ONE blue-eyed morning, about a month after Abinger's departure, Poppy was down on the sea-beach. She sat in the loose sand, and ran her hands restlessly in and out of it, making little banks about her. She was wondering if she would be able to sleep if she came out and lay in these cool white sands some night. She was so tired of never sleeping.

The sun had not risen, but there was a pale primrose dado painted across the East.

Presently the girl became aware of another woman sauntering along close to the edge of the sea. She was digging a walking-stick in the sand every few yards and watching the hole fill with water afterwards. She carried the tail of her white-linen skirt under her chin, and her feet all wetted by the little incoming waves, had caught the pale light and seemed shod with silver as she walked, singing a little French song:

When she came opposite Poppy she left off singing and stood for a minute looking at her. Then came slowly sauntering up the beach to where she sat. Poppy recognised Mrs. Portal. Mrs. Portal recognised the Burne-Jones eyes; but she wondered where the gladness of living was all gone.

"You look like a pale, sea-eyed mermaid, forsaken by your lover," she said. "Why aren't you combing your hair with a golden comb?"

"What is the use, if my lover is gone?" said Poppy, with a smile.

"Oh! if you did it a new way he might come back," laughed Mrs. Portal, and sat down by her side. "I thought I was the only sun-worshipper in Durban," she remarked, as one continuing an ordinary conversation with an old friend. "I have felt rather superior about it, and as lonely as a genius."

"I am often down here in the morning," said Poppy, "but it must be lovely at night, too. I was thinking that I should come and sleep here one night when it is moonlight."

"Never sleep under the moon," said Mrs. Portal darkly, "or an awful thing will happen to you—your face will be all pulled out of drawing."

Poppy unconsciously put up one hand and felt her face. But Mrs. Portal burst out laughing. "You have done it already? Well, she must like you, for she hasn't done you any harm."

"I like her," said Poppy.

"And well you may. She's the only woman who knows everything about one and yet doesn't give one away." Mrs. Portal plugged her stick deep in the sand and made a support for her back. She then clasped herself about the knees and continued her remarks:

"Yes ... she knows too much ... but she keeps on smiling. I suppose it's because the old pagan is so used to sinners.

"And yet she looks so modest all the while!" Poppy finished.

Mrs. Portal reproved her.

"I consider you too young and good looking to read Byron."

"Do you think he wrote for the old and ugly?" laughed Poppy. "And how came you to read him?"

"What! The retort flattering! You're no Durbanite. You don't grow in the cabbage garden. OhÉ! I can say what I will to you. Ding-Dong!"

Her little, high-bred face was neither too sunny nor too sad, but had a dash of both sunshine and sorrow about the eyes and lips. She screwed it up in a way she had, and began to sing her little French song again:

The odour of happiness which Bramham had spoken of began to make itself felt. Little fronds and scents of it caught hold of Poppy and enfolded her. Looking at the face beside her she saw in it no signs of any mean content with life. There were fine cobwebby lines around the eyes and mouth, and a deep one between the brows, and Poppy wished that they were upon her face, too, for they were beautiful. Yet they could only have come through suffering, for Mrs. Portal was not old.

"She has had sorrows, too—but not shameful ones. She wears them like jewels," thought the girl.

The woman beside her had indeed greater gifts than mere beauty. She had seven red lights in her hair, which was always extraordinarily tumbled without being untidy; a heart of gold; and a tongue of silver.

Many men loved her, as fine men cannot help loving what is lovable and sweet, and gentle, and kind, and brave, and gay, and wise.

Even women loved her; and so the worst thing they could find to say of her was that she must have been quite pretty—once!

In return, she loved all men, and was kind to all women, loving one steadfastly.

But now, half in pity, half for some reason she could not fathom, she found a place in her heart for Poppy Destin, too. She was touched by the girl's beauty, on which her seeing eyes saw the shadow of tragedy.

"Quite a child!" was her thought. "Too young to have so much to hide behind those lovely eyes!" A line from Pater's monograph on Monna Lisa came into her mind:

"Hers are the eyes that have looked on all the world; and the eyelids are a little weary."

She put out her hand to Poppy. If Poppy had eyes like Monna Lisa, she herself had the hands of that Mother of all saints and sinners—only a little browner.

"I would like to be your friend," she said quietly.

