"He may go to the Club, but he won't let anyone come here. He has given me strict orders that no one is to come in the front gates; they are to be locked and he will keep the key. Everything is to come by the back entrance and that, too, is to be locked."
Poppy's face clouded.
"Oh Kykie! I wouldn't mind if we were back in the old farm with the free veldt all round us; but to be shut up in a house and garden—(and with Luce's devils," she added to herself),—"even if it is a lovely garden!"
Kykie's face expressed lugubrious sympathy, but she held out no hope.
"You'll have to amuse yourself like you did before, with your music, and your reading, and writing, and be a good child," she said.
"But I'm not a child any longer. Can't you see how I've grown up?"
"I can see that you won't have to go and find milk-cactus to rub on your breasts any more," said Kykie, eyeing her with the calm candour of the native.
Poppy coloured slightly, and made occasion to throw a corner of the quilt over her bare shoulders and arms.
"For the sake of grace you needn't mind me," remarked Kykie. "Haven't I watched you many a moonlight night stealing down to where it grew by the old spruit?"
The girl's colour deepened; she gave a wistful little side glance at the old woman.