Every ornament she possessed had been burnt except a jewelled pendant she always wore round her neck, and her big malachite brooch; but now on the third finger of her left hand she wore a ring—a great, gleaming emerald, which had arrived in a little box that morning from Johannesburg.
She had seen Clem looking at it with wondering eyes, but as yet she had not been able to explain, for Clem that day was rather more especially busy than usual. During breakfast she had been flitting in and out constantly to her husband's bedroom. Portal had been suffering from a bad attack of slump fever, and instead of doing the "camel-trick," and feeding on his hump, he required a special menu which kept the cook and his wife busy. He had been more or less confined to his room for three days. It is true that he made wonderful recoveries in the evenings, and rising up donned glad raiment and went to the Club to dine. But when the morning papers arrived he was worse than ever.
The moment breakfast was over Clem had flown to prepare the drawing-room for a committee-meeting of ladies interested in the fate of fifty able-bodied domestics arriving by the following week's mail-boat.
So Cinthie and Poppy had taken to the bush for shelter. For since Poppy's identity had become known, everyone was anxious to examine her closely, to see what colour her eyes were, whether her hair was real, and how she behaved generally in the strong light of notoriety which enveloped her. The feeling about her had entirely changed. People said they understood now why she should be so strange-looking, and alone. She was a genius—the newspapers said so! And as such they opened their arms to her, and their doors, and bade her enter. But instead, she invariably fled with Cinthie into the bush.
Cinthie was six now, and growing tall. Her brown holland overall was a mere frill about her neck, and looked anæmic beside the deeper colouring of her legs. Her sailor-hat hung at the back of her by its elastic, and in the corner of her mouth she thoughtfully sucked the end of one of the long streaks of hair. In her fingers she held a large and discoloured lump of dough, which she was kneading and pinching with the busy concentration of a beetle rolling a mis bolitje. Her nine dolls were seated, some against a flat rock, some against the tree, but all gazing stonily at their mother, except the banshee, who lay prone on her back, her arms extended as if to embrace the universe, her beady eyes fixed revengefully on Heaven.
Poppy, sharing the trunk of the tree with the dolls, leaned lazily peeling an orange, which had kindly dropped from the branches above. Other oranges were lying about on the short grey-green grass.
"What are you going to do with that dough, Cinthie?" she asked.
"Make pudding."
"Who for?"
"For my chil'ren." She dipped her fingers into a doll's tea-cup full of water, which stood at the elbow of the banshee, and continued to knead; the dough now clung to her fingers in long, elastic threads, and her face showed a deep and vivid interest in her occupation.