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 a.s.severated. "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 pa.s.sed Poppy, two sc.r.a.ps 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 Cap.r.o.n!

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 ma.s.ses 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 circ.u.mspection," was the ready answer, and they pa.s.sed 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?... G.o.d! 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 pet.i.te, 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 pet.i.te: 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!