Poppy flushed, and then became pale. The hand Mrs. Portal touched stiffened a little, and the lilac eyes looked away at the sea rather than meet the kindness of the other's glance—but they were dim with tears. Mrs. Portal's warm, Irish heart felt a chill. She was a little sore too, for her friendship was more often sought than proffered, and never before had she known a repulse. She could not know that the girl before her felt honoured as never in her life before, and was filled with gratitude and affection. But Clementine Portal was a creature full of intuition and understanding. Possibly some of the girl's feeling subtly communicated itself to her, for she became aware that the rebuff did not come of rudeness or indifference—or coldness of heart; but of some other strange feeling.

"Is it possible that she's afraid of me?" she thought at last. "Poor child! doesn't she know an enemy from a friend? It must be that she has found all women her enemies!"

They had been saying little ordinary things to one another in the meantime, while they gazed before them to where the risen sun was transforming the curved, purple waves into a sheet of dazzling copper.

Presently Clementine got up from the sands, very reluctantly.

"I must go home to breakfast, or my household will be searching for me," she said, with a mournful smile, shaking her skirt into shape. "Heaven meant me to roam the deserts and run in the woods; but Fate laid upon me the burden of respectability and planted me in the cabbage garden. I must run and catch a tram-car!"

Poppy laughed at her; but her laugh ended on a queer note.

"Being a wild ass of the desert has its drawbacks, too!" said she, with something of bitterness.

Clementine put out her hand and touched the girl's. "Well, don't be a wild ass any more. Come and see me. I hold agricultural shows on the first and last Fridays of the month, and you will find the best kinds of turnips and cabbages in my drawing-room. But if you seek me in love and charity as a friend should, come on Sundays. You never told me your name, yet, mermaid!"

Poppy held the brown, thin hand and answered firmly:

"Rosalind Chard."

But afterwards, when the other had gone a little way, she ran after her and caught her up and said:

"But I wish you would call me 'Poppy.'"

Nevertheless, it was not until a month later that she visited Mrs. Portal. Strongly attracted by the kind, gay ways and looks of that fascinating woman, she yet feared to know her better. And she feared, too, that in the house of Mrs. Portal she might meet the man whom she knew not whether most she loved, or feared, or hated; for whose sake she gashed herself with the knives of defeat and despair. She knew that he belonged to Mrs. Portal's circle of friends, and she had heard from Sophie Cornell that the chief of these was Mrs. Capron. Mrs. Capron! That was the name in which he had bidden her good=bye, speaking in his drunkenness or delirium, she knew not which. Mrs. Capron, the splendid, milky creature, who had been with him in the rickshaw, and whom Poppy had so clearly recognised! Would she, too, recognise Poppy? The girl was not so certain now of the improbability of such a thing, for of late it seemed to her that she had begun to present a singular resemblance to herself as she had looked in those unhappy, far-off days. The strain of suffering had told upon her terribly, and her face was tragically drawn, with a sharp, childish look of suffering about her mouth, and soft, though not unlovely hollows, in her cheeks. Her eyes looked larger and more unreal for the shadows beneath them.

The day she decided to go to Mrs. Portal's found her examining herself in her glass with apprehensive eyes, keen for every defect. She was a woman now, examining her weapons for battle, and her courage misgave her as she saw her reflection. She had put on a white gown that was all simple lines and soft laces, and she really looked very young and girlish, but she hated her appearance when she thought of those two charming-looking women of the world with their eloquent clothes. What if she should meet him there and he should compare her with them? What if either the thin, vivacious, sunburnt woman, whom she herself could hardly help loving—or the regal-milky-woman of yellow chiffon should be that Loraine whom he so loved?

"With either of them what chance should I stand?" she asked herself, desperate-eyed. "Why have I got these vile, purple shadows?—and holes in my cheeks? I never had them before!" She burst into tears, and at this juncture Kykie thought fit to make her entrance unannounced with her everlasting tea-tray.

"Now, Poppy, to goodness! what you ought to do is to take off that tight frock and put on a nice cool gown and rest," said the beldame importantly.

"You're mad, Kykie—and I wish you wouldn't come into my room without knocking." Poppy made occasion to fling a towel over her hat and gloves which lay on the bed, and which it was not desirable Kykie should see.

"Ah! you needn't mind old Kykie, darling," was the response; and Poppy, unused to such blandishments, stared at the yellow face which continued to waggle archly at her.

"What will Luce say when he comes back, if I haven't taken care of you?"

The girl suddenly sickened at her tone.

"How dare she speak to me like that!" was her furious thought. "As if Luce has any right over me or my health!" She could have struck the leering smile from the woman's face; she turned away trembling with anger to her dressing-table.

"So you knew all the time about Luce and me being married?" she said in a toneless voice, when she had presently mastered herself.

