A man, coming very softly and wonderingly across the grass lawns, thought he saw a slim beam of moonlight lying there, and gave a startled exclamation when it sprang up and flickered into a cluster of tall shrubs.
"That was an odd thing!" he said to himself. "I'll swear I saw.... And yet there is no moon to-night!"
He stood long, looking into the darkness of the bushes until at last he imagined that he saw a moonbeam, shaped graciously like a woman's face, looking back at him. But when he approached it retreated. He stepped back again and it returned.
"H'm!" he remarked; "I must have a bad attack when I see moonbeam faces on a moonless night!"
The wedge of moonlight in the bushes seemed to him to give out two little gleams at that.
"This is a fool's game," said the man aloud. "I must go behind these bushes and see where this thing begins and ends."
Instantly the moonbeam disappeared altogether.
"I thought so," he muttered. "Then it is a woman, and I'm not delirious yet, though by the Lord my head feels.... I wonder if she will come back if I behave myself very nicely.... I'd like to see that face a little closer ... it looked.... Is it possible that I've made a mistake and this is not Portal's place at all? Perhaps I've found my way into Brookfield's zenana! It was something like the gate Bram pointed out to me yesterday.... But what am I doing here, by the way?... I wish someone would tell me ... perhaps she will ... how can I get her to come back? ... it might be a good idea to light a cigar and let her see my guileless features.... I think I'll sit down too ... it's odd how queer I feel!" He sat down in the grass among the fallen stars, a tall, powerful figure in a light-grey lounge suit, and taking out a cigar he carefully lighted it, making as long a process of the lighting as possible. Then he threw away the remains of the match and looked up at the bushes, but his dazzled eyes could see no wedge of moonlight in the Egyptian darkness. It was there, however. And by the time the match had burnt his fingers, Poppy had been able to take a long absorbing look at what seemed to her the most wonderful face she had ever seen. She believed that in that short time she had read all that should, and should not, be written on the face of a man—strength, weakness, tenderness, tyranny, gentleness, bitterness, cynicism, gaiety, melancholy, courage, despair. But how came he here? How had he found his way through a locked gate? Was it possible that he had come through the boys' compound? ... or by way of her secret hole in the summer-house? ... but he had not come from either of these directions. What did he want?
In the meantime the man was holding his cigar between his knees and gazing in her direction.
"O moon of my desire that knows no wane," he gently misquoted, "come out and talk to me!"