"Oh, Poppy!" cried Clem, with pitiful voice, and they all drew round the pale girl. She did not speak for a time—just stood there in the light streaming from the drawing-room windows, white and still; and presently some tears fell down her face. Then she said:
"Poor Miss Allendner. Shall we put her to bed, in my bedroom, Clem? She is worn out!"
The women went away. At the gate Bramham said to Portal:
"And there is worse to come.... That crazy Allendner turkey was shrieking round the fire like a lunatic ... imploring the crowd to save the writings of Eve Destiny, the South African writer—everybody knows who she is now ... the place is humming like a beehive with the news ... and it will be in all the news-rags in the morning.... She'll be more broken up over that than anything ... for reasons of her own she didn't want it known.... Oh, it's a hell of a country, Portal."
This thing was news also to Portal. Mrs Portal being that lovely thing, a close woman, he knew nothing of Poppy's identity with Eve Destiny.
CHAPTER XXVII
WHEN Carson left the Portals he did not go home. He turned his face towards the higher heights of the Berea, and those surmounted, tramped on—on past darkened blind-drawn, lonely houses, and long stretches of gardens and vacant lands, until he came at last to the cliff-side that overlooks Umgeni. Afterwards he tramped and tramped, without knowing or caring where he went, but always with the light silent feet of the athlete. Irishmen are natural athletes. Also, if they are real Irishmen, that is, born and brought up through boyhood in their own land, they have learned to play "Handball"; and so their feet are as light as their hands are swift to feel and their eyes to observe. For a man whose lot must be cast in the sinuous paths of Africa—jungle or money-market—there could be no better training than constant play in his youthful days in an Irish ball-court, for it teaches quickness of wit and limb more than any game ever played, as well as developing both sides of the body, thus making for perfect symmetry. Carson had a passion for the game, and he went hot with anger when he thought how neglected and ignored it was amongst the fine sports of the world. "Pilota," the Spanish national game, has some resemblance to "Handball," and is played by men of all classes in Spain. But in Ireland with the exception here and there of a gentleman enthusiast, who has learnt his love of the pastime at his college, only the poor fellows play it now, and those usually the roughest of their class, who are obliged to depend for their "courts" on the proprietors of public-houses.
All young Irish boys love "Handball," however, and Carson had often thought it a wistful thing to see little ragged chaps watching a game with eyes alight, holding the coats of players, on the chance of getting a chance to play themselves when the "court" was vacated.
In the Protectorate he had established, he meant to build "ball-courts" and teach the fine stalwart Borapotans to play the finest game in the world.