Many of the houses she passed stood hidden away in thick gardens, with nothing to indicate their presence but glimmering lights and voices, or sometimes music, or the clank of dinner plates. But if sound attracted her, Poppy was not deterred by gates or gravelled paths. With a fleet foot, a sweet tongue, and an excellent imagination, there is little to fear in forbidden gardens, or anywhere else for that matter. The chief thing is to have the bump of adventure sufficiently developed!
Sometimes she found that there were others abroad for adventure also—some of these of a sociable temperament most inconvenient. Once a magnificent person in evening-dress followed her so persistently, that she was driven at last to the expedient of walking under the glare of a street lamp with her shoulders humped and her skirts held high enough to display to all who took an interest in the matter a pair of knock-kneed legs and horribly pigeon-toed feet. The device worked like magic; she was followed no further.
On another occasion she allowed a youthful Romeo to sit beside her on a bench, only to discover that she was afflicted with a painful sniffing cold—about forty sniffs to the minute. She was soon left sole occupant of the bench.
There were other contretemps. Once her evening out cost her sixpence, and she was very much annoyed, for her stock of sixpences was low. Abinger paid all bills and did not expect her to have any need for money. It was her habit, if she saw a native policeman eye her suspiciously, to step quietly up to him with a most grand air and tell him to send her a rickshaw when he reached the main road, as she was in a hurry and could not wait for the car. The minute he was out of sight she would scud down a side street. But upon this occasion a rickshaw was so close at hand that she was obliged to take it and boldly direct the boy to Sophie's front gate. Arrived there, she ran full into a man coming out. The light from a passing car showed her his face, dark and dissipated, but keen. He was carrying his hat in his hand, as men do on hot nights, and she observed that his hair was parted down the centre with a curl on either side.
"Ah! What Luce calls a German from Jerusalem!" was her comment. Incidentally she smelled a smell she was familiar with, from daily contact with Sophie and sheets of MSS. This made her certain that it was the redoubtable "Brookie" himself whom she had encountered.
Often as she glided like a wraith through Sophie's garden the sound of laughter and the flavour of smoke came to her through the trees, or Sophie's voice, outraging the gentle night by some sentimental ballad.
One late February evening, when all the world was steeped in silver light, Poppy's heart seemed to her to be lying very still in her breast. As she walked over the trembling moonlight shadows a curious feeling of happiness stole across her.
"Am I at peace already?" she asked herself wonderingly at last. "Has my soul forgotten what I did to it, and how I found it only to give it away to a man who called me by another woman's name?"
It must have been late, for carriages and cars passed her, bearing homewards people who had been to the theatre or dining out. She caught scraps of conversation concerning the play, and little intimate remarks about people were flung freely to her upon the night wind. But her ears heeded nothing, for she had a companion who singularly engrossed her attention. She believed it was herself she walked with—a new-found, detached, curiously-contented self. She did not know that it was Destiny who had her by the hand.