+The gentle slurring of a silk petticoat was heard on the dry grass, and
+Mrs. Capron joined them, smiling mischievously.
+
+"The committee meeting is over," she said, "and Clem has gone to see
+Lady Mostyn off on _The Scot_ and taken Miss Allendner with her. She
+hopes she will be back for lunch, but is not sure; if not, we are to go
+on without her. She gave me leave to come and look for you two in the
+garden, so you can't very well kick me out, even if you don't want me.
+Hyacinthie, your nurse is walking about with two baked bananas smothered
+in cream, asking everyone if they've seen you."
+
+"Ooh!" Cinthie slashed the hair out of her mouth in anticipation of her
+favourite eleven-o'clock lunch. "Mind my babies!" she commanded Poppy
+with a menacing eye, and sped up the lawn, disappearing into the trees
+surrounding the house. The two women looked after her with entirely
+different emotions in their eyes. Mrs. Capron sighed.
+
+"Fleet of foot, but, alas! that one should have to say it of Clem's
+child--flat of foot also." She seated herself daintily upon the rock
+which had served for Cinthie's kitchen-table; her eyes fastened
+themselves upon the emerald ring. She had never seen a ring on Poppy's
+hand before.
+
+"Her feet are scarcely formed yet," said the latter; "and Clem has
+perhaps let her wear sandals too long."
+
+Mrs. Capron withdrew her fascinated eyes from the ring and shook her
+head sadly.
+
+"She will grow up ugly in every way; and it is just as well. If she had
+Clem's temperament and charm and Bill's beauty she might wreck the
+world."
+
+"Oh, no--only herself," said Poppy, with a tinge of bitterness. "The
+world goes gaily on, whatever befalls. But I don't agree with you at all
+about Cinthie's looks!"
+
+"Most people do. Someone was saying to me the other day--I forget
+who--Mr. Abinger, perhaps--that Cinthie looks like the incarnation of
+all the deviltries Clem and Bill have left undone, all the wickedness
+they have kept under."
+
+"Mr. Abinger is a better judge of deviltries than of good women," said
+Poppy drily.
+
+"He is a rip, of course. But, then, rips always unerringly recognise
+other rips," smiled Mary Capron, and Poppy smiled too, though she was
+not extremely amused.
+
+"Are you accusing Clem of being a rip?"
+
+"Of course not, though Bill is so charming he must have been one some
+time, don't you think?"
+
+"I think he is nearly nice enough to be Clem's husband," said Poppy
+curtly, "and too entirely nice for any other woman." It was an old
+suspicion of hers that Mary Capron was not as real as she pretended to
+be in her friendship for Clem.
+
+"You are a very loyal friend, Miss Chard; and I hope you don't think
+that I am _not_, just because I find it intensely interesting to talk
+about the people I care for?" Mrs. Capron spoke with a quiet sincerity
+that made Poppy feel ashamed of her thought, for, of course, most women
+do find it interesting to talk of people they care for. The best of
+friends do it. After all, Mrs. Capron had said nothing that a friend
+might not lightly say.
+
+"I would never talk about her to anyone but you," continued Mrs. Capron,
+"and I know that you love her as much as I do. But I see that you think
+I am wrong."
+
+"I think, Mrs. Capron, that one would be a stock or a stone to know
+Clem, and yet not be intensely interested in her husband, her child, and
+everything that concerns her," Poppy answered warmly. "I could sit all
+day and watch her face, wondering how she came to know so much about
+life without being old, or bitter, or uncharitable about anything in the
+world."
+
+"She will tell you that the deep lines she has on her face are only
+little mementos of Africa--that Africa always puts her marks on the
+faces of those who love her. But"--Mary Capron's voice was very gentle
+and sad--"I happen to know that she has been _pounded in the mortar_."
+
+Poppy sat silent, thinking how great must be a nature that could be
+pounded in the mortar of life, and come out with nothing but a few
+beautiful marks on the face. Further, her thought was that if Mary
+Capron knew Clem's sorrows, Clem must love her very much indeed, and she
+must be worthy of that love.
+
+She determined that she would never again allow herself to feel jealous
+of the bond of friendship existing between the two women. Mary Capron
+spoke again in a very low voice.
+
+"What I am terribly afraid is that her suffering is not over, but only
+beginning."
+
+Poppy stared at her startled, and saw that the beautiful brown eyes were
+filled with tears.
+
+"Sorrow has her elect!" said the girl gently. "Dear Mrs. Capron, do not
+let your sympathy for Clem beguile you into telling me anything that she
+would not wish me to know; I believe you have her confidence. I wish I
+had too. But I would rather not hear anything ... of her inward life ...
+from anyone but herself." Poppy began falteringly, but she ended firmly,
+for she was convinced that she was right. She had laid her whole life
+bare to Clem, and if Clem had wished to give her confidence in return,
+she had had endless opportunities to do so in their intimate talks. She
+felt that she was right in stopping Mrs. Capron from saying anything
+further. But already Mrs. Capron had gone further.
+
+"_Once_ I have seen her in the ashes of misery and despair. I would
+rather die than witness it again."
+
+Poppy sat up and rested her hand on those of the trembling, troubled
+woman before her.
+
+"Don't," she said soothingly; "don't fret--Clem is brave and strong
+enough to fight every imaginable trouble in the world; and _don't_ say
+anything more; I'm sure she would not wish it."
+
+"But I _must_ ... I must tell you.... She is going to suffer
+again--_terribly_ ... and I want to save her if I can, and I want you to
+save her."
+
+"Me!" faltered Poppy, listening in spite of herself. "What can I do?"
+
+Mary Capron's tears were falling thick and fast now.
+
+"Clem's sorrow is a terrible one," she said brokenly. "She loves a man
+with all the depth and passion her nature is capable of--and the man is
+not her husband."
+
+"Oh!" Poppy went white to the lips. She sat rigidly against the
+orange-tree and stared at the other woman. "Clem!... I'll never believe
+it ... _Clem!_" Afterwards she said burningly: "If it _could_ be true,
+how could you sit there and betray her?"
+
+Mary Capron's eyes flamed at her through the tears.
+
+"How dare you think I could do it idly?... You think no one feels love
+for her but yourself ... I hope you are prepared to show your love and
+prove it ... by saving her. If _I_ could do it, I would. Let me tell
+you, Rosalind Chard, that there is _nothing_ in this world that I would
+not give up for Clem, or do for her. And you? Can you say that too? Or
+is your love of the school-girl type--all marks of exclamation and
+admiration and--was it _condemnation_ that I heard in your voice?" She
+spoke scornfully, yet there was a wondrous, thrilling appeal in her
+words. "Would you condemn her, Rosalind? Do you know nothing of love,
+then? That it is always the best whom it attacks most violently--that no
+one can keep one's heart from straying ... that there are men in the
+world who when they call must always be answered ... whom no woman can
+fight successfully against...."
+
+But Poppy could only whisper to herself: "Clem! Is there _any man in the
+world_ who could beguile Clem from the straight, clear way on which her
+feet are set ... away ... to the deep pits whence comes the wailing
+of ... transgressors! Is there _any man_ ... in the world?..." Suddenly
+she sat up straight and rigid, and her head struck the trunk of the
+orange-tree. A look of terror was in her face. She knew the answer.
+_She knew what she was going to hear._
+
+What came dully to her ears was something she had long known--long,
+long.
+
+"--And when he went away to Borapota she was like a woman mad with
+grief ... I thought she would have died.... She besought me, _besought_
+me to go as far as I could with him ... Nick and I ... in case he should
+sicken and die of fever.... He did get fever again ... was terribly ill
+at Borwezi ... and always his one cry was for her.... Nick would tell
+you ... he too knows ... it was always _Loraine_...."
+
+"Ah!" The girl under the tree gave a cry and covered her smitten eyes
+with her hands.
+
+"Always it was _Loraine_. That was his secret name for her.... I never
+knew till after I came back that it really is her name ... I asked her
+one day ... she only said it was her name, but that she never let anyone
+use it ... _he_ used it though ... he ... _he loved her_... Miss Chard,
+I believe that he loves her still ... it is not possible that a man
+could cease to love a woman like Clem ... a girl's face might attract
+him ... and draw him for a while ... but _Clem_ ... a man would always
+come back to her ... she is the kind that men come back to ... are
+faithful to for ever.... Oh, child! I believe I have hurt you
+bitterly ... deeply to-day ... forgive me ... it is for _her_ sake ... I
+love her ... do _you_ love her ... enough to spare her?"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Poppy's hands fell away from her eyes, which were dull now, like
+the eyes of a dead woman, she was alone in the garden. She sat on--all
+through the morning, far into the afternoon hours, and no one disturbed
+her.
+
+Indoors an odd thing had happened. The servants had laid lunch for five
+people, according to the after-breakfast instructions of their mistress.
+But of the five people who were to sit down in the dining-room not one
+appeared. Mrs. Portal had telephoned up from the Point that she and Miss
+Allendner could not be back in time, and so would lunch on the ship with
+Lady Mostyn. Nurse had received the message on the telephone, but there
+was no one in the house to deliver it to. Mrs. Capron had come to the
+nursery window and informed nurse (just free from beguiling Cinthie off
+to her mid-day _siesta_), that she felt faint and ill, and had decided
+to take a rickshaw home instead of remaining for lunch. Then, Mr.
+Portal, after sleeping badly all night and breakfasting in his room, had
+gone afterwards to lie in the garden, to see if he could sleep there.
+But when Sarah went to seek him he was nowhere to be found. His book was
+open on the grass, and the cushion he had taken for his head had a dent
+in it, showing that it had been used. Both were lying by the
+Barbadoes-hedge, under an orange-tree that grew in the middle of it, but
+Mr. Portal had gone. Nurse, however, believed that from the nursery
+window she had seen him walking out of the garden with his hat pulled
+right down over his eyes.
+
+"But then, again," she said to cook, "I really couldn't be sure, for he
+looked so strange, and walked so funny. If I didn't know that master
+doesn't drink, I should have said he'd had a drop too much. But there,
+he's not well--maybe, that's why he looked so queer!"
+
+As for Miss Chard, no one thought about her; the servants supposed that
+she had gone with Mrs. Portal to the Point. If Sarah had thought of
+looking over the Barbadoes-hedge just at the place where Mr. Portal had
+been lying, she would have seen Miss Chard sitting there, sometimes
+staring vacantly before her, sometimes holding her face against the
+orange-tree as though for comfort.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI
+
+
+On their way home from the Point, Mrs. Portal and Miss Allendner looked
+in for a while at a friend's house on the Musgrave Road, where an "At
+Home" was in full swing.
+
+Everyone clustered about Clem with solicitous inquiries for the health
+of Miss Chard, and she found herself detained a good while longer than
+she had intended. When at last she reached home she was flushed with
+haste, for not only were there people coming to dine, but two women
+friends were arriving that night to stay for some days; and the margin
+of time she had allowed herself to dress, give a final survey to the
+bedrooms, inspect the _menu_, and attend to the table-flowers, was far
+from wide. Also, she had a longing for a few moments' gossip and rest in
+Poppy's room, for through the rush of small affairs she had been barely
+able to exchange a word with her friend all day.
