Then once more the sheets were tucked in, the mosquito-net arranged, and a kiss blown through it.
"Good-night, Pansy-face!"
"G'night, Red-rose!" responded Cinthie ardently.
"Good-night, Gold-heart!"
Cinthie thought laboriously for a few seconds, struggling for a fitting response. At last, just as Poppy reached the door, she shouted breathlessly:
"G'night; White-soul!"
At that Poppy gave a cry and ran back once more and hugged her.
When at length she tore herself away from the warm, loving little arms and went alone to the drawing-room, heavy tears were splashing down her cheeks and her lips were like a wistful, sorrowing child's. She stood in the open window and stared out at the beauty of the night. Above in the solemn purple sky was the Cross, picked out in scarlet stars. Far below twinkled the town lights, and at quick intervals the Bluff Lighthouse sent long, sweeping, golden lines across the bay, revealing for an instant the shadowy fabrics of ships and sailing craft lying safe in dock.
Out at sea a great liner steamed slowly to anchorage, hundreds of lights flashing from her three tiers, and presently the rattle of her cable through the hawse-pipes floated distinctly up to the heights, the throbbing in her breast died away, and she lay rocking softly like some great tired bird nested at last.
In the dim valley a Zulu boy, heart-hungry for his home-kraal, was making music of an infinite sweetness and melancholy on that oldest instrument in the world, a reed-flute. The sound brought further tears to Poppy, and a burning in her throat. It seemed the voice of her heart wailing, because she had never been a child, because "earth was so beautiful and Heaven so far"; because she loved a man and was beloved of him and darkness lay between them! At that, she longed passionately with every sense and nerve in her for Evelyn Carson. She ached in the very bones and blood of her for a sight or sound of him. If he would only come——!