"Here is a boy with a rickshaw; you had better let him help you home. You are certainly ill."
He rose easily, and stood up like a well man, but his voice was hoarse and vague.
"Ah, thanks, Mrs. Capron—you are always kind. I shall be all right in the morning. Good-night!" He went away muttering, followed by the rickshaw boy. Poppy stood like a stone woman.
Later, she heard the gates clang and the rickshaw bell begin to tinkle down the long hill. Then she broke into dry sobbing, clutching at her throat with both hands, like one suffocating. At last some wild words burst from her lips.
"Oh, I could kill myself to-night!... but first I will kill that woman Loraine!"
CHAPTER VII
A storm shook the house next day when Luce Abinger returned. Kykie's shrill crescendo, expostulations and denials, were smothered like little frothy waves in the breakers of her master's wrath. Once the words "key" and "gate" came floating up the staircase and reached Poppy where she lay on her pillows, as she had lain until dawn, staring at the walls and the ceiling with dry eyes, and her pale lips took a wry and bitter curve. Later, pandemonium was extended to the yard and stables; then, after all these voices there was peace.
Behind her locked door Poppy was vaguely thankful for safety from Abinger's fury and tyrannical questioning; and not all Kykie's cajoleries and threats could make her emerge.
"Go away, Kykie. I'm not well. I want nothing," she repeated monotonously to all demands, until at last Kykie, from sheer weariness, obeyed.