"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."Howsweetof you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand up to her hair and the other outstretched, while her body performed the Grecian bend."Rosalind,dosee about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure Mr. Bramham must beparched."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, "Dobring him around, Mr. Bramham. We shouldjust loveto meet him."Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable curiosity to know whom she shouldjust loveto 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 wasapparently 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'san 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."Doyouknow 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, thatwillbe good of you," said Poppy with enthusiasm."Send her up all the old poetry books you can find," jeered Sophie. "Personally,Ilike 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 justdyingto know him," said Sophie ardently. "He looks as though he has committed every sin you ever heard of. And howdidhe 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?""Verysecret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How the devil do these things leak out?""Something or other, yes," he said aloud."They say the English Government thinks anawfullot 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?""Ofcoursethey 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 beseenwith a woman unless she'sperfectlyturned 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 themawful!""I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her.""Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear.Ithink she is a frump. Capron's wife nowisgood 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 friendUmkoomatatheSturdy 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 aboutIntandugaza, 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—youknow!"Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance of certain recent sensations still burning within her, she could not say that she didnotknow; 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 VBRAMHAM 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 werebuzzingin 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 theboyssolemnly 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 assuddenly 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 theOld Baas(the master of natives is alwaysOldwhatever his age) and the various otherBaaseswho sat at Bramham's board with regular irregularity.Ha! ha! where wasShlalaimbonato-night, they inquired among themselves. It is true that he would sleep here in the house of theOld 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, wasBechaan? He whom the world called Brookfield—who had slept in the house ofUmkoomatafor 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,UmkoomataandIntandugazasmoked 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 thefine 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 crowdhas 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. "Youdoget 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—andyouknow 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 shewasa 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.""AndCarmencita 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 shemaybe 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 andthat'sagainst 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 hehadto 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 enoughwork 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 hundredwhat?" 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 Lumsdensin 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 hundredisthree 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 moreto 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 VIIT 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 itisa 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 wassomethinglike the gate Bram pointed out to me yesterday.... But what am I doinghere, 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 theboys'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."Isit 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?""Myboyshave a name for me of which one translation runs—all gates open to him.""But itmustbe 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 daughtersWith a magic like thee,And like music on the watersIs 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 wishyouwere 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! Imustbe 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. Shewondered 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 brokeherdream 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 courseyou 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 againstherself 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 ... butalways 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 aM'rungoin 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'rungosalways paid well!Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gatesand over the soft, dark lawns to the tree where theM'rungowas 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 VIIA 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 atMonna Lisaon 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 kitchenboy, 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 theboysought 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 upPoppy'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 thehors-d'œuvre. And when the soup appeared, he waved hers away and ordered anentréeto 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 fillyourlife, Poppy. You are the kind of girl who will live the wonderful stories that the other women write."The lilac eyes in thetroublanteface 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 chairsand 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:"Hadyouany 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 ...nothow 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 arôlewould 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."
"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.
"Howsweetof you to come, Mr. Bramham," one hand up to her hair and the other outstretched, while her body performed the Grecian bend.
"Rosalind,dosee about tea, there's a dear. I'm sure Mr. Bramham must beparched."
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, "Dobring him around, Mr. Bramham. We shouldjust loveto meet him."
Poppy, arranging the cups on the table, had a pardonable curiosity to know whom she shouldjust loveto 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 wasapparently 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'san 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.
"Doyouknow 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, thatwillbe good of you," said Poppy with enthusiasm.
"Send her up all the old poetry books you can find," jeered Sophie. "Personally,Ilike 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 justdyingto know him," said Sophie ardently. "He looks as though he has committed every sin you ever heard of. And howdidhe 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?"
"Verysecret, apparently," thought Bramham. "How the devil do these things leak out?"
"Something or other, yes," he said aloud.
"They say the English Government thinks anawfullot 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?"
"Ofcoursethey 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 beseenwith a woman unless she'sperfectlyturned 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 themawful!"
"I thought she looked extremely nice when I saw her."
"Well, your taste and mine differ, my dear.Ithink she is a frump. Capron's wife nowisgood 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 friendUmkoomatatheSturdy 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 aboutIntandugaza, 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—youknow!"
Poppy turned away from her. With the remembrance of certain recent sensations still burning within her, she could not say that she didnotknow; 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."
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 werebuzzingin 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 theboyssolemnly 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 assuddenly 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 theOld Baas(the master of natives is alwaysOldwhatever his age) and the various otherBaaseswho sat at Bramham's board with regular irregularity.
Ha! ha! where wasShlalaimbonato-night, they inquired among themselves. It is true that he would sleep here in the house of theOld 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, wasBechaan? He whom the world called Brookfield—who had slept in the house ofUmkoomatafor 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,UmkoomataandIntandugazasmoked 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 thefine 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 crowdhas 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. "Youdoget 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—andyouknow 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 shewasa 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."
"AndCarmencita 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 shemaybe 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 andthat'sagainst 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 hehadto 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 enoughwork 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 hundredwhat?" 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 Lumsdensin 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 hundredisthree 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 moreto 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.
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 itisa 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 wassomethinglike the gate Bram pointed out to me yesterday.... But what am I doinghere, 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 theboys'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.
"Isit 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?"
"Myboyshave a name for me of which one translation runs—all gates open to him."
"But itmustbe 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 daughtersWith a magic like thee,And like music on the watersIs thy sweet voice to me—"
"There be none of beauty's daughtersWith a magic like thee,And like music on the watersIs 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 wishyouwere 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! Imustbe 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. Shewondered 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 brokeherdream 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 courseyou 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 againstherself 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 ... butalways 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 aM'rungoin 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'rungosalways paid well!
Well satisfied, he followed the girl through the gatesand over the soft, dark lawns to the tree where theM'rungowas 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!"
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 atMonna Lisaon 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 kitchenboy, 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 theboysought 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 upPoppy'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 thehors-d'œuvre. And when the soup appeared, he waved hers away and ordered anentréeto 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 fillyourlife, Poppy. You are the kind of girl who will live the wonderful stories that the other women write."
The lilac eyes in thetroublanteface 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 chairsand 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:
"Hadyouany 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 ...nothow 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 arôlewould 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."