+
+As soon as she entered the hall Sarah handed her a telegram, which she
+tore open and read immediately, supposing it to be from one of her
+expected guests. But as her eyes fell on the flimsy paper, both Sarah
+and the elderly spinster saw by the change that swept over her face that
+this must be something more serious than a guest's telegraphed regrets.
+A look of blank astonishment was followed by one of horror. Her lips
+went white and the deadly shade crept over her face, seeming to age it
+suddenly. Then, her dazed eyes perceived the two women looking
+anxiously at her. Instantly she controlled herself; gave an order to
+Sarah, asked Miss Allendner if she could possibly arrange the
+table-flowers for her as she didn't think she would have time to do it
+herself, and with apparent indifference took up and read the cards of
+some visitors who had called during the afternoon. She even called Sarah
+back and made some inquiries as to whether any of the visitors had asked
+to see Miss Chard.
+
+"They did so, ma'am. But I could not find Miss Chard anywhere, and I
+thought she was with you--afterwards she came in from the garden."
+
+"Very well, Sarah--give cook as much help as you can this evening."
+
+"Oh, _yes_, m'm."
+
+The maid went her ways, and Mrs. Portal to her room.
+
+When she had closed her door she stood still and re-read the telegram
+upon which her hand had retained a convulsive clutch. Afterwards, with a
+little groan, she dropped it and fell upon her knees by her bed.
+Kneeling there, her face buried in her hands, she after a while lost
+count of time, and did not hear a knock on her door.
+
+When the senses are dulled by suffering they play strange tricks on the
+poor human beings who depend on them. Poppy, who knocked, imagined that
+she distinctly heard a voice say:
+
+"Come in," and opening the door she softly entered.
+
+Clem sprang to her feet and turned her haggard face to the intruder,
+anger in her eyes; and Poppy, aghast and trembling, suddenly shrank
+back.
+
+"Oh, Clem!... I beg your pardon," she stammered. "I was so certain I
+heard you say 'Come in' ... I ... Oh, you _know_ I would not dream of
+intruding on you...." She was whiter even than when she entered; her
+lips were quivering so much she could hardily speak coherently.
+Unwittingly she had seen Clem kneeling there--abandoned to misery! And
+now she saw the tragic eyes that looked at her--and she knew what it all
+meant! _This_ was the first moment in the whole long day Clem had had to
+herself ... and she ... _she_ must needs intrude on the secret grief of
+the woman she loved _and had robbed_! She put out her hand with a
+gesture that implored forgiveness and told of love. Almost for the
+moment she forgot her misery in Clem's. But Clem had turned away and was
+standing at her dressing-table. Over her shoulder she said in a strained
+voice:
+
+"It doesn't matter ... I don't mind _you_ ... I have had some bad news.
+But don't ask me about it, dear. I can't speak of it--_even with you_!"
+
+Was this said in bitterest irony? Poppy wondered dully, and she did not
+know what she answered before she left the room, and that did not
+matter, for Clem Portal did not hear. They were two people walking in
+heavy darkness that cut them off from the voices of their fellows.
+
+Half an hour later the house rang with the laughter and merriment of the
+two new arrivals--old friends of the Portals--who had come down from
+Maritzburg to spend a few days and attend the Durban Club Ball, which
+was to take place the next night. In the drawing-room, before dinner was
+announced, Clem's laughter was the gayest of all; but to Poppy's ear
+there was a note in it like the clank of a broken bell. The
+Maritzburgers were two light-hearted, pretty women of the military set,
+whose husbands' regiments had so recently come from India that they were
+still keenly and sorely feeling the difference between Simla and the
+benighted capital of Natal. But their repinings were for the time
+forgotten in vivacious crowing over the fact that their husbands had
+been unable to accompany them at the last moment, so that there would
+now be nothing to prevent them from having a delightful fling and
+dancing their heels off at the coming ball.
+
+"Robbie is all very well up to supper-time," cried Mrs. Dorand to the
+world at large, "but after supper he gets sleepy, and I meet his sulky
+face at every corner imploring me to come home."
+
+"_Everybody_ knows how foolish Theodore is about my adoration for your
+Billy, Clem." The wife of Major Monk was a violet-eyed, jolly girl from
+the Curragh. "But _now_ I shall be able to dance with him
+uninterruptedly all night."
+
+"Indeed then you won't," said Clem, "for he's been called away on
+business quite suddenly, and I doubt if he'll be back in time for the
+ball--so we shall be a hen party."
+
+Amidst moans and expostulations she added: "But I daresay I can beat up
+a few wild-geese from somewhere. There are several coming to-night." She
+proceeded to recount the names and accomplishments of the men expected,
+and during the tale the rest of the party arrived and dinner was
+announced.
+
+Poppy found herself upon the arm of Luce Abinger.
+
+There were moments during the course of that dinner when she believed
+herself to be on the point of going mad; when the lights and the jewels
+and the wine and the faces were all hideously mixed, and she could have
+shrieked like a banshee at the two merry Maritzburg women, and fled from
+the table and the house. But always she was recalled to herself by just
+glancing to the head of the table where Clem Portal sat, the wittiest
+and most charming of hostesses, with two badly-painted streaks of red in
+her cheeks, and flaming lips which gradually lost their colouring and
+looked oddly at variance with the rest of the "make up" by the end of
+the dinner. Even bad dreams come to an end some time.
+
+If there were two things in Poppy's world impossible to associate with
+peace and gratitude, they were assuredly the darkness of a garden and
+the exclusive society of Luce Abinger. Yet she found herself during a
+part of that nightmare-evening looking upon these things as blessings
+for which to be distinctly thankful to Heaven.
+
+Two other people were sauntering afar, and in the drawing-room a
+quartette had settled down to Bridge, with Miss Allendner at the piano
+playing the stilted _polonaises_ and polkas of her vanished youth.
+
+Abinger and Poppy talked together in a friendly, natural fashion that
+they had never known before. He congratulated her about her work, said
+how much he had enjoyed reading her last book, and asked her if she had
+sold the African rights of her plays, as they were sure to bring in a
+large sum. She told him she had long ago sold all rights and spent the
+money; that, indeed, she had spent most of her money, and must begin to
+think about earning more at once. He knew, of course, about her loss of
+all the work she had recently done. Suddenly the recollection swept over
+her that it was to fight him that she wanted the money. She stood still
+in their idle sauntering, and faced him. All the terror and misery of
+the past, that he indirectly had been the cause of, came back. Yet she
+could not hate him when she saw his haggard, distorted face. And how ill
+he looked! For a moment she forgot her wrongs, in womanly pity.
+
+"You look ill, Luce," she said kindly.
+
+"I am ill; I am a starving man." He came near her and looked at her.
+"You and I are both starving--for something we can't have. I have never
+been able to discover what it is you want--or, to be more precise,
+_who_--but you know very well who it is, and what, that I want."
+
+She drew back from the look in his eyes. His tone changed instantly; he
+looked and spoke idly.
+
+"Well--my offer holds good at any time."
+
+"Your offer?"
+
+"Yes ... don't forget it ... I know that the mere fact of money is
+nothing to you ... but you're not happy. If you like work and fame,
+well--you don't look like a girl who does, that's all!"
+
+They were walking now over the dew-spangled lawn, and she was wondering
+what he meant. Suddenly he stood still and began to stammer at her
+incoherently.
+
+"When I told you the truth in that letter, I did not do it in the spirit
+that a man throws up the sponge--don't think that! I did it," he
+continued hoarsely, "to be fair and square with you for once. To begin
+again with the way clear before us--if you will. It was a rather fine
+thing to do, I thought," his tone changed to the old, sneering one; "but
+like all the fine things I've ever done it ended in repentance. I know
+now that I was a fool to tell you."
+
+"What are you talking about, Luce?" she wonderingly asked. Then for the
+first time since she had locked her studio door on it she remembered his
+unread letter. "Is it something you told me in the letter you sent to
+the cottage?--I never read it. It was burned unopened the night of the
+fire."
+
+A change came over his face. His scar seemed to twitch and gleam
+spasmodically in the moonlight. There was a silence. Then very softly he
+began to laugh, looking at her intently and feeling in all his pockets.
+
+"What was in the letter, Luce?" she said beguilingly. She knew now that
+it was something she ought to know. But he only went on laughing softly.
+She tried to recall and understand the words he had been saying, but she
+could not.
+
+He thought of all the furious rage and contempt he had expended on
+himself within the last few weeks while he waited and waited for some
+word of thanks from her for the fine generous thing he had done in
+telling her the truth at last--that she was not his wife at all; that
+Carmen Braganza, the beautiful Spanish dancer, whom he had secretly
+married in Johannesburg, was still living at the time of the ceremony
+between himself and Poppy----
+
+And she had never read the letter! All was as before!
+
+She did not know, and there was still a fighting chance that, wearied
+out with the strife and siege, she would turn and surrender.
+
+Then he would say:
+
+"Yes--but we will not take the world into our confidence about the
+little ceremony in the White Farm. We'll go and be married publicly."
+
+Thinking of these things, what could he do but look at her and softly
+laugh?
+
+As for her, sick at heart, hopeless, remembering her misery, she turned
+away and set her desolate face towards the house, where a woman whom she
+loved well wore two little painted flames in her cheeks.
+
+                 "What need to strive, with a life awry?"
+
+Life was awry with everyone it seemed! What did it matter what Luce
+Abinger had to say?
+
+She had no fight left in her. Her feet, as she walked up the sloping
+lawn, seemed too heavy to lift--they caught in the grass as she stumbled
+wearily towards the house, Abinger following.
+
+"Good-night, Luce," she said lifelessly as they reached the verandah.
+She felt no anger towards him now. She let him take her hand and she
+listened without resentment to his whispered words.
+
+"When are you coming back to your home and your husband, Poppy?"
+
+Indoors, the card-party had broken up. The travellers were tired, and
+Clem was for hunting them to bed. The men made farewells and went,
+Abinger with them, and Clem and Miss Allendner hustled away to the rooms
+of the guests. Poppy took the opportunity of slipping into the narrow
+little writing-room, which opened off the hall and was meant for
+common-use. She wished to write out a telegram, and she knew there were
+forms to be found there. Sitting down to the desk she found the stack of
+forms and began to write on the top one. But someone had been using it
+before her, and with a violent hand and stubby pencil had left an entire
+message deeply indented on the form beneath the one that had been used
+and torn off. With the first word Poppy wrote the ink flowed from her
+full pen into the rutted words, outlining a part of the message, and she
+read all then as dully and unthinkingly as she had done everything else
+that evening.
+
+  "_Come back to me. You have never been out of my heart for a moment
+  since first I loved you.--Loraine._"
+
+The address was a code word, care of the Rand Club, and the words were
+in Clem's writing. It was the last link in the chain. If Poppy had had
+any lingering, hoping doubt in her mind, it fled now. She forgot the
+words she had meant to write, and then she told herself they didn't
+matter in any case. Vaguely she remembered to tear the form off and
+destroy it; then rose from the desk and walked rather blindly to the
+door and out into the lighted hall. Clem was waiting there to bid her
+good-night.
