For a good half-hour Mr. Iglesias stood there. At intervals the doors of the stage entrance swung open, causing a movement of interest and comment among the crowd. One by one hansoms and four-wheelers, obtaining fares, rattled away over the stones. Yet the Lady of the Windswept Dust tarried. It grew late, and Iglesias greatly desired her coming, greatly desired to speak with her, and speaking to find approximate solution, at least, of some of the problems which lay so heavy upon his mind. Meanwhile, the crowd melted and vanished, leaving him alone in the blurred yellowish light beneath the low-hanging roof of impenetrable gloom, save for the haunting presence of some few of those terrible human birds of prey. He was about to turn away also, not particularly relishing the remaining company, when, with a rush, Poppy was beside him, in stately garments of black velvet and glimmering tissue of silver; her head and shoulders draped with something of daring and magnificence, in her blue-purple jewelled dragon-embroidered scarf. She caught Iglesias' right hand in both of hers and held it a moment against her breast. And during that brief interval he registered the fact that, notwithstanding her beauty, the force of her personality and richness of her dress, she did not look out of place in this somewhat cut-throat alley, with the questionable sights and sounds of midnight London all about her; but vivid, exultant, true daughter of great cities, fearless manipulator of the very varied opportunities they offer, past-master, for joy and sorrow, in the curious arts they teach. "Get into the brougham, dear man," she said, "and let me talk. There, put up the window on the traffic side. I have been in the liveliest worry about you. Had the house turned out of windows to find you--and gave things in general the deuce of a time.--The brougham's comfortable, isn't it? Fallowfeild's jobbed it for the winter for me.--All the same I played like an angel, out of pure desperation, thinking you might be ill. I made the audience cry big, big tears, bless 'em. And it wasn't the part--not a bit of it. It was you, just simply you.--And then I dawdled talking to Antony Hammond about some lines in the second act I want altered, so as to let myself down easy before digesting the disappointment of driving back to Bletchworth Mansions alone. I wanted so very badly to have you see me. Beloved and most faithless of beings, why the mischief didn't you come?"