"Heavenly me! yes, and I knew it would all work out and come right in the end. But I think you ought to wear your wedding-ring now, Poppy.... All right, all right, you needn't look at me like a mal-meit!... I'm going now ... I wouldn't stop with you another minute when you look like that ... you and Luce are a nice pair for temper ... surely to goodness one would think all would be peace and love now—" The door was closed and locked on her and she was obliged to continue her soliloquy on the stairs.

An hour later found Poppy letting herself in at the double white gates of Mrs. Portal's garden. It was neither the first nor last Friday in the month, nor yet Sunday afternoon; but she had not come for society. She came because she must; because of her bitter need of some word concerning the man she loved.

The house was a big, red-brick villa, with many verandahs and no pretentious, except to comfort. An English maid, in a French cap and apron, showed her into a drawing-room that was full of the scent of flowers, with open windows and drawn shades. Almost immediately Mrs. Portal blew into the room like a fresh wind, seized her hands, and shook them warmly.

"I knew you would come to-day," she said. "I dreamed of you last night. Poppy, I have a feeling that you and I are going to be mixed up in each other's lives somehow."

A creature of moods and impulses herself, Poppy thoroughly understood this greeting, and it warmed her sad and lonely spirit gratefully; she let herself be beguiled to the fireside of Clementine Portal's friendship. Before she realised it, they were seated together in a deep lounge just big enough for two people, and a pile of cushions with cool, dull-toned surfaces, talking like friends of long standing. Mrs. Portal was quite in the dark as to who the girl was, but that did not bother her at all, and her remarks contained no shadow of a question. It was enough that she "had a feeling about her," and had dreamed of her and believed in her.

To ordinary persons these might not seem very cogent reasons; but Clementine Portal was in no sense ordinary. Her judgment concerning things in general, and women in particular, was both keen and sound; but she never allowed it to interfere with her inspirations, which she considered far safer. Apparently intensely practical and conventional, she was, in reality, a woman who lived the most important part of her life in a hidden world. She had the seeing-eye and the hearing-ear for things that went unnoted by the every-day man and woman. Being Irish, she was packed full of superstition, but, fortunately, a strong vein of common sense counterbalanced it. As for her humour, that most fatal gift in a woman, it sometimes resembled a fine blue flame, that scorched everything in reach; and sometimes, to the consternation of the conventional, was the rollicking wit of a fat and jolly Irish priest addicted to the punch-bowl. She had a wonderful way of attracting confidences from people about the things they most cared for in life. In a little while Poppy had told her what she had never told to a living soul before—about her little book of songs—and her great ambitions as a writer. For some unknown reason the girl felt these ambitions very much alive in her that afternoon. Clementine Portal sat like a creature entranced, with her lips slightly apart. When Poppy had given her, upon urgent requesting—a halting, eloquent outline of her novel, Clem said:

"I know it will be good.... I can feel that it will have big bits of open space like the veldt in it, with new sorts of trees growing by the wayside as one passes along.... I hate the modern woman's book, because it always makes me gasp for air. It is too full of the fire that burns up all there is in life."

"You would write far better than I, probably," said the girl. "I know so little of life—only what I feel. You know everything——"

"Dear girl, you are better as you are. When you know everything, you will have discovered that the world is full of sawdust, and the people stuffed with shavings, and no one worth writing about—then, where will your fine books be?"

"Have you ever thought of writing?"

"Often," she began to laugh. "And when I discover a real good man in the world I shall burst into glory in a novel. But no such man exists. He died when the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair. Here is tea. We'll drown my pessimism in the cream-bowl, shall we?"

She went to the tea-table. The maid drew up the window-shades, letting the lovely rose-lights of late afternoon into the room. It was a real woman's room, full of flowers and photographs, and cushions, and piles of magazines and weeklies everywhere. There were no wonderful pictures on the walls, or valuable china in cases. Only a few well-arranged native curios, a good piano, and the kind of things people from home gather about them when they are sojourning in a foreign land. As Poppy followed to the tea-table, her eye caught a full-length photograph on the wall over the writing-desk, and she stayed a moment to look. It was a woman in her presentation gown—two long, lovely eyes smiled contentedly on the world. Underneath, in a woman's writing, were the words: "To Clem, from Mary."

It was the regal-milky-woman—Mrs. Capron. Mrs. Portal turned round from her tea-cups.

"Ah! everyone looks at that photograph! She is very beautiful. The remarkable thing is that she is good, too. That is remarkable, isn't it? I'm sure if I had a face like that I should go to my own head and be a perfect divil."

"Who is she?" asked Poppy, still before the smiling picture.

"My friend, Mrs. Capron."

