"I have sent Alaric Barking about his business," Poppy continued hoa.r.s.ely. "Sent him back to his soldiering, helped to cart him off to that rotten hole, South Africa. He is a smart officer, and he'll make a name, if he don't get shot. And he won't get shot--I should feel it in my bones if he was going to, and I don't feel it. I broke with him more than a month ago. But I had to see him again to say good-bye, this morning, before he sailed."

Poppy moved a step or two away, turning her back on Iglesias.

"And it hurt a jolly lot more than I expected. I don't suppose I am in love"--she looked around inquiringly at him, as though expecting him to solve the complicated problem of her affections. "It's not likely at this time of day, is it? But I was fonder of Alaric than I quite knew. He is a good sort, and we have had some ripping times together.

He had become a sort of habit, you know; and when you have knocked about a lot, as I have, you get rather sick at the notion of any change."

She stood, looking down, leisurely unb.u.t.toning and pulling off her long gloves.

"I don't know that I should have made up my mind to sack him in the end, but that I wanted to please Fallowfeild."

Mr. Iglesias became very tall. His expression was hard, his eyes alight. This the lady noted. She returned and patted him gently on the back again.

"There, there, don't sail off on a wrong tack, my beloved fire-eater.

Fallowfeild was quite right. The game was up, really it was; and he wanted me to walk out, like the gentlemanlike dog, so as to avoid being kicked out. I always knew the break was bound to come some time; and it's a long sight pleasanter to break than to be broken with, don't you think so?--You see, Alaric has formed a virtuous attachment." Poppy's lips took a cynical twist. "It was time, high time, he should, if he meant to go in for that line of business at all. The young lady is a niece of Fallowfeild's--a pretty little girl, really quite pretty--I saw her that night we were both at the play--all new, and pink and white, and well-bred, and _ingenue_, and in every respect perfectly suitable."

Poppy looked mutinously, even mischievously, at Dominic Iglesias.

"Poor, dear old Alaric," she said. "I don't quarrel with him. His elder brother's no children, and there are pots and pots of money.

That he should want to marry, and that his people should press it on him, is perfectly natural, and obvious, and proper."

"But," Dominic asked fiercely, "if this young man, Captain Barking, proposes to marry, why has he not married you--always supposing you were willing to entertain his suit?"

Poppy flung her long gloves upon the table, unhooked her sable cape and sent it flying to join them.

"Pou-ah! I'm hot!" she exclaimed. "I think I'll sit down, if you have no objection. Yes, that chair, thanks--it looks excellently comfortable. By the way, you've got an uncommonly nice lot of things in this room. I am going to make a tour of inspection presently. It pleases me frightfully to see where you live and look at your possessions." She stared absently at the furniture and pictures.--"But about my marrying Alaric Barking," she continued. "Well, you see--you see, dear man, there is an inconvenient little impediment in the shape of a husband."

As she finished speaking Poppy folded her hands in her lap. She sat perfectly still, her lips pressed together, watching Mr. Iglesias over her shoulder but without turning her head. He had crossed the room and stood at one of the tall narrow windows, looking out into the bright windy afternoon.

For here it was in plain English, at last, that underlying secret thing which he had known yet dreaded to know. It begot in him an immense regret and inevitable repulsion at admitted wrongdoing. He made no attempt to juggle with the meaning of her words. Yet, along with them, came a feeling of gladness that Poppy St. John would remain Poppy St. John still; and a movement of hope--intimate and very tender--since in this tragic hour of her history she had come directly to him, asking comfort and sympathy. Dominic, cut to the quick by the defection of the heretofore ever-faithful George Lovegrove, hailed with a peculiar thankfulness this mark of confidence and trust.

Sinful, greatly erring, still the Lady of the Windswept Dust had returned to him; and thereat he soberly, yet very deeply, rejoiced. In truth, the sharp-edged breath of persecution he had encountered this morning, while paining him, had braced him to high endeavour. The Catholic Church, so he argued, must indeed be a mighty and living power since men fear her so much. And this power he felt to be behind him, sustaining him, inciting him to n.o.ble undertakings--he strong in virtue of her strength, fearless through the courage of her saints, able with the energy of their acc.u.mulated merit and their prayers.