+
+The red had faded from her cheeks now, or else the light was kinder, and
+her eyes looked big and dim. She put out her hands, took Poppy's, and
+gave them a little, gentle squeeze, and she smiled her own brave
+turned-up-at-the-corners smile.
+
+"Life is a curious thing, Poppy," she said gently. "It is hard to tell
+which is dream and which is real. Sometimes I don't think any of it is
+real at all. Good-night dear."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII
+
+
+After a week or so at Potchefstroom, Carson returned to Johannesburg, to
+find Rosser beating the town for him, crazy with impatience. Wallerstein
+had offered seven hundred pounds apiece for the South Rands, but Rosser
+had not closed; he considered it madness not to stand out for eight
+hundred.
+
+"It'll only be a matter of a week or two," said he. But Carson gloomed
+and cursed. It maddened him to find the thing still unsettled, for he
+had made up his mind not to return to Durban until he knew definitely
+whether he had poverty or wealth--both comparative, of course--to offer
+to the woman of his heart. However, as he had stayed so long already, a
+few days more could not make much difference, he argued lifelessly with
+himself, so he gave a grudging half-assent to Rosser and went his ways.
+He still had several minor affairs to attend to, and various people to
+see, but he did all half-heartedly. Choosing and despatching a ring to
+Poppy was the only thing that gave him any joy, and that was too
+poignant for pleasure. Then, suddenly, in one day he grew restless and
+haggard. Hunger was on him for the sight of a face, and at last he knew
+he could wait no longer, but must go. The decision came upon him
+suddenly in the Club with the sight and scent of a gardenia Forsyth was
+wearing in his coat at lunch-time. Now, between the scent of a gardenia
+and the scent of Barbadoes-thorn there is scarcely any difference at
+all, except that the gardenia's fragrance is perhaps more subtly
+insistent. Carson spun out of the Club into a cab and in fifteen minutes
+was in his broker's office.
+
+"Close for seven hundred pounds each, Rosser," he said briskly. "And get
+the whole thing fixed up as soon as possible. I'm leaving to-night."
+
+"Oh, but I've already closed for eight hundred pounds each," chirruped
+the elated Rosser. "The transfer is completed and the money paid in." He
+pranced into an inner office and produced voluminous documents. "Loot,
+my son! Loot from the house of Rimmon! I take my little fifteen thousand
+pounds and you take twenty-five thousand. Isn't _that_ all right? _Now_
+will you be good!"
+
+An hour later Carson regained his cab and was driven to his rooms. A
+portmanteau at _Vetta's_ head was a sufficient indication of his
+intentions, and the rest of the afternoon was spent in settling up his
+remaining business matters and appointments by telegram and telephone.
+Then he dined, and caught the eight o'clock express by one minute and a
+half. _Vetta_, who was on the look-out for him, indicated an empty
+first-class, and Carson fell into it and slept like the dead until
+morning.
+
+Those were the days when the run between Johannesburg and Durban
+occupied the better part of twenty-seven hours. The first stop of any
+importance was at Volksrust, the boundary town, and Carson roused
+himself to take a look at country he knew well, and was not likely to
+see again for many years. It was as early as five A.M., and a wet salt
+mist lay over everything, chilling him to the bone as he opened his
+window and looked out at the bleak Drakensberg looming through the haze,
+and tragic Majuba, which throws a shadow athwart every brave man's path
+as he passes. Later, the train dashed through the Laing's Nek tunnel,
+and as it descended the sloping spur of the range, Natal lay before
+Carson's eyes--all beautiful green valleys and running water: the land
+of his desire. The mist had cleared from the air, but it still seemed
+to obscure Carson's vision as he looked, and he passed Ingogo, and Mount
+Prospect, with ill-fated Colley's monument, unknowingly. Only the far
+blue haze that meant the coast lured his eyes, for there for him lay
+heart's content.
+
+Presently, at Newcastle, came the faithful _Vetta_ with tidings of
+breakfast; and Carson scrambled amongst a weary, sleepy crowd, in which
+he recognised no face, for sandwiches and vile coffee flung at him, half
+in cup and half in saucer. When he had breakfasted in this fashion,
+taken a leisurely stroll, glanced in all the carriages to see if there
+could possibly be any passengers he knew, inspected the accommodation of
+_Vetta_, and inquired into the matter of the latter's breakfast, he
+returned to his carriage. There was still a residue of sixteen hours to
+get through before the journey ended. Having no reading-matter with him,
+he thought at first to kill time with pleasant thoughts of a woman in a
+garden, but it was presently borne in upon him that his consciousness,
+or conscience, or memory, or whatever he may have cared to call it, had
+another and less agreeable affair to consider with him. Something
+within, that he would fain have cursed into silence, earnestly solicited
+his attention to the fact that the train which was crawling with him to
+the woman he loved, was at the same time tearing with most indecent
+haste towards one whom he had never loved, and the hour in which he must
+tell her so. Presently the thought of that hour lashed him, cut him with
+knives, turned him sick.
+
+In time, he stared at the wild and rugged outline of the Biggarsberg,
+until it seemed blurred with a red haze; and as the flat and dreary land
+of stunted bush that lies between Elandslaagte and Howick unrolled
+itself monotonously before his window, rocks appeared to grin and gibe
+at him, and isolated trees menaced him with gnarled arms, even as in
+Wiertzs's picture Napoleon is menaced by the arms of women.
+
+As the hours passed his eyes grew bloodshot and his throat dry. His
+mouth sneered with self-contempt; unconsciously his lips opened and
+closed, and he swallowed with the expression of a man who is tasting the
+bitterness of death. But through all, his heart held steadfast to one
+plan--the man's plan, the old plan that was in the beginning and shall
+be till the end.
+
+Later, he lay on the seat of the carriage, his face to the wall, his
+eyes closed, his hands clenched--thinking, thinking. He would remember
+Poppy's shut eyes as he kissed her under the flamboyant tree; how her
+throat shone in the darkness. Then a voice, _not hers_, would break in
+upon him, crying:
+
+"Evelyn, I love you. For your sake men may brand me--swear you will
+never forsake me for another woman!"
+
+Did he ever swear? Was that his voice he seemed to hear?--tender,
+fervent--swearing by her face, by his life, by----
+
+"Oh, Lord God! what a blackguard!" he groaned aloud.
+
+But his heart held steadfast to his plan.
+
+When at last evening fell, the train reached Maritzburg, and the
+passengers poured out into the station dining-room. Carson,
+haggard-eyed, found the bar, and drank three brandies atop of each
+other. He was on the point of ordering a fourth when a Maritzburg
+acquaintance stepped in and saved him the trouble--slapping him on the
+shoulder, and claiming his attention with a little scheme, which he said
+Bramham was standing in with. It was something about coal, but Carson
+never afterwards remembered details, though he listened very politely
+and intently to every word, for it was good to be spoken to by a decent
+man as if he were another decent man, after those years of degradation
+in the train.
+
+The four brandies might have been poured over a rock for all the effect
+he felt of them; but when the starting bell rang, he made his way back
+to the train through the hustling crowd with a calmer mien, and leaning
+from the window, wrung his acquaintance's hand with unassumed warmth.
+Ever afterwards he felt real friendship for that Maritzburg man.
+
+To his surprise, he found that he now had a fellow-passenger, a lady.
+Her figure seemed vaguely familiar as she stood packing her things into
+the rack, and when she turned round he wondered where in the world
+before he had met the unabashed gaze of those large brown eyes beneath a
+massed fringe of dusty, crispy hair. She, on her part, was regarding him
+with the pleased smile of an old acquaintance.
+
+"Sir Evelyn Carson! How funny!" she said, and smiled winningly. Carson
+bowed, and his smile was ready and courteous, for, in truth, he was glad
+not to be alone; but he continued to greatly wonder.
+
+"I believe you don't remember me!" said she archly. "How unkind! And
+I've so often bowed to Mr. Bramham when you've been with him in the old
+days. And you've been to Brookie's office, too, when I was his
+seckertary."
+
+At last Carson was enlightened. He was, in fact, in the pleasant company
+of Miss Sophie Cornell.
+
+"Ah! yes, of course--I remember quite well," said he. Indeed, if she
+could but have known it, he remembered a good deal more than was
+flattering, for Bram's tale of highway-robbery was still clear in his
+mind. She had changed a good deal since then: grown coarser and more
+florid--and there were other things--! When a woman has flung her kisses
+to the world as generously as summer flings daisies in a green meadow,
+the tale of them is marked upon her face for all who run to read.
+However, her dress was black, and so extremely neat that it was a pity
+she should have spoiled its effectiveness by wearing a pair of yellow
+_suede_ evening shoes.
+
+Carson was not surprised when she informed him that she had left the
+uninteresting field of typewriting, to adorn a profession where beauty
+and wit are more readily recognised and liberally remunerated.
+
+"I am in an _awfully_ nice bar in Maritzburg," she told him
+languorously. "Come in and have a drink next time you are there--'The
+Falcon.' All my friends were _awfully_ annoyed with me for leaving
+_literary_ work, but really it was _so_ dull--and, of course, it's a
+great mistake to think one can't stay _a lady_, whatever one does; don't
+you think so, Sir Evelyn, eh?"
+
+"Certainly!" he gravely agreed.
+
+"I am treated as _quite_ the lady by all the smartest men in the town,
+and there's a great difference between that and being bullied from
+morning to night by a little bounder like Brookie, you know. Not that he
+didn't have his good points. But still, the way he treated me in the end
+was perfectly _frot_[6], and there's no other word for it. In fact,
+everybody did. Charlie Bramham, now, always said he'd be my friend, but
+as soon as it suited him, he just scooted off and never came near me
+again ... after persuading me in the first place to come to Durban to
+work for him."
+
+  [6] Rotten.
+
+"Oh! Bramham's a good fellow," said Carson, smiling at this new version
+of a tale of highway-robbery. "I don't think he could have behaved very
+badly."
+
+"Good fellows and bad fellows are all just the same when they're tired
+of you," said Miss Cornell feelingly; adding, with great hauteur: "Not
+that I ever allowed any man to get tired of _me_, Sir Evelyn, I assure
+you. There's not a single fellow in Africa can say a _thing_ about me."
+
+This was very impressive, but Carson did not exactly know what it might
+mean. He only knew that he was growing a little weary.
+
+"And then there was a girl that I befriended. I took her in when she
+came to my house without a rag to her back, or a shoe to her foot, one
+night--fed her, clothed her, and treated her like my own sister--or
+would have done if she hadn't been such a cold-blooded, standoffish
+_slang_.[7] Yet I can assure _you_, Sir Evelyn, that when I was on the
+Durban Race-course three weeks ago, with two _perfect gentlemen_ from
+the Rand, she sat quite close to me in a carriage with that Mrs. Portal,
+and though I smiled and bowed to her _twice_, she deliberately looked
+right through me.... I might have been a bit of rubbish lying in the
+street...."
+
+  [7] Snake.
+
+Something in this narrative dimly, though unpleasantly, interested
+Carson. He forgot his weariness for the moment and looked at the woman
+intently.