"Is that her name written there?"

"Yes, hers and mine. She is my dearest friend, and so she is allowed to call me Clem; you may, too, if you like."

Poppy came, thanking her, and sat by the tea-table. She felt suddenly happier, for now she could follow the dictates of her heart and love this woman—whose name was Clem.

As they took tea the door opened gently and a little figure stole into the room straight to her mother's knee.

"I like you, and love you," said she solemnly.

"Hyacinth, what have you been doing?" Mrs. Portal asked anxiously.

It was easy to see that they were mother and child, for they had the same golden-brown eyes, full of dots and dashes and shadows, and the same grave-gay mouths. There, however, all resemblance ceased. The child's physique consisted of a head covered with long, streaky brown hair, and a pair of copper-coloured legs which apparently began under her chin.

"I love and like you," she repeated glibly.

"Then I know you have been doing something very wicked, Cinthie. You always have when you like and love me."

"Pas!" said Cinthie, now gazing calmly at Poppy.

"I shall go and find out," said Mrs. Portal. "I have to go, anyway, to speak to cook about dinner; do forgive me for five minutes, dear; Cinthie will look after you. Cinthie, I hope I can trust you to be good with Miss Chard for five minutes."

The moment she was gone Cinthie made a boastful statement.

"My face is bigger than yours!"

Poppy put up her hand and felt her face carefully; then looked at Cinthie's with the air of one measuring with the eye.

"Well, perhaps it is!" she acceded.

"It's bigger'n anyone's," continued Cinthie, even more bragfully. "Who are you married to?"

This was an awkward and surprising question, but Poppy countered.

"Why should you think I am married, Cinthie?"

"Everybody's married," was the swift response. "I'm married to Mammie, and Mammie's married to Daddie, and Daddie's married to the moon, and the moon's married to the sun, and the sun's married to the sea, and the sea's married to the stars, and the stars are married to the stripes—Daddie says so. Let me sit on your lap, I'm as tired as a bed."

Poppy lifted her up, and Cinthie, lolling against the white, lacy dress, gazed for a space into the lilac eyes. She then carefully selected a long streak of her own hair and put it into her mouth, thoughtfully sucking it as she continued her remarks:

"I think you had better marry Karri," she said. "I like Karri better'n anyone, except Daddie. His face is bigger than anybody's."

"Is Karri a man, then?"

"Yes; but he's got two women's names, isn't that funny? One's Karri and the other's Eve. I'll show you his photo."

She ran to the other side of the room, grabbed a frame from a table, and brought it back triumphantly.

"There!" she cried, and dumped it into Poppy's lap.

Poppy stared down into the pictured face of the man she loved.

Mrs. Portal reappeared.

"Oh, Cinthie, I've heard all about it from Sarah, and I'm very angry with you. I knew you had been doing something specially wicked. You're a petite mÉchante."

"Pas!" said Cinthie stoutly.

"You are. Go away, now, to the nursery. I'm very angry with you."

Cinthie retreated, bitterly reasseverating:

"Pas! pas! Pas petite mÉchante! Pas!"

Clem observed the photograph in Poppy's lap.

"She has been showing you her hero—the hero of us all. Everyone in this house genuflects before Eve Carson."

And so at last Poppy knew the name of the idol before which she, too, worshipped!

"By the way, did Cinthie mention that his face is bigger than anyone's? That is the final point of beauty with Cinthie—to have a big face. Well, Evelyn Carson's face is not so big, but his ways are, and his ideas, and those things make for bigness of soul——"

Poppy said nothing: only she prayed with all her soul that Clem would continue to talk upon this subject; and Clem, looking dreamily at the girl, but obviously not thinking of her, responded to the prayer.

"He is a wonderful person, and we all adore him, even though our judgment sometimes asks us why, and our ears sometimes hear the untoward things that are not compatible with reverence," she was smiling. "I daresay you have heard of him."

"Yes," said Poppy, in an even voice.

