At the top of the Berea Hill, not far from her own gate, she stopped a moment under the deep shadow of some wayside trees. All in black she seemed part of the shadow, and she stood very still, for she heard rickshaws coming up the hill, and she thought she would let them pass before she essayed the glare of a street lamp a few yards ahead. As it happened, the first rickshaw stopped at a double white gate which was full under the light of the lamp. A man descended, turned, and held out his hand, and a woman stepped daintily down. She was a thin, slim woman, wrapless, in a black satin gown with silvery sleeves. She looked as interesting, though not as wicked, as the Notorious Mrs. Ebbsmith. In the lamp-light her hair, which was dark brown, appeared to have seven red lights in it. Her face was neither beautiful nor pretty, but well-bred and harmonious, with a sort of glimmering gaiety about the eyes. Poppy instantly recognised her as the woman she had seen on the day of her first arrival in Durban and had subsequently ascertained to be Mrs. Portal. She was carrying on a desultory conversation with the man, and they continued it as he stood feeling in his pockets for money for the boy.
"Why don't you flirt with her yourself, Billy—Bill?" said she. "You would be good for her and she wouldn't do you any harm!"
He was a heavily-built, sullenly-handsome man, who looked as though he had never said a good-tempered thing in his life.
Poppy was astounded when he blithely answered:
"Darling, when there is only one woman in a man's life, he can't convincingly imply to the woman he is with that she is the only one in the world——"
Mrs. Portal fell to laughing.
"Billy, you fraud! You know you always carry along on top-ropes when I'm not there."
"Not with Mary," the man asseverated. "Mary would want too much of a deuce of a lot of convincing. She would smell a rat."
"Don't be subtle, Billy," cried Mrs. Portal, laughing and going in at the gates.
The other rickshaw drew near, and "Billy" waited to receive it. As it passed Poppy, two scraps of conversation floated to her.