"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: