"Why, you let me lend you some before! And were unusual enough to pay it back." Smiling broadly, he added: "I never had such a thing happen to me before!" But she would not smile. The subject seemed an unfortunate one, for she did not regain her joyous serenity during the rest of the interview.
He went home wrapped in cogitation, turning over in his mind the name of every man in the place on the chance of its being the name of the culprit. Abinger's name, amongst others, certainly came up for consideration, but was instantly dismissed as an impossibility, for he had plainly given everyone to understand that—after the time of his disappearance from the Rand, until his readvent in Durban on the day Bramham had met him coming off the Mail-boat—he had been travelling abroad, and there was no reason to disbelieve this statement. Moreover, Bramham was aware of other facts in Abinger's private life which made it seem absolutely impossible that he could be the villain of Rosalind Chard's tale.
The day Poppy moved to her new home, Clem Portal was the first person to visit her and wish her luck and happiness there.
They took tea in the largest room in the house, which was to be Poppy's working-room and study. It was long and low, with two bay-windows, and the walls had been distempered in pale soft grey. The floor was dark and polished, and the only strong note of colour in the room a rose-red Persian rug before the quaint fireplace. The chintzes Poppy had come upon with great joy in one of the local shops: ivory-white with green ivy leaves scattered over them—a great relief from the everlasting pink roses of the usual chintz. The grey walls were guileless of pictures, except for the faithful blue Hope which overhung the fireplace above vases full of tall fronds of maidenhair-fern, and some full-length posters of the Beardsley school in black-and-white wash. Poppy's writing-table was in one window, and on the wall where she could always see it while at work was a water-colour of a little boy standing in a field of corn and poppies. The tea-table was in the other window. She and Clem sat looking at the blue bay flapping and rippling under the afternoon sunlight, with the long bluff ridge sleeping sullenly beyond.
"You've found the sweetest place in Durban," said Clem. "Whenever I feel like a mealie—a green mealie—which, alas! is very often, I shall sneak down here to 'simplify, simplify.' While you work I'll sit in the sun in the Yogi attitude and triumphantly contemplate eternity and jelly-fish."
Later, she said:
"Mary Capron wanted to come too, but I told her I must have you all to myself to-day. I'm afraid she was rather hurt, but ... I was not sure whether you liked her, Poppy. I do hope you are going to, dear, for I love her, and we shall be a triangle with sore corners, if you don't."
Poppy was dreaming with her tea-cup in her lap, and the glitter of the bay in her eyes.
"Do you think three women ever get on well together?" she asked evasively. "There is always one out."