+
+"Yes ... what do you think of that? Deliberately _cut_ me ... me who had
+been her friend in need. I supposed it was because she had managed to
+get taken up by a big-pot like Mrs. Portal.... I said so to one of my
+friends--such a nice boy--you may know him--Wolfie Isaacs, of the firm
+of Isaacs and Jacobs. But after he'd been away talking to some other
+men, he came back and told me that _she_ was the great authoress who
+wrote all the cracked books and poems about Africa, and that everyone
+was raving about her. He said I must have made a mistake when I thought
+I knew her! What do you think of _that_? The girl I had taken in without
+any shoes to her feet!... and, oh my! couldn't I tell a tale to her
+swell friend Mrs. Portal if I--" Something in the steely expression of
+the face opposite suddenly arrested her flow of eloquence.
+
+"Do you mind telling me whom you are talking about?" said Carson
+quietly.
+
+"Certainly--I'm delighted to. It is only fair that everybody should know
+what a _slang_ that girl is, to cut _me_ like that, who had taken her in
+without asking a single question about where she came from.... Och! but
+I can tell you I found out afterwards, Sir Evelyn ... she's as bad as
+she can be, that Rosalind Chard----"
+
+Carson's tanned skin had turned an ashy-yellow shade, which was neither
+becoming nor artistic.
+
+"Woman--" he said in a low, hoarse voice, scarcely audible; but his eyes
+said a great deal more than his lips; and Miss Cornell, at first
+surprised, became angrily red.
+
+"Och! don't you _woman_ me!" she cried, bridling. "So _you're_ a friend
+of hers, too, I suppose! She's got very grand all at once!... but I
+wonder if she told you she used to be constantly in a house on the Berea
+with Luce Abinger. That it was from _his_ house she came that night I
+took her in! My _boy_ Zambani saw her come through the gap in the hedge
+that led from Abinger's garden. Ha! ha! and she pretending to be such a
+saint all the time! Ask Mr. Bramham! He knows all about it."
+
+Carson took it like a blow between the eyes. If he had not been sitting,
+he would have reeled. As it was, he leaned against the back of the seat
+and closed his eyes for a moment, though the lids scorched like flame.
+But the woman mistook his attitude for calm unbelief. She thought he
+shut his eyes because he was pretending to be bored, and she was
+furious.
+
+"And she pretending to be such a saint all the time," she repeated. "A
+saint in the company of Luce Abinger!" she laughed coarsely.
+
+Carson's eyes were still closed. He was considering--as well as fury,
+and surprise, and misery, and four neat brandies become suddenly potent
+would let him.
+
+Would this woman dare bade up her vile statement with Bramham's name,
+unless--?... but there must be some explanation. She and Abinger! Oh,
+God! _no!_ Bram could explain ... she could explain ... if she could
+not, he would kill her ... he would take her by that long, fair
+throat----
+
+At that the coldness and calmness of moonlight fell upon him like a
+pall; his brain cleared; he reflected on the inflamed, furious face
+opposite him, surveying it deliberately, insultingly, with stony,
+arrogant eyes. Slowly his handsome lips took on a curve of incomparable
+insolence and contempt--a look no woman could ever forgive. In that
+moment Sophie Cornell knew what she was. The colour left her face, and
+her lips and tongue went dry; She had no words.
+
+His voice was almost gentle.
+
+"It would be scarcely fair to expect a woman of your" (he paused)
+"_inducements_--to understand that Miss Chard's reasons for----"
+
+"No," she sneered, hissing like a cobra. "No--of course not--a _saint_
+like that! But I know well enough what sort of a man Luce Abinger
+is--and so do you. His name isn't spelt L-o-o-s-e for nothing."
+
+That arrow quivered in Carson, but he gave no sign, going on
+deliberately:
+
+"--For knowing Mr. Abinger might be different to your reasons--or shall
+we say inducements?"
+
+She hated him with her eyes.
+
+"You would scarcely credit, perhaps, but there _are_ other things of
+interest in the world besides--inducements. And that the side of Mr.
+Abinger's character which appears to be so well known to you, is one
+that he reserves specially for ladies of your--distractions."
+
+He smiled and added:
+
+"I'm afraid you hardly realise how distracting you are. Here am I, for
+instance, with a number of pressing matters waiting for my
+attention"--he put his hand into the breastpocket of his coat and
+brought out a bundle of letters and papers--"neglecting them to indulge
+in a fascinated contemplation of you. But if you will be good enough to
+release me----"
+
+Miss Cornell damped her lips with her tongue.
+
+"I hate Rosalind Chard," she said hoarsely, "but I am sorry for her, all
+the same, if she gets you. I think you are the worst devil I've ever met
+in my life. Talk about the three bad men! Abinger and Charlie Bramham
+are angels compared to you."
+
+"I will let 'Charlie' know of your favourable opinion of him--he will be
+flattered. Pray excuse me!" He looked apologetically at the papers in
+his hand.
+
+"Oh! go to hell!" she screamed. Carson bowed, and with that insolent
+smile still lingering on his lips, gave his attention to his letters.
+
+At Inchanga he stepped out of the carriage and looked about him with
+careless interest, lighted a cigarette, and presently lounged down the
+platform. Incidentally he went into the telegraph-office and sent off a
+wire, requesting Bramham to meet him at the station or be at home
+waiting for him. When he came out of the little office he was still
+smoking placidly, but the writing on the telegraph-form resembled the
+writing of a drunken or palsied man.
+
+On his return to the carriage he found that Miss Cornell had been good
+enough to remove her distracting presence to some other part of the
+train.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII
+
+
+It was the night of the Club ball, the first and chief event of the
+Durban season, and all the fashionable world was busily pranking itself
+for the occasion.
+
+Bramham had dressed early, for he had been elected by Mrs. Portal to be
+one of the wild-geese who were to escort her house-party to the Town
+Hall. Just as he was choosing some cigars for the night at the
+dining-room table, Carson's telegram arrived. He whistled, meditating
+upon it for a while.
+
+"Well, this Carson!" he called out to Abinger, who was in a neighbouring
+room, also arraying himself for the festival. "Wants me to meet him at
+the station, I thank you!"
+
+"Meet him! What for? He ought to get a maid!"
+
+"Well, I can't do it, anyway," said Bramham, and sitting down, hastily
+scribbled a note, saying that he could not possibly wait on account of
+his engagement with Mrs. Portal, but suggesting that Carson, on arrival,
+should dress and come down to the Town Hall. He left this note on the
+table, with instructions to the _boys_ to see that Carson got it as soon
+as he arrived; then jumping into his carriage, he set off for the
+Portals' house.
+
+On his way up he had an impulse to call at the Caprons', to see what
+arrangements Mrs. Capron had made for going to the ball. He was aware
+that Nick had been away for a week, and was not in the way of returning
+yet a while. A man called Lessing had pitched a camp out beyond Inanda,
+to try some experiments in coursing with six pedigree dogs he had
+imported from home, and several other men had joined him, to see the
+sport and incidentally get a little late fishing. Bramham had received a
+note from Lessing that morning, asking him to come out for a few days
+before they broke camp, and mentioning that he should not be in for the
+ball, because Capron, having put in a week's steady drinking without
+anyone particularly noticing the fact, was now in the uproarious stage
+and couldn't possibly be left. Whether Mrs. Capron was aware of the
+state of affairs Bramham did not know, but he thought that a friendly
+thing to do would be to find out if she had arranged for an escort, and,
+if not, to offer to call for her with Mrs. Portal's party.
+
+At the sound of the carriage she came out into her verandah, looking
+supremely lovely, as white-skinned, red-haired women have a way of doing
+in a black setting.
+
+"I thought I'd just look in to make sure that you were coming, Mrs.
+Capron," said Bram, his eyes shining with the delight and excitement he
+always felt at the sight of a pretty woman.
+
+"Yes, I'm coming, though Nick isn't," she said gaily. "He is out at
+George Lessing's encampment, you know. I've lent my carriage to Mrs.
+Portal for some of her party, but Mrs. Lace is going to call for me--she
+will be here any moment now."
+
+"Good! I heard that Nick was still away, and thought I might be of some
+use. When do you expect him back?"
+
+"Oh, I don't know," she said carelessly. "I haven't heard from him for
+several days. I expect he'll stay until Mr. Lessing breaks up his camp."
+
+"Well, I must bustle on. I'm afraid I'm late, as it is ... but that's
+Carson's fault with his telegrams--" He was off towards the gate.
+
+"Is he back, then?" called Mrs. Capron after him.
+
+"No, coming back to-night--should be in by eleven," said Bram, getting
+into his carriage.
+
+At the Portals' he found that some of the party had already gone. Mrs.
+Portal was not quite ready, but Miss Chard was in the drawing-room. She
+was resting in a big chintz chair, with her white chiffon skirts foaming
+all round her, and her hands holding a great bunch of shining orange
+leaves that gave out a faint, crushed scent. She had them held to her
+face when Bramham came in, and her eyes were closed. She looked like a
+woman praying. At the sound of him she started up, and the leaves
+dropped rustling to the floor.
+
+"Oh!" she cried in a wild, odd voice that Bramham did not recognise. He
+looked at her in surprise.
+
+"Did I startle you? I'm sorry!"
+
+"No--oh no ... not at all ... only I thought--" She regained her
+composure rapidly and sat down again, arranging her draperies.
+
+"I believe I must have been asleep, and you woke me up," she smiled. Her
+face was as white as her gown, but her eyes were dark and dilated, as if
+she were under the influence of a drug. Bramham thought she looked like
+death, until she smiled, and then he decided that he had never seen her
+more alluring.
+
+"Unlucky man! you will have to ferry three of us down!" she said. "Mrs.
+Portal is insisting on Miss Allendner coming too. The poor soul has been
+so depressed ever since the fire----"
+
+"Good," said Bramham. "The carriage will hold a quartette easily, but if
+you want more room for your skirts, I'll sit up aloft."
+
+"Not at all. You will come in with us or I shall sit up aloft too."
+
+They laughed, and he asked if he might secure a dance or two from her
+now.
+
+"I know it's no use asking for the first waltz," he ventured.
+
+"Oh, yes ... you can have it, if you like."
+
+"_What?_"
+
+"Yes, really--and whichever others you like." Bramham seized her card
+blithely.
+
+"Now this comes of getting ahead of pirates like Abinger and Carson----"
+
+"But ... _he_ ... has not returned?" she asked quickly. It occurred to
+Bramham to be wily in the interest of his dances. Carson is big enough
+and ugly enough to look after himself, was his thought.
+
+"No ... not yet. But he _might_ run in, mightn't he? You're not thinking
+of going back on me, are you?"
+
+"Of course not!" She turned away.
+
+He dotted his initials thickly on her card, for he had discovered at a
+little informal affair that she danced delightfully. When he gave it
+back, her hands were trembling violently. Even the mention of Carson's
+return had power to shake her whole being.
+
+Mrs. Portal came in, looking thin and worn, but with her little gay air
+that carried everything along and made people forget to observe that her
+eyes were ringed, and her cheeks drawn, or what colour she was dressed
+in. Laughing and apologising, she implored Poppy to give a glance at the
+back of her gown to see if it was all right.
+
+"Really, I believe I laced it with my toes," she said. "My hands haven't
+had a moment since daybreak.... Come along, or we shall be late, and
+have to sit glued to the wall all night.... Miss Allendner, you simply
+take the shine out of us all in that gown ... you are _all_ shine ... I
+never saw any one so shamefully magnificent.... Come along, good
+peoples." She pushed the pleased old soul gently out of the room before
+her, and Bramham and Poppy followed. Miss Allendner was, indeed, at her
+best in a shining sequined gown, which Mrs. Portal had been at some
+pains to reconstruct and bring up-to-date.
+
+Eventually they set off--Poppy still carrying her bunch of orange
+leaves, faintly scenting the carriage. Sometimes when the others were
+absorbed in talk, she secretly pressed them against her heart. She felt
+as though she had gone back again to the days of her childhood, when
+misery claimed her, and there was no hope of comfort, or strength, or
+kindness, from anything but trees and green leaves. She was glad that
+she wore her mother's old green brooch and that there were great pieces
+of green malachite in the high Empire comb she had stuck in her piled-up
+crown of black, black hair; she needed all the strength that green
+things could give her to-night.
+
+One of the first people they saw on entering was Mary Capron, standing
+in the centre of the ball-room, a little crowd of people about her,
+supremely beautiful in black lace and diamonds. She came over to them at
+once with a little loving pat of welcome for Clem and a brilliant smile
+for the others. She half extended her hand to Poppy, in friendliness;
+but Poppy turned away from her. She could not welcome the touch of a
+hand that had smitten happiness out of her life. They all moved down the
+big ball-room together. There were little groups everywhere of laughing
+men and women, and the seats that ran all round the room were all
+occupied. The bandsmen up on the stage, massed with palms and flags and
+greenery, were making quivery-quavery sounds on their instruments.
+
+Other women came up and greeted them.
+
+"What a crush!... we shall have the gowns torn off our backs when the
+dancing begins ... don't you think it was a mistake to have the ball so
+early?... so hot still!"
+
+Behind her Poppy heard one of the Maritzburg women say to the other in a
+low voice:
+
+"Clem's got paint on again.... She never used to do it ... I wonder if
+Bill has been badly hit in the slump? There's _something_ wrong!"
+
+"I hear that Nick came in from the camp at the last moment. Do you think
+it could possibly be true, Clem?" said Mrs. Capron.
+
+"That depends on who told you."
+
+"Young Head. He said he heard someone say that Nick and your Billy were
+both at the Club. Perhaps they are going to surprise us by appearing."
+Mrs. Capron's voice did not express much enthusiasm. Clem's eyes flashed
+like lightning round the room, in search of young Head, and she saw him
+immediately, busily collecting dances. She had an inclination to rush
+straight over to him, but she curbed it. Another inclination that almost
+overwhelmed her was to fly from the hall, and take a rickshaw to the
+Club; but she curbed that too, though to do so cost an effort that threw
+up her rouge-spots more clearly by reason of the increased pallor of her
+cheeks. She continued to talk easily.
+
+"How did you get here, Mary?"
+
+"I drove down with Mrs. Lace. How do I look, darling? This is my
+_Machinka_ gown ... you haven't seen it before, have you?"
+
+"Perfect, dear. I never saw you look more beautiful.... Isn't Poppy
+wonderful to-night, too? ... she looks like a woman who has stepped out
+of a dream ... no wonder the men crowd round her. If I could only catch
+her eye, we'd move on."
+
+When Poppy's card was all but full, a voice said at her elbow:
+
+"Don't forget _me_." Nothing could have looked more out of place in that
+gay ball-room than Abinger's scarred, sardonic face. But he stood there,
+cool and irreproachably dressed.
+
+"I'm sorry. I'm afraid there are none left."
+
+"I am unfortunate." He shrugged and turned away, and Poppy, looking
+round for the others, caught Clem Portal's face with the mask off for
+one moment. With that sight her faltering, fainting purpose changed to
+firm resolution. Softly she called after Abinger, but when he reached
+her again she seemed breathless.
+
+"I have a dance ... number five--" She held out her card, and while he
+wrote upon it she spoke again, swiftly and low. The preliminary soft
+bars of the first waltz were already floating down the room.
+
+"Will you please be where I can see you--and reach you _instantly_ ...
+if I should want you?"
+
+A slight, bitter smile came to his lips.
+
+"Certainly! The middle of the room would be a good place, I should say."
+
+Her eyes blazed at him for a moment. Then a subtle, alluring look
+crossed her face, for all her lips were the lips of a ghost. She half
+whispered to him:
+
+"Do you want me--_Luce_?"
+
+Her eyes looked into his for one short instant before she veiled them
+quickly, and her heart seemed to turn over within her, for desire
+stalked, naked and unashamed, in the eyes of Luce Abinger.
+
+"Do I want you. By God!" he said, under his breath.
+
+"Well--to-night--I think I may come--_home_," she faltered; then without
+another word or look she turned away, and took Bramham's arm for the
+first waltz.
+
+Abinger did not approach her again; neither did he dance. He lounged
+conspicuously in a doorway, and if anyone spoke to him, he snarled at
+them and they went hastily away. When the fifth dance came, he waited
+until the music began; then walked across to where Poppy was sitting,
+offered his arm nonchalantly, and they took the floor together. When
+they had been dancing for a few moments he spoke:
+
+"Poppy ... _to-night_?"
+
+"To-night," her pale lips gave back answer. Her feet moved in time to
+the waltz, but she lay half fainting in his arms. He had the daring to
+bend his head and touch her face with his burning lips. Amid the
+flashing lights of jewels, and the whirling faces, it was almost safe to
+have gone unnoticed; everyone was too busy to watch what others were
+doing.
+
+But there happened to be a man standing in a doorway, hiding his grey
+travelling tweeds behind two or three immaculates, who were trying to
+persuade him that it would be quite a remarkable joke if he would come
+in as he was, and pirouette amongst the dancers.
+
+"Come on now, Carson ... give us a taste of the old Karri of old, mad
+days," a Rand man was saying; and Carson, though listening and laughing,
+was watching two people in the room. So it happened that he saw the
+kiss--and the woman's face almost lying on Abinger's shoulder. How could
+he know that she was dazed, half unconscious, not knowing what she did,
+or caring? Abruptly he pushed through the laughing group and stood full
+in the doorway. For an instant he was on the verge of trampling over
+everyone in the room to get to those two and tear them apart; for an
+instant the other men thought they were going to have a return of mad
+Carson with a vengeance, and were sorry they had spoken; one of them
+laid a hand on his arm. But in that instant a woman's eyes had met
+Carson's--long, topaz-coloured eyes, full of eager welcome and
+tenderness. The next moment he had flung away from the other men, and
+was striding through the wide vestibule, down the Town Hall steps
+towards a rickshaw, to take him God knew where. As he put his foot on it
+a hand fell to his shoulder, and Brookfield's voice to his ear--full of
+relief.
+
+"Carson! By gad! I'm glad you're back; Capron's cut his throat, and they
+say he's dying at the Club. Come on!"
+
+Carson stared at him with a stunned air.
+
+"Capron!" he stammered.
+
+"Yes; sliced his head off nearly. He was too drunk to go home, so they
+hid him in Ferrand's room at the Club with Portal in charge. But while
+Portal was out of the room for a moment, Nick found Ferrand's best
+razor."
+
+"Well, I can't come," said Carson roughly, after a pause. "I have
+business of my own."
+
+"You've _got_ to come, Karri. He's raving for you. Someone said you'd
+arrived, and Ferrand told me to find you, or he'd have another
+haemorrhage. Come on, now. He won't keep you long; he's booked!"
+
+Carson cursed and muttered, but eventually they got into the rickshaw
+and went off together.
+
+Five minutes later a woman shrouded in a long, black satin cloak, her
+head muffled in veils, slipped down the steps and beckoned a rickshaw.
+In a whisper she directed the _boy_ and told him to hurry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At about an hour after midnight Clem came to Poppy, who was sitting out
+a dance with a peaceful partner, and drawing her aside said:
+
+"Dear, something awful has happened to Nick Capron and Mary can't be
+found. I fancy she must have been feeling ill and gone home without
+telling anyone. Anyway, Mr. de Grey and I are going to see. I've asked
+Bramham to take you home as soon as you would like to go.... the others
+will want to dance until dawn.... Billy is at the Club, too, it
+appears."
+
+"I'll come now," said Poppy quickly, forgetful of everything in the
+momentary excitement.
+
+"No; I can't wait for you, dear, as I'm ready. Better come on with Mr.
+Bramham or Mr. Abinger. Suppose you and Miss Allendner wait at Sea House
+for me?... It's an easy drive from the Club.... I'll call for you there,
+and we'll all go up home together.... it will probably be painful,
+breaking the news to poor Mary. I'll come as soon as I can afterwards."
+She hurried away, and Poppy, excusing herself to her partner, went to
+the dressing-room for her wraps. On her way she met Abinger, told him
+swiftly what had happened, and asked him to find Miss Allendner. But
+when she emerged from the dressing-room Abinger and Bramham were waiting
+for her, minus the companion.
+
+"She was dancing so happily for the first time to-night, that I hadn't
+the heart to drag her away," said Abinger, with unheard-of benevolence.
+The truth was that Miss Allendner did not at all enter into his plans
+for the evening, and so he had not bothered to look for her.
+
+The three of them left the hall together and reached Bramham's carriage,
+which had been sent for. Afterwards they drove away in the direction of
+Sea House. Bramham, with permission, smoked moodily out of a window, and
+Abinger, without permission, under cover of the uncertain light, took
+Poppy's hand; but it lay like a smooth, cold stone, and gave no response
+to his hot hold. His hands were as bad as his eyes; by just holding a
+woman's hand for three seconds, he could tell her things which for her
+soul's sake she had avoided knowing all her life.
+
+They were a silent party when they arrived at Sea House. In the
+dining-room they sat down and Bramham drummed his fingers on the table,
+wondering where Carson was. Luggage was lying in the verandah, and
+Bramham's note was open on the table; but of Carson himself no sign.
+
+Inspiration came to Abinger to go and rout out the servants to make
+coffee and sandwiches, for there was a distinct chill in the air, and as
+none of them had partaken of any supper to speak of, they felt weary and
+collapsed. As it happened, the servants had not gone to bed, so the
+coffee soon made its appearance, and at Poppy's suggestion a further
+supply was ordered to be ready for Mrs. Portal and de Grey. They sat at
+the table, and Poppy poured out the coffee; but Bramham was restless and
+began to walk the room, staring out at the night, and then into Carson's
+room, which led from the dining-room, and the door of which stood ajar.
+Once he sniffed the air, and then stopped and listened.
+
+Abinger smiled sourly at him.
+
+"Whose trail are _you_ on, Bram?"
+
+"There's something odd in the air--some unusual scent," was the answer.
+
+"Perhaps Miss Chard can account for it," suggested Abinger. Bramham
+ventured near her, sniffing still.
+
+"I never use scent," said she, "but I, too, seem to smell some heavy
+scent."