Again, as on his way home that morning from hearing Ma.s.s, the spirit was dominant, his whole nature and outlook purified and exalted by the Divine Indwelling. To fail any human creature calling on him for help would be contemptible, and even dastardly, in one blessed as he himself was. Thus his relation to Poppy St. John fell into line. He could afford to love and serve her well, since he loved and purposed, in all things, to serve Almighty G.o.d best.

These meditations occupied but a few moments, yet Poppy's patience ran short.

"Dominic Iglesias," she cried suddenly, sharply, "I am tired of waiting."

He crossed the room and stood in front of her, serious but light of heart.

"See here, it is all right between us?" she asked imperatively.

"Yes, all is perfectly right between us," he answered. "Your coming gives me the measure of your faith in me. I am grateful and I am very glad."

"Ah!" Poppy said softly.

She sat forward in her chair, making herself small, patting her hands together, palm to palm, between her knees, and swaying a little as she spoke.

"You see," she went on, "to be quite honest, I didn't break with Alaric simply to enable him to marry and live happy ever after. Nor did I do it exclusively to please Fallowfeild. It would take a greater fool than I am to be as altruistic as all that. I always like to have my run for my money. I--I did it more to get you back."

She paused and raised her head, looking full at him.

"And I have got you back?" she said.

"Yes," he answered, smiling. "I ask nothing better than to come back."

"Do you mean that you are prepared to take everything on trust--after what I have just told you--without wanting explanations?"

"Friendship has no need of explanations," Iglesias said, with a touch of grandeur--"that is, as I understand friendship. It accepts what is given without question, or cavilling as to much or to little, leaving the giver altogether free. Friendship, as I understand it, should have honourable reticences, not only of speech but of thought; wise economies of proffered sympathy. In its desire of service it should never approach too near or say the word too much; since, if it is to flourish and obtain the grace of continuance, it must be rooted in reverence for the individuality of the person dear to it. This is my belief." His bearing was courtly, his expression very gentle.

"Therefore rest a.s.sured that whatever confidence you repose in me is sacred. Whatever confidence you withhold from me is sacred likewise."

Poppy mused a little, a smile on her lips and an enigmatic look in her singular eyes.

"You're beautiful, dear man," she murmured. "You're very beautiful.

You're worth chucking the devil over for; but you'll take a jolly lot of living up to. So see here, you're bound to look me up pretty constantly just at first, for I tell you life is not going to be exactly a toy-shop for me for some little time to come. You hear? You promise?"

"I promise," Iglesias returned.

"And there's another thing," she continued rather proudly, "a thing men too often blunder over--with the very best intentions, bless them, only they do blunder, and that leads to ructions. Please put the question of money out of your head once and for all. I have a certain amount of my own, nothing princely well understood, but quite possible to live on. It was to prevent his playing ducks and drakes with it that I finally left the jackal of a fellow whom I married. Well, I have that, and I have made a little more, one way and another."--Poppy permitted herself a wicked grimace.--"Poor old Alaric used to tell me I was a great financier wasted, that I should have been invaluable as partner in their family banking concern--that's more than he'll ever be, poor chap, unless marriage makes pretty sweeping changes in him.

Some of my sources of income naturally are cut off through the cleaning of the slate. For I have been tiptop beastly good--indeed I have, as I told you! No more cards, and oh dear, no more racing. But no doubt Cappadocia will contribute in the way of puppies. _n.o.blesse oblige_--she realises her duty towards posterity, does Cappadocia.

So I shall sc.r.a.pe along quite tidily. And then, as long as I keep my voice and my figure, at a push there's always my profession.--You hadn't arrived at the fact that I had a profession? Such is fame, dear man, such is fame. Why, I started as a child-actress at thirteen; and went on till the jackal made that impossible, like virtue, and self- respect, and a decent home, and a few kindred trifles in favour of which every clean-minded woman has, after all, a strongish prejudice."

Poppy's voice shook. She had much ado to maintain an indifferent and matter-of-fact manner. Iglesias drew up a chair and sat down beside her. She put out her hand, taking his and holding it quietly.

"There, that's better," she said. "I feel babyish. I should like a good square cry. But I won't have one. Don't be afraid. The motto is 'No snivelling, full steam ahead.'--But as to the stage, I'm not sure that won't prove the solution of most difficulties in the end.

Sometimes it pulls badly at my heartstrings, and I shouldn't be half sorry for an excuse for taking to it again. It's a rotten profession for a man, and not precisely a soul-saving one for a woman. But it gives you your opportunity; and, at bottom, I suppose that's the main thing one asks of life--one's opportunity. Too, your art is your art; and if it is bred in you, you sicken for it. I was awfully glad that night to see you at the play, though in a way it shocked me. It seemed incongruous. Tell me, do you really care for the theatre?"

