The second gong had not yet sounded. She sat down at the piano and ran her fingers up and down the keys by way of bracing up her nerves.
"Luce," she began, "I hope you are in a good temper, for I want to talk to you very seriously about something."
He gave a croaking sort of laugh.
"Oh certainly. I am at my very b-best. It is only necessary for you to p-play an Irish melody to have me p-purring at your feet. Il ne manquerait plus que ça."
This was inauspicious, but Poppy refused to be daunted; and the gong sounding at this moment, she rose and put her hand upon his arm, saying cheerfully:
"That's right, come along then, we'll talk it over in the dining-room."
His smile was grim. They sat down to dinner, and Babiyaan and Umzibu, arrayed in white, hovered over them like guardian angels. Abinger ate little and said nothing. Only when the boys were not in the room he fixed his eyes on Poppy in a curious way that caused in her a sensation of indescribable discomfort and annoyance. Once, for some unknown reason, she found herself remembering how she had covered herself up with the bed quilt from Kykie's eyes, and wishing that she had it round her now. She had never felt like that in a low gown before, and she could not understand it at all. For a time it quite unfitted her for the task she had in hand, but the idea occurring to her that this was perhaps what Luce intended, she plucked up heart again, and with the fruit fired her first shot.
"Luce, what are you going to do about getting me a chaperon?"
He gave a little jerk of his fruit-knife, so that she knew that he was taken unawares, otherwise he remained undisturbed by what she supposed must be something in the nature of a bomb-shell going off under his nose. He did not, however, proceed with the business of peeling his peach, and on giving him a swift side-glance, she found that he was smiling at her. Now, his smile was at no time an alluring affair, but when it was field day for his devils——!
"Am I not a sufficiently p-proper and responsible p-person to have the care of your young white s-soul?" he inquired blandly.