"Well, my name is not Rosalind Chard, nor Lucy Grey, nor Eve Destiny, nor Anne Latimer, nor Helen Chester, though I have called myself by all of these at some time in my life. My real name is Poppy Destin ... 'an Irish vagabond born in Africa.'"
"What do these things matter?"
"My life, for the last three years, has been a struggle in deep waters to keep myself from I know not what deeper deeps——"
"I have always maintained that a woman has a right to use whatever weapons come to hand in the fight with life, Poppy."
"So have I," Poppy laughed discordantly, "and my weapons have been—lies. Oh, how I have lied, Clem! All the tears of all the years cannot wash me clean of the lies I've told ... I feel you shivering ... you hate me!"
"No, Poppy—only I can't understand why! What could have been worth it?"
"Ah! you think nothing is worth blackening your soul for, Clem! That is where you will not understand."
"I will try to understand, dear one ... tell me. One thing I am sure of, it was never wanton. You had some miserable reason."
"Miserable! I am misery's own!" she cried passionately. "She marked me with a red cross before I was born.... Well! let me tell you ... have you ever noticed the look of candour and innocence about my face, Clem? More especially my eyes?... all lies! I am not candid; I am not innocent ... I never was ... even when I was twelve I could understand the untold tale of passion in an old black woman's eyes ... she had only one breast, and she showed me that as a reason for having no home and children of her own.... I understood without being told, that in the sweet hour of her life the cup was dashed from her lips ... her lover left her when he found her malformed.... Immediately I began to sing a pæan of praise to the gods that my lover would never go lacking the gift of my breasts. I made a song—all Africa knows it now:
"'I thank thee, Love, for two round breasts——'"