"To a moderate extent I do," Dominic answered. She wanted, so he divined, to give a lighter tone to the conversation. He tried to meet her wishes.--"I am not a very ardent playgoer, I am afraid. But at the present time I happen to be involved indirectly in theatrical enterprise. I am interested in the production of a play, which I am a.s.sured will prove a remarkable success."

"You're not financing it?" Poppy asked sharply.

"Within certain limits I am," he answered, smiling. "An appeal was made to me for help which it would have been cruel to refuse."

Poppy's expression had become curiously sombre, not to say stormy. She got up and began to roam about the room.

"I hope to goodness the limits are clearly defined, and very narrow ones, then," she exclaimed. "For my part I don't believe in talent which can't find a market in the ordinary course of business. I grant you managers sometimes put a play on which is no good; and sometimes cripple what might be a fine play by doctoring it, in deference to the rulings of that archetype of all maiden aunts and incarnation of British hypocrisy, the censor; but they very rarely, in my experience, reject a play which has money in it. Why should they? Poor brutes, they are not exactly surfeited with masterpieces. The play which requires private backing, though a record-breaker in the opinion of its author, is usually rubbish in that of the public. And the public, take it all round, is very fairly level-headed and just; you must not judge it by the stupidities of the censor. He represents only an extreme section of it, if at this time of day he really represents anybody--a section which does the screaming sitting sanctimoniously at home, getting its information at second-hand through the papers, and never darkens the doors of a play-house at all. Moreover, you must remember that the public is master. There is no getting behind its verdict."

Poppy's peregrinations had brought her back beside Mr. Iglesias again.

She patted him on the shoulder.

"See here, my beloved no-longer-nameless one," she said. "Be advised.

Learn wisdom. For I tell you I've been through that gate if ever a woman has. The jackal--I wish to heaven we could keep him out of our talk, but, for cause unknown, he persistently obtrudes himself--he invariably does so when I'm hipped and edgy--well, you see, he was an unappreciated genius in the way of a dramatist, from which fact I derived first-hand acquaintance with the habits of the species. What I don't know about those animals is not worth knowing. They're just simply vermin, I tell you. Their utter unprofitableness is only equalled by their lunatic vanity. They imagine the whole world, lay and professional, is in league to balk and defraud them. So don't touch them, I entreat you, as you value your peace of mind and your pocket. They'll bleed you white and never give you a penn'orth of thanks--more likely turn on you and make out, somehow or other, you are responsible for the failure of their precious productions.--Now let's try to forget them, and talk of pleasanter subjects. These obtrusions of the jackal always bring me bad luck. I'm downright scared at them.--Tell me about your goods, your books and your pictures. And show me something which belonged to your mother--that is, if it wouldn't pain you to do so. I should like to hold something she had touched in my hands. It would be comforting, somehow. And just set that door wider open, there's a dear. I want to have a look into the other room and see where you sleep."

For the ensuing half hour Poppy was an enchanting companion, wholly womanly, gentle and delicate; eager, too, with the pretty spontaneous eagerness of a child, at the recital of stories and exhibition of treasures beloved by her companion. The lonely cedar tree, lamenting its exile as the wind swept through the labyrinth of its dry branches, moved her almost to tears.

"It is tragic," she said; "still, I am glad you have it. It's very much in the picture, and lifts the sentiment of the place out of the awful suburban rut. It's a little symbolic of you yourself, too, Dominic--there's style, and poetry, and breeding about it. Only, thank the powers, you differ from it mightily in this, that its best days are over, while you are but in the flower of your age. And your rooms are delightful--they're like you, too.--The rest of the house? My dear soul, the manservant ushered me into a drawing-room, when I arrived, the colours of which were simply frantic. I bolted. If I'd stayed another five minutes they'd have given me lockjaw.--Now I must go."

She smiled very sweetly upon Mr. Iglesias. "I'm better, ten thousand times better," she said. "When I came I was rather extensively nauseated by my own virtuous actions. Now it's all square between them and me. I'm good right through, I give you my word I am. If only it'll last!"

Poppy's lips quivered, and she looked Iglesias rather desperately in the face.

"Never fear," he answered, "but that it will last."