"Practically—my mother was partly Irish."
Dominic Iglesias looked away to those densely wooded slopes of Sheen and Roehampton, against the purple-green gloom of which the home signals of Barnes Station—hard white lines and angles tipped with scarlet and black—stood out like the gigantic characters of some strange alphabet. The air was sweet with the scent of new-mown hay. The birds flirted up and down the hawthorn bushes and furze brakes. It was all very charming; yet that same emptiness and distrust of the future were very present to Iglesias. He forgot all about his companion, aware only that those two unbidden guests, Old Age and Loneliness, stood close beside him, claiming harbourage and entertainment.
"Ah! your mother," Poppy said slowly, with the slightest perceptible inflection of mockery. "And she is alive still?"
Dominic Iglesias turned upon the poor Lady of the Windswept Dust fiercely. She had come too close, come from her proper place—were not her lips painted?—behind the footlights, and laid her hands upon that which was holy. He was filled with unreasoning anger towards her—anger towards himself, too, that he should have departed from his habitual silence and reticence, submitted to be cross-questioned, and listened to her feather-headed patter so long. He rose to his feet, for the moment young, alert, full of a pride at once militant and protective.
"God forbid!" he said sternly. "Dear saint and martyr, she is safe from all misreading at last. She is dead."
He stood a moment trying to choke down his anger before addressing her again.
"It is time I should go," he said presently. "I think we have talked enough."
But Poppy St. John presented a singular appearance. All the audacity had departed from her. She sat huddled together, looking very small and desolate; her eyes—the one noble feature of her face—swimming with tears.
"No, no; don't go," she cried in tones of childlike entreaty. "Why should you go? I like you, and I meant no harm. I've had the beastliest day, and meeting you was a let-up. You did me good somehow. Cappadocia was quite right in taking to you. I only wanted to know about you because—well, you are different. Pshaw, don't tell me. I know what I am talking about. You're straight. You're good right through."
The words were poured forth so rapidly that Iglesias hardly gathered the exact purport of them. But one thing was clear to him—namely, that this frivolous and meretricious being must be human after all, since she could suffer.