+
+"Someone's been here," said Bramham, convinced, and thereupon called in
+the _boys_ again and questioned them in Zulu.
+
+"No--no one had been," they said, "excepting only _Intandugaza_, who had
+remained but a little while and gone away very angry."
+
+Both Abinger and the white woman in the white gown who sat by the table
+understood Zulu, and heard for the first time now of Carson's arrival
+that evening. To Abinger the fact did not mean much. But Poppy sat
+staring with frozen lips at her bunch of orange leaves which lay now
+upon the table. Also, she was listening intently. It seemed to her that
+the sea, rustling and whispering on the beach at the foot of the garden,
+had a message for her that she had often heard before, but had never
+understood. Dimly, for the first time, the meaning of its mysterious
+sighing was creeping into her weary brain.
+
+"_Rest, rest, rest--peace--rest_," it whispered and sang.
+
+Bramham came to the table, took another sandwich, and ate it walking
+about the room.
+
+"Well, I can smell something," he averred, as though making a new
+statement. "Can't you, Abinger?"
+
+"Oh, have some more coffee, Bram. Your nerves have gone back on you."
+
+Poppy poured him out another cup.
+
+"We are all odd to-night," she said, with a wan smile.
+
+"It must be the news about poor Nick Capron," Bram said, and was just
+taking his coffee-cup from her hand when they thought they heard a
+sound. They looked at each other. It was a gentle little sound, and
+might have been anything imagination suggested--a groan, or a cough, or
+an exclamation. They waited intently to hear it repeated, but it never
+came again. Abruptly Bramham caught up a lamp--the lamp with Mrs.
+Brookfield's little pink-silk shade upon it, and walked towards the only
+door of the room that was open. It was the door of Carson's
+bedroom--Poppy's eyes saw that in a moment. She and Abinger had risen
+and followed Bram, and stood behind him in the doorway. Her eyes took in
+every detail of the wide, breezy room; the long, green curtains at the
+windows, the heavy oak furniture, the guns, and whips, and rods standing
+about, the books--and a big photograph of Mrs. Portal's gay-sad face,
+smiling, on the mantelpiece.
+
+Then she went back to her chair and listened once more to the whispering
+sea:
+
+"_Rest, rest--peace, rest._"
+
+"I swear I heard someone say 'Oh!'" said Bramham angrily.
+
+"Look under the bed," mocked Abinger.
+
+"Look under it yourself, my dear fellow!"
+
+They returned to the dining-room.
+
+"What a beast of a night!" continued Bramham explosively. "What is one
+to do? I've a good mind to take a run up to the Club and see whether I
+can do anything, or where the others are ... shall I? Will you people
+come too?"
+
+"No," said Poppy quietly. "We'll stay here. I have something to say to
+Mr. Abinger."
+
+At any other time Bramham might have found this remark surprising, but
+on this upside-down night, when nothing had happened as it should have
+done, and the air was full of odd scents and sounds, he merely thought
+it in keeping with the rest of things, so he departed, without even
+taking his hat.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV
+
+
+Nick Capron lay on a bed in one of the bedrooms of the Club--a sobbing,
+raving, blaspheming figure, fearful in bandages sodden with blood, his
+arms strapped to the sides of the bed to keep him from tearing at his
+throat. The doctor and Portal stood by, regarding him, one with a calm,
+professional eye, the other with a wet forehead. Carson sat on a chair
+at the foot of the bed with a face like a stone wall, staring straight
+before him, his hands in his pockets.
+
+The injured man spoke continuously in a gurgling, guttural way, half of
+his words intelligible, the other half maniacal. His main plaint was for
+the sight of Carson, whom he had not recognised.
+
+"I wish you'd fetch Carson ... there's no one like old Karri ... he's
+worth the whole damned boiling of you ... besides, I have something to
+say to him ... if I am booked for the last stretch I'd like Karri to see
+me off.... Oh, blazes! what the----is this at my throat? Carson!
+Karri--where is my devoted wife, too? _She_ ought to be here to speed
+the parting guest ... Mary--a damned iceberg ... but I'd like some
+ice.... Give me some ice, Karri----"
+
+After a time the narcotic administered began to take effect, and the
+watchers were relieved from the strain of listening to these ravings.
+Ferrand and Portal took drinks and sat down to wait for the coming of
+Mrs. Capron.
+
+"--And an infernal long time she is about it," said Ferrand. "What do
+_you_ think, Karri?"
+
+If Carson had an opinion on the subject he did not state it, but he
+roused himself and looked at the time. It was nearly half-past one.
+
+"I must get home," he muttered. "If you want me Ferrand, you can
+telephone to Bramham's house. I want to see Bramham," he added absently.
+
+Ferrand cocked a professional eye at him.
+
+"You're used up, Carson. Go home and sleep, but first see if you can
+find Mrs. Capron, there's a good chap. We can't have this over again
+when he comes to. She _must_ be here and that's all there is to it. You
+can use my cart if you like, to get home in. Get a rest, old man ... you
+look just about _peleela_ ... take my cart."
+
+Carson accepted the offer and went out, followed by Portal through the
+silent rooms of the Club to the front verandah.
+
+Ferrand's red-wheeled dog-cart, with its coolie-driver, usually formed
+part of the street furniture, for the doctor had a happy habit of
+leaving it outside the Club door, going in and settling down to poker
+and forgetting all about it. But at the moment it was nowhere to be
+seen, the fact being that the man, tired of sitting still, had begun to
+walk the horse, and was now out of sight at the far end of the street.
+
+There was not a rickshaw to be seen; they were all waiting for revellers
+outside the Town Hall. Fatigue was beginning to tell on Carson: he
+rapped out a bad and bitter word.
+
+"Cheer up!" said Portal blithely. "You'll soon be dead!"
+
+It was a well-worn expression, and Carson was accustomed to it, but upon
+this occasion it jarred. Something in Portal's voice was jarring, too.
+Now that Carson came to remark it, for the first time that evening there
+was something wrong with Portal's appearance as well as his voice.
+Instead of being in evening-dress, he had on a brown tweed morning-suit,
+in which, to judge by its appearance, he might have been knocking about
+the veldt for several weeks. On the other hand, his face was as
+bloodless and sallow as if he had been shut in a cellar for a month, and
+his eyes were sunk deep in his head. Withal, he was cheerful, full of
+suppressed excitement--almost it might be said that he was gay. After
+many years in Africa, Carson was accustomed to all kinds of moods and
+tenses in his friends; also, being an intimate of Portal's, he was aware
+that the latter possessed a troublesome liver. But somehow, none of
+these things could quite account for the extraordinary aspect and manner
+of Portal to-night. Under the powerful rays of a street light which
+fizzled and hummed close by, Carson observed him intently.
+
+"What's the matter with you, Bill? You look queer. Anything wrong? ...
+besides Capron, I mean...?"
+
+The other responded with apparent composure.
+
+"No, nothing. I'm only glad to see you, Carson, that's all. I'd no idea
+you were back from the Rand. I had arranged to go up there after you,
+but----"
+
+"When? What for?" asked Carson in surprise. He was unable to make head
+or tail of Portal's speech.
+
+"Oh, nothing; just wanted to see you. You're a fascinating chap."
+
+Carson gazed at him.
+
+One of Portal's hands spasmodically gripped and ungripped the verandah
+rail. With the other he appeared to be holding something stiff in the
+right pocket of his coat. He continued to talk in parables.
+
+"I went as far as Maritzburg, but I came back to-night to put my affairs
+into shape and write a few letters--then those fellows came in and asked
+me to take charge of Capron ... I left him asleep, I thought ... I was
+writing a letter to--well, never mind who to--when I heard a row ...
+and there was Capron ... _he'd got ahead of me_."
+
+"But, good Lord! what do you mean?" Carson burst out. "What's wrong with
+you? Have your finances gone smash?" he brought an iron hand down on the
+restless one gripping the verandah railing. The stiff article in
+Portal's pocket twitched. Carson's career had been adventurous and
+dangerous, but he had never been nearer death than at that moment.
+Entirely unconscious of the fact, he went on speaking.
+
+"If you've had a smash-up, Bill, everything I've got is at your
+disposal.... I've just made a good turn-over in the market.... I thought
+I should need it, for ... but _my_ castle is in ruins.... You can have
+it if it's any good to you."
+
+"Thanks, Carson--my finances are all right."
+
+"Then what in thunder's the matter with you?--haven't you got the only
+good woman in this filthy country I'd like to know! I could swear to
+_two_ until to-night. _Now_, if it were not for your wife, I should say
+they were all rotten to the core ... false as--Oh, well, what's the
+use?" he turned wearily away.
+
+"Have you spoken to my wife since you got back?" asked Portal. He had
+come closer and was staring intently into Carson's odd eyes as if
+searching for something there. His gay air was gone; he breathed
+heavily.
+
+"I haven't spoken to any woman--except a devil in the train to-day--for
+nearly three weeks. And after to-night I think I'll be able to exist
+without 'em forever. But I saw Mrs. Portal from the door of the Town
+Hall; and she looked to me remarkably ill. Is _that_ your trouble?"
+
+Portal did not answer at once, and Carson turned on him austerely and
+keenly. "If it's any other woman, don't expect _me_ to sympathise with
+you--I could forgive any man that but you--bah! but it couldn't be ...
+impossible!... Look here, Bill, I may as well tell you something now ...
+you can take it how you like ... I'm not ashamed of it ... I was in love
+with your wife for years ... she has never known it for one moment ...
+but I loved her crazily--everything and everyone else went by the
+board ... until I met her I was--well, I needn't tell _you_ what I
+was--no follower of Plato, anyway--and you can take this how you please,
+too--I am not going to pretend that there was anything platonic about my
+feeling for her ... there was _not_.... But, because she never turned
+her eyes my way ... or stepped down once in all the years I've known her
+and you from her shrine ... it got finer and finer until it got to be
+the highest, finest thing in my life, and anything decent that I've ever
+done was because of it."
+
+Portal had turned his head away before Carson had finished and appeared
+to be looking at something down the street. The thought came to Carson
+that he was either indifferent or not listening.
+
+"Ah, well!" said he, angry to have wasted his confidence and yet too
+weary to be angry long. "I daresay this doesn't interest you much ...
+you know, of course, that dozens of men have been in love with your
+wife ... she's one of the women men can't help loving with all that's
+decent in them--any more than one can help loving one's mother. A love
+like that is like a star in the sky of a man's life ... a star that
+shows the way to the east.... And if _you_ are one of those fellows that
+don't know when a star has come down to you, why----"
+
+Portal turned a shaken, strange face to the other man.
+
+"Carson, you must excuse me; I'm queer to-night ... I've been listening
+to Capron's ravings until I'm nearly raving myself ... but I think I
+understand ... I begin to see through it all.... Women do and say
+strange things in the name of Love!... But I _know_ that what you say is
+true--I believe in you, Karri."
+
+Carson could not pretend to understand the meaning of this, and
+moreover, Ferrand's cart was at the door, and the sickening remembrance
+of his own broken hopes was upon him.
+
+"Well, good-night, old man.... I must go home. If anything I've got can
+be of any use to you, let me know." He held out his hand and Portal
+gripped it.
