"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. "Don't go," she repeated. "I'm miserable. I'll explain. I'll tell you. Just sit down again. It would be awfully kind. You see, I've been expecting a friend. It was all-important I should see him to-day, because there were things to be said. I've been awake half the night screwing up my courage to saying them. And then he never turned up. I got nerves waiting hour after hour--anybody would, waiting like that. And I began to imagine every kind of pestilent disaster." Poppy swallowed a little and dabbed her pocket-handkerchief against her eyes. "I shall be all right in a minute," she went on. "Do sit down, please. You say you're nobody and have nothing to do, so you can't very well be in a hurry. I am like this sometimes. It's awfully silly, but I can't help it. Some rotten trifle sets me off, and then I can't stop myself. I begin to go over all my worst luck.--Doesn't it occur to you there's no earthly good in standing? It obliges me to talk loud, and it's stupid to take all Barnes Common into our confidence. Thanks; that's very nice of you.--Well, you see when I'm like his, the flood-gates of memory are opened--which sounds pretty enough, but the prettiness is strictly limited to the sound for most of us, at least as far as my experience goes. The water is generally a bit dirty, and there are too many dead things floating about in it; and, when they reel by, as the current takes them, they turn and seem to struggle and come half alive." She paused, hitching the embroidered dragons up about her shoulders.