"I've a great mind to persuade Nick to go with you—and to take me too," said the woman, laughing a little.
"Yes, why don't you? 'Better a bright companion on a weary way, than a horse-litter,' you know. But it would be too rough a journey for you, I'm afraid."
The man's voice sent all the blood in Poppy's body rustling to her ears. She burnt and glowed at the thought of his nearness. Now she knew that it was Destiny who had walked with her. Now she knew that peace would never be hers so long as this man's feet trod the earth.
The rickshaw appeared to be filled with something resembling yellow foam—billows and billows of it fell everywhere, even upon the shafts and the folded hood behind. The moment the bearer stood still, the man called Billy came forward and put out his hand to the woman in the rickshaw, and she regally descended. The watching girl, through eyes dim with jealous pain and anger, seeking nothing but the dark face that came after, still saw that the woman was very beautiful and recognised in her the heroine of her childhood's days. It was, indeed, Mrs. Nick Capron!
She also was cloakless, with magnificent bare arms and shoulders gleaming white above the rippling waves of yellow chiffon. Her hair rippled and waved too, and shone in masses on her head, and diamonds twinkled in it. She seemed almost too bright a vision for the naked eye.
"And what did you think of that for a play?" asked the sullen-faced one as he opened the gate.
"Enchanting," said she vivaciously. "So full of introspection and retrospection, and all that, and——"
"Yes, and mighty little circumspection," was the ready answer, and they passed in, laughing.
The last man, moving with casual deliberation, came slowly to the side-walk, and stood there speaking to the bearer, a powerful Zulu, as he paid him, asking if he had found the pull uphill too hard. The boy laughed in response and shook his winged arms boastfully, saying:
"Icona."