+
+"Good-night, Karri--I'm going home, too." His face was transformed.
+
+Carson never solved the problem of that conversation with Portal; never
+knew how near death he had been, never knew how his accidental
+confidence had saved his life and given back her husband to Clem Portal.
+Indeed, he never remembered much about his interview with Portal at all.
+The memory of it was lost amongst the crowded events of that
+phantasmagorial night.
+
+Ferrand's coolie spun the cart along at a great rate behind the doctor's
+best polo pony. Just as they turned into West Street a flying rickshaw
+passed them, but though Carson heard a man's voice hailing he did not
+respond. Mrs. Portal and de Grey were in the rickshaw returning from
+long and vain seeking for Mrs. Capron, and it was de Grey who shouted,
+thinking he recognised the doctor's cart in the darkness.
+
+But even if Carson had known, he would not have stopped. He had been too
+long delayed from his own affairs, and he was driving now to get ease
+from the torture burning in his brain and searing his heart. His
+thoughts were fixed on one thing now--an interview with Bramham.
+
+"He's the only honest man amongst us, by Heaven!" he said loudly, so
+that the coolie driver gave him a nervous glance, and drew away. "The
+only one I'd take the trouble to believe."
+
+He stopped the cart at the gate of Sea House, and told the man to go
+back to the Club, then strode away up the sea-sanded path. Lights
+gleamed brilliantly from the dining-room, but silence reigned, and every
+other part of the house was dark as death. Walking through the verandah
+with light, swift feet and into the dining-room, he came upon Poppy and
+Abinger sitting there, facing each other across a corner of the table.
+There were tears on her face, and one arm was flung out before her with
+the gesture of one who has thrown the dice on a last and desperate
+venture. Abinger's hand lay on hers.
+
+They stood up as Carson sped into the room, his eyes blazing light in
+his dark face, and before anyone could speak he reached Abinger and
+without word or warning struck him a tremendous blow between the eyes,
+felling him to the floor, where he lay quite still. Then he took the
+girl by the throat--the long, white throat that shone in the darkness.
+
+"By God! I must kill you!" he said, and his voice was whispering like
+the sea's. She heard him; but she made no movement upward of her hands,
+though the pressure on her throat was terrible to bear. She closed her
+eyes and prepared to die. The thought slipped into her mind then that it
+would be good to have rest at last from the ache and storm of life. That
+was the message the sea was whispering.
+
+"_Rest, rest ... peace ... rest!_"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+After a long while she opened her eyes and found that she was sitting in
+the same chair she had previously risen from. Bramham's broad back was
+before her, but she could see Evelyn Carson leaning heavily against the
+wall like a drunken man, and Abinger seated in another chair delicately
+wiping his lips. His scar had opened, and blood was trickling down it.
+The silence was broken by Bramham's voice--quite calm and pleasant.
+
+"If you want to kill each other, take a brace of revolvers and go out
+and do it decently somewhere in the open, where it won't make a
+mess--killing Miss Chard, however, is quite another matter."
+
+Again silence prevailed. Later, Carson said collectedly:
+
+"She can live--_if she wants to_"--he gave her a look that lashed across
+her face like a whip, leaving it distorted. "Let them both live, and be
+damned to them!"
+
+The tone and expression of bitter pleasantry Bramham had adopted, died
+away.
+
+"Well! _you_ fellows from home--!" he began, and looked from face to
+face. Abinger continued to wipe blood delicately away, but he did not
+wipe the sneer from his lips. The girl had the face of a little tired,
+weeping child: the sight of it turned Bramham's heart to water. He put
+out a hand to Carson, appealingly:
+
+"God! Karri, what is it?"
+
+The paleness of Carson under his tan had once more given place to an
+inartistic-grey tint, and his eyes were dull; but he appeared strangely
+composed.
+
+"Nothing, Bram," he said. "Only to find the girl you love--less than
+nothing."
+
+A cry broke upon their ears, and all started and stared about them,
+especially at the open door of Carson's room, from whence that muffled,
+involuntary sound had come. A stiffness came over them; their masks
+slipped on. What unknown person had listened to the wild words that had
+been spoken?
+
+Suddenly Bram remembered the sensations and scents that had assailed him
+earlier in the night; catching up the same pink-shaded lamp, he once
+more entered Carson's room. He gave one searching glance about him, and
+then instinct took him to the only possible cover--a narrow curtained
+recess in which to hang clothes. He thrust his hand between the
+curtains. Mary Capron spared him further trouble--she swept out from the
+recess, and from the room, giving him one burning glance of hatred as
+she passed.
+
+In the dining-room she stood still, the centre of attraction for the
+second time that night. Her cloak had fallen from her shoulders, and her
+beautifully-_coiffe_ hair was ruffled and limp, her eyes were long
+gleams of topaz light in a carved-stone face. And for some reason she
+poured the full measure of her rage and scorn upon poor Bramham, who had
+dazedly followed her, stepping carefully to avoid her train, and
+standing there now with the little pink lamp in his hand.
+
+"Have you peered and pried enough?" she asked, piercing him with her
+eyes. "Is your curiosity satisfied--now that you have dragged me out? I
+came here to speak to Evelyn Carson--hearing voices, I foolishly hid....
+Is your taste for scandal appeased?"
+
+Poor, gallant, woman-loving Bramham! He paled and started, like a man
+who has unexpectedly been struck in the face; then, turning, still
+dazed, he walked away with the lamp in his hand from the room, and from
+the house--_his_ house! In the pathway he discovered the lamp in his
+hand and put all his strength and disgust into flinging the hapless
+thing with a crash into a bush.
+
+In the room the girl, still sitting in her chair, but with an awakening
+look of amazement and hope upon her face, said some words very softly to
+Mary Capron:
+
+"So you lied! ... false woman! ... and _base friend_!"
+
+But Mary Capron turned from her. Shaking with rage and defeat, she flung
+a torrent of low, rushing words at Carson.
+
+"_You_ love this girl ... girl! ... her confessions to Luce Abinger here
+to-night were not very girlish ... I could not hear all that she said
+to him, but I heard enough.... She told him that she gave herself to
+some man in a garden three years ago ... that she belonged _only_ to
+that man and could never love any other----"
+
+"No more," broke fiercely from Carson's white lips.
+
+"But you _shall_ hear!" she cried, flinging out a hand and catching his
+arm. "_She has had a child_ ... she boasted of it ... _the child of the
+man in the garden_.... Do you deny it? Do you deny it?" she cried,
+turning to Poppy. But Poppy did not deny, did not speak: only lifted her
+head proudly and smiled.
+
+"There ... there ... you see?... let her deny it if she can!"
+
+Stiffly Carson turned his head now and looked at Poppy; his lips twisted
+like a man's who is tasting poison; his eyes demanded.
+
+"Yes, I have borne a son," she said simply.
+
+For a moment there was such a silence as is found in rooms where the
+dead are lying. Then Mary Capron broke it again:
+
+"She is proud of it!... You _see_ ... you see what you love? Is it
+possible that for a woman like _that_ ... that for _her_ you can turn
+from my love, I who would let men brand me in the face for you--who----"
+
+"Oh, for God's sake!--are you mad?... be silent." Carson caught her
+hands roughly and made to draw her away. But she was beyond herself.
+"And now Nick is dying ... I have heard them saying it ... and they are
+looking for me to go to him, but I will not ... I will not!... I will
+stay here with you, Eve--I am terrified of blood--I--" she finished on a
+high note that was almost a shriek, for Abinger had risen quietly from
+his chair in the corner and was before her with his scarred, bleeding
+face. Then at last she was silent. What there was to be said, Abinger
+said--blandly, softly.
+
+"Oh! I think you had b-better come, Mary. It will not be the first
+t-time you've seen a man cut about. You remember the night this was
+done?" He touched his face and she shrank away blenching. "The night
+Carmen punished me for _our_ sins. You were quite brave then. You saw
+the whole performance without uttering a scream or a cry that might have
+brought people to the scene and discovered you. No one should blame you
+for that, but--I think you could be brave enough to see Nick." He held
+out his hand to her. She shrank from him, wilting with shame, her eyes
+frozen in her face; but he was inexorable.
+
+"I think you had better come. It seems to me that you have said enough
+for one night to Carson and Miss Chard. She is free of me for ever--I
+have told her so. And Carson is free of you. Is not that plain to you?
+They love each other ... let us leave them to settle their affairs. You
+and I--have many old memories to discuss--unless you would rather
+discuss them here?"
+
+She went at that, with hurrying feet; and the man with the bleeding,
+smiling face followed her.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Carson and Poppy were left alone. They stared into each other's eyes
+with an agony of love and longing and fear. Anger was all gone from
+Carson's face; only fear was there--fear that was terror. It was the
+girl who stood now; he had fallen into a chair, wearily, desperately.
+
+"Is it true?" he muttered; "is it true, after all?--_a child!_" His own
+sins were forgotten in this overwhelming, bitter revelation.
+
+She went over to him, and kneeled between his knees.
+
+"Yes; it is true, Eve ... _your_ child! ... child of the night you
+dreamed that poppies grew upon the eternal hills.... _I am Poppy!_ Do
+you not know me?" He sat up straight then and looked down at her, looked
+down deep into the glimmering eyes. "I am Poppy," she said, and her
+voice was wine in a crystal beaker. She dragged the malachite comb from
+her hair, and it came tumbling down upon her shoulders in long black
+ropes. "I am Poppy who gave you all her gifts."
+
+The sea helped her; it sent into the room a strong, fresh wind that blew
+the veils of her hair across his face and lips. He breathed sharply.
+God! What strange scent of a lost dream was here? What sweet, elusive
+fragrance of a most dear memory!
+
+He took hold of her hair as though he would have torn it from her head.
+A light was in his face--he drew her to him, staring into her eyes.
+
+"Poppy? ... _Poppy!_ ... _not_ a dream?... _Not_ the ravings of
+fever?... Poppy!" He held her hair across his face as though smelling
+some wonderful flower.
+
+"Eve ... did you not say to me, '_If I were stricken blind in this
+hour_--'" she stopped.
+
+"'--_from ten thousand women I could search you out by the scent of your
+hair_,'" he finished.
+
+Again they stayed long, staring into each other's eyes. Staring--glance
+falling to glance and rising again; staring with the brave,
+shame-stricken looks that women give to men they adore and endow, and
+men to women they rob, and bless--and rob again. Strange that two people
+who love each other cannot for long bear the ardent flame of each
+other's eyes.
+
+"Part of it is lost--for ever," he said at last.... "Gone! ... only
+fragments remain. But there never was a dream like the dream we dreamt
+on that lost night." And after a long time:
+
+"Poppy--where is my son?"
+
+She lifted her eyes to him. The tears which she could never shed for
+herself would always come rushing forth for that sweet memory.
+
+"All my love could not keep him, Eve."
+
+She pulled a child's framed face from her bosom and held it up to his
+eyes. He saw the little familiar face he had looked at once before,
+pictured in a field of corn and poppies, and trembled. He gave it one
+swift, sorrowful look and then he wrapped his arms about her, and she
+lay on his breast.