"Most people have, by now—he's been one of the foremost figures in South African life for years, one of the many Irishmen who have left their native land, burning with the sense of England's tyranny, only to go and strive for England's fame and glory in some other part of the world. We met him first on the Rand, where all the interesting blackguards forgather at some time or another; but he was always in trouble there, for, you know, Oom Paul doesn't approve of Imperialistic Irishmen, and invariably contrives to make anyone of the kind exceedingly uncomfortable. Karri Carson has been a marked man, watched by the Secret Service, and his every action and every word reported, with the result, of course, that he has said and done many daringly foolish things, and nearly been deported over the border once or twice. Fortunately, there are more interesting places than the Rand, and there is always a rumpus going on in some quarter of Africa, and he has been in all the rumpuses of the last fifteen years—Uganda—Matabelel and—anywhere where there was anything in the wind and where real men were wanted. He's earned the V.C. a dozen times, though he's only got the D.S.O. But it is not love of honours that is his moving spirit—just an Irishman's lust for being in the "redmost hell of the fight." Between intervals of active service he has gone off into the wild deeps of Africa, where no one has ever been before—discovered a new quadruped and a new tribe of natives. The Royal Institute is dying to trim him up with blue ribbons and exhibit him in London, but Africa has kissed him on the mouth, and he will not leave her." Clem drew a long breath. "I can't think what we shall all do now that he is gone," she finished sadly.

"Gone!" Poppy wondered what kept her voice so calm while her soul cried out within her.

"Yes, gone away to Borapota: a little red-hot spot in the red-hot heart of Africa. It is very conveniently situated for us—not too far from our lovely Mombassa harbour—and it is very rich and fertile, and in every way desirable, and the Imperial Unionists think we ought to own it, and the Liberal Little Englanders think we ought to get it—without spilling a drop of blood or saying a single bad word to anybody. And Evelyn Carson has gone to get it for us sans Maxims and sans men and sans anything much besides a high heart and a squad of boys who have been everywhere with him. He has gone on a peaceful expedition into the midst of one of the fiercest tribes in Africa to barter or bargain for Concessions that will eventually extend the Empire by sixty thousand square miles, and add a country crammed with coal and iron and ivory and a dozen other lovely things to the pink part of the map. And he has gone without even official permission, so that if he succeeds—why, hurrah! for the Union Jack and everything under it! And if he fails—only another reputation buried in an African grave! No one will care a rap, and everyone will forget him except the people who love him. The only thing I care to think of in the matter is, that the Borapotans are said to be extremely intelligent and reasonable men, who will make splendid soldiers—and then everyone knows what a way Evelyn Carson has with all natives! The Zulus and the Basutos, and all the war-loving tribes, simply adore him! Still, there's no denying the fact that he's gone with his life in his hand. Even if the natives prove to be sweet and reasonable, there are half a dozen other deaths lurking in every mile of the Interior."

"Has no other white man gone with him?" Poppy heard herself asking.

"No one except his boys will go with him once he starts on the unbeaten track—but our friends the Caprons have sailed with him as far as Mombassa, and Mrs. Capron declares they will accompany him inland, too, until he drives them back. Of course, he's sure to do that before they reach the danger zone—but isn't it intrepid of her?"

Poppy did not know what she answered. Darkness engulfed her spirit, almost her senses.

"They started about a month ago, and I am terribly lonely without them all. Mrs. Capron and her husband will be back within three months, I expect, but we feel—everybody who knows—very anxious about Eve Carson, more especially because he is very susceptible to malarial fever. He had a frightful attack about six weeks before he left; he was found raving in a rickshaw one night, and for nearly a fortnight afterwards was practically delirious. However, no sooner was he out of danger than he took up his preparations again, and in spite of the doctors, he sailed on the date he had originally fixed."... Mrs. Portal looked extremely mournful, but presently she added: "We are so thankful to think that Mrs. Capron will be with him for a while, because her husband has often had fever, and she thoroughly understands it."

"I must go home," said Poppy suddenly; and Clementine, roused from her reverie by the strangely sounding voice, stared at the girl.

"You look quite ill, dear," she said gently. "I am so sorry; I have been wandering on, about all the things that interest me!... Will you lie down a little while? or shall I ring for some wine?"

"No, no, I must go home ... it is nothing ... I feel odd sometimes ..." she spoke vaguely, but she stood up, arranging her veil and pulling on her gloves. Clem came with her through the garden, and they stood for a moment with the low double gate between them, bidding each other good-bye. Mrs. Portal kissed her and told her to come again soon, but the girl answered nothing. Suddenly a visionary look passed like a veil across Clementine Portal's face.

"Poppy," she said in a dreamy, yet intent way; "there will be deep waters around you soon! ... you will need courage, resolution, and silence ... those are a woman's greatest friends in this world ... but, in so far as one human being can count on another—count on me, too, for a friend."

Already the swirl of the waters was in Poppy's ears, but the kind, brave message came to her like a friendly oar in the dark sea of trouble. For a moment she clung to the older woman's hand like a child afraid; then they parted. Poppy walked away through the vapoury, delicate light shed by a slender fragment of moon, and Clem Portal stayed staring abstractedly over the gate. It was three years before they met again.