+
+"Do you regret?" he asked. "Have you ever regretted? Oh, God! how can I
+ask?"
+
+"No, no," she cried, but her voice was faint. Even while she spoke she
+knew--none better than she--how vain were denials against the truth of
+the past. How all their memories and all their gladness to come must
+ever be salted with pain and tainted with the bitter gall of regret.
+How, when she laid a child in his arms, their thoughts would terribly
+fly to that lost son of a lost dream lying far from them in an alien
+land. They were transgressors--and the reward of transgressors must ever
+be theirs!
+
+Not much more was said. Only enough to chase the shadows of others from
+the road of life they meant to take together and make it clear before
+them. For the rest--they had all the years to come in which to
+understand and suffer and forgive.
+
+He thought of the turmoil and transgression and "tremendous disarray" of
+his life--and of dark, still nights far away in Borapota, with this
+woman of his dreams by his side--and his heart sent up a cry that was
+not unworthy of it.
+
+"O, Lord God--forgive me my sins!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When Bramham came into the room long after, she was still kneeling there
+in her white gown and her loosened hair, and she thought it no shame for
+him to find her so. She rose to her feet and gave him her hand, and he
+held it closely, preciously--for he, too, loved this woman.
+
+"Thank God that out of this jumble and carnage comes one good thing!" he
+said. "_Your_ ship is home in port. Take her out to the gate, Carson.
+Mrs. Portal is waiting, and they're going to pick up Portal at the Club.
+Capron will recover, Ferrand says."
+
+When Poppy had hastily fastened her hair, and Carson had wrapped her in
+her cloak, they went down to the gate where Clem waited half in and half
+out of a carriage window. Her face was radiant, too. She drew Poppy in
+beside her.
+
+"Are you two happy?" she whispered. "So am I." But she told nothing of
+the golden moment that had been hers within the past hour, when, in the
+darkness of the Club verandah, a big, sullenly handsome man had taken
+her in his arms and just whispered:
+
+"Forgive!--_Loraine!_"
+
+She was that lovely thing, a close woman.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV
+
+
+The quay at the Point was crowded with people to see the sailing of the
+_Tunis_. The English Government had chartered the vessel specially to
+take Sir Evelyn Carson, his men, stores, horses, guns, mining and
+agricultural machinery, and all the other quantities of things needed in
+the great business of opening up and civilising the latest possession of
+the Empire--to Borapota.
+
+The sailing of the ship was, of course, an event of great public
+interest, but Sir Evelyn had, at the last moment, provided a further and
+electrifying sensation by being quietly married that morning to the
+distinguished African authoress, _Eve Destiny_; and his wife was
+accompanying him to Borapota on the _Tunis_.
+
+Durban considered itself badly treated in not having been invited _en
+masse_ to witness the ceremony; also, in being cheated of introspective
+discussion of the match, by having no faintest prenotion of it. But it
+was not to be done out of at least a parting glimpse of the principals
+in this unexpected _denouement_. And so it happened that the quay was
+crowded, for the fashionable world had come down like the Assyrians, and
+everyone with the slimmest claim to the acquaintance of Carson or his
+wife made occasion to visit the _Tunis_ before the hour of sailing. The
+rest of the world was obliged to be content with lining the docks and
+blackening the Breakwater.
+
+Just after twelve, with the tide at full, preliminary sirens and
+scrunching of chains began to be heard, and word was given for people
+to leave the _Tunis_. That was a sign for everyone to come on deck, and
+the curious watchers ashore got a chance at last of seeing the special
+object of their curiosity. She appeared in the companionway door,
+smiling, with her hand through the arm of her great friend, Mrs. Portal;
+behind were a little group of men with Eve Carson towering in their
+midst.
+
+Lady Carson was still wearing the gown she had been married in, and she
+looked vividly beautiful. Shimmering leaf-green draperies swept the
+decks, under a long coat of pale-grey velvet, and her poem face was
+shadowed by a plumed, grey hat. Her husband thought that she looked like
+the incarnation of Ireland--and than the beauty of _that_ imagination
+could no further go.
+
+She and Clem Portal, alone together for the first time in all that busy,
+eventful day, walked a little apart to make their farewells, and the
+eyes of the men followed them, resting naturally on the vivid glowing
+woman in the shimmering green-and-grey. Her husband's were the only eyes
+that did not follow her. He had given her one deep, long glance at the
+altar; and since then had not looked her way. His tanned face wore the
+impassive, almost cataleptic expression that men assume when they wish
+to conceal deep emotion from the eyes of the world. But he walked as one
+whom the gods have chosen to honour. Bramham strongly suspected him of
+suffering from what is known among men as--a swagger in the blood!
+
+"I expect he feels tall enough to pull the sky down to-day," was the
+loyal fellow's thought, and he smiled affectionately and put an arm on
+Karri's shoulder.
+
+Clem and Poppy walked along the deck together. They did not say much.
+Only, under cover of a big, grey velvet sleeve, and a stole of delicate
+lace Clem wore, their hands were tightly clasped together. The Portals
+would be gone from Africa before Eve Carson's five years' work in
+Borapota was over; and where, or when, the two women would meet again
+was a matter that lay upon the knees of the gods. Neither wished to let
+one word of regret mar the gladness of the day; but each knew how deeply
+the other felt the parting.
+
+"Oh, Clem!" Poppy said at last, with something like a sob in her voice.
+"It is all so wonderful--to be out of the 'tangled wild' at last, with
+the clear, open land before us! Can it be true? I have had so many blows
+in the face, and I am so undeserving of this great happiness--_can it be
+true_?"
+
+"Chance is more just than we are!" Clem softly quoted. "Poppy, before we
+part I must tell you something ... about my name--_Loraine_. Bill wants
+me to tell you ... and he says _you will know why_. It is my own name,
+dear--but I have never allowed anyone to call me by it but Bill. When
+people love each other very much _you know_--they give each other little
+secret gifts that no one else must know of--this was one of mine to
+Bill. All the world can call me Clem--but _Loraine_ was only for him.
+Others came to know of it by accident, but I never gave anyone the right
+to call me by that name but Bill----"
+
+Poppy held the little brown, thin hand more tightly.
+
+"I know, I know, darling," she fervently said. She could not at this
+time tell Clem how much else she knew--all that Carson had told her of
+the secret love he had borne for Clem for many years; but she had no
+feeling of bitterness now, or anger concerning that love. Clem went on,
+a little hurriedly, for time was flying:
+
+"I had another reason too--under my mask I am dreadfully superstitious
+and primitive. All the Loraines in my ancestral history have lost those
+whom they loved--in some tragic way. I am afraid of history. Oh, Poppy!
+when one loves ... when one loves ... one is afraid of _everything_."
+She turned white and began to tremble. "How _fearful_ one is! I have
+been so fearful always for Bill ... that I have never even dared show
+_him_ how much I care. I always think if I am silent, silent, silent ...
+never bragging, never telling of my soul's idolatry, God will be
+merciful to me." She was trembling like a leaf, and stammering with
+pallid lips--this calm, well-masked, self-possessed woman of the world.
+Never before had any woman's eyes seen past the barriers into the inmost
+chapel of Clem Portal's heart. And Poppy, overwhelmed, could only
+tenderly say:
+
+"Dear Clem ... thank you.... God bless you!" Bramham bustled up.
+
+"We've got to clear out, Mrs. Portal ... they're going to haul up the
+gangway!" He turned to Poppy. "And the siren is hooting us out of your
+paradise. Well, Lady Carson! the world will expect wonderful things from
+your pen up in the silences of Borapota!"
+
+She smiled at him with radiant, misty eyes.
+
+"Let it expect. I shall never be able to write any more, Charlie. I can
+never do anything again but live. I know how to _live_."
+
+The others joined them then, and the whole group moved gangwaywards,
+individual remarks swamped in general farewells, jests, laughter, good
+wishes. All were ashore at last, leaving Poppy and Carson standing
+alone, side by side, with the keen winter sunlight bright upon them.
+
+When they could no longer recognise friendly faces to wave to, they
+turned and looked at each other. Catalepsy disappeared from Carson's
+face--it grew boyish, ardent, gay.
+
+                  "'The Lord is debonair,
+                    Let sinners not despair,'"
+
+said he, and they smiled into each other's eyes.
+
+And so their ship swept out to sea.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Ashore, one or two acrid things were said. In a little detached group,
+of which Mrs. Gruyere, Mrs. Lace, and Cora de Grey were the central
+figures, Brookfield thought it interesting to say:
+
+"There's a rumour that she's as wicked as her books--if so, Carson is
+not to be envied."
+
+Cora de Grey, who was sometimes also called _Cobra_ de Grey, bit into
+him swiftly:
+
+"If she's wicked, she's clever beyond the cleverness of any woman, for
+none of her men friends have ever given her away."
+
+"Her _men_ friends--that's a new story!" retorted the surprised
+Brookfield.
+
+"Oh, no; quite an old story amongst married women," said Cora, with her
+Karoo smile. "When a woman is _really_ wicked, some renegade will always
+tell his dearest friend, or his wife, and then--short shrift for _her_."
+
+Brookfield retired.
+
+Mrs. Gruyere said:
+
+"It's a scandal that he didn't marry May Mappin. And I _know_ Charles
+Bramham was in love with _her_. What will he do now, I wonder?"
+
+Mrs. Gruyere's voice was so penetrating that it often reached the ears
+of her victims. Bramham, coming up, answered her cheerfully.
+
+"Oh, haven't you heard?" said he, grinning. "My dear Mrs. Haybittel is
+arriving from Paris to pay Durban a visit. Everyone is sure to make her
+as comfortable as they can--for fear she should make them as
+uncomfortable as _she_ can. She says she's bringing out twelve trunks
+full of French gowns."
+
+This was terrible news for Mrs. Gruyere, who only feared two things on
+earth--French gowns and the malicious pen of Mrs. Haybittel. But she
+preserved a brave front.
+
+"Let us hope that she has had her face enamelled to wear with them," was
+her last barb.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Driving home, Clem said to her husband:
+
+"Will they be happy, think you, Billy-Bill?" And he, with the deep
+wisdom vouchsafed only to true lovers, answered her:
+
+"Happy? Of course not! But they will count unhappiness with each other
+the best that Life can give."
+
+
+FINIS.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+
+p. 22 corrected doubled "she"
+
+p. 68 "unwittingy" changed to "unwittingly"
+
+p. 72 "eared" changed to "cared"
+
+p. 110 "relasped" changed to "relapsed"
+
+p. 146 "widow" changed to "window"
+
+p. 178 "quater" changed to "quarter"
+
+p. 183 "champange" changed to "champagne"
+
+P. 272 "aways" changed to "always"
+
+p. 356 "whatver" changed to "whatever"
+
+p. 361 "knowlege" changed to "knowledge"
+
+p. 377 "found" changed to "round"
+
+p. 449 "love each very much" changed to "love each other very much"
+
+Minor punctuation corrections left unnoted.
+
+Words with multiple spellings left as in original.
+
+Italics indicated with underscores _like this_.
+
+Small caps and bold indicated with upper case _LIKE THIS_.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Poppy, by Cynthia Stockley
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK POPPY ***
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