The canary, persuaded by Poppy’s song that it was broad daylight, was awake and splashing in his bath.  Again in Poppy’s mind (how unnecessarily) he stood for the respectabilities and proprieties; he was an understudy for Tiny of the dirty tea-gown.

“Going?”

“Yes.  I must go.”

“Wait.”  She rose and held him by the collar of his coat, a lapel in each small hand.  He grasped her wrists by an instinctive movement of self-preservation, and gently slackened her hold.  She gave his coat a little shake.  “What’s the matter with you, Rickets?  You’re such a howling swell.”

Her eyes twinkled in the old way, and he smiled in spite of himself.

“Say, I’m a little nuisance, Rickets, say I’m a little nuisance.”

“You are a little nuisance.

“A d——­d little nuisance.”

“A d——­d little nuisance.”

“Ah, now you feel better, don’t you?  Poor Ricky-ticky, don’t you be afraid.  It’s only a little nuisance.  It’ll never be a big one.  It’s done growing.  That is, I won’t rag you any more, if you’ll tell me one thing—­oh, what a whopper of a sigh!—­Promise me you’ll pay Dicky off.”

“All right.  I’ll pay him.”

“To-morrow?”

“To-morrow, then.  Don’t, Poppy.  I—­I’ve got a sore throat.”  For Poppy, standing on tip-toe, had made an effort to embrace him.

“I sy, if you blush like that, Rickets, you’ll have a fit.  Poor dear! Did I crumple his nice little stylish collar!”

He endured while she smoothed out an imaginary wrinkle, her head very much on one side.  “You see, Razors, we’ve been such chums.  Whatever happens, I want to be all right and straight with you.”

“What should happen?”

“Oh, anything.”  Again there was that troubling of the bright shallows of her eyes.  “You remember larst time you were here?” (his shudder told her that he remembered well).  “I did try to send you away, didn’t I?”

“As far as I can remember, you did.”

“What did you think I did it for?”

“I suppose, because you wanted me to go.”

“Stupid!  I did it because I wanted you to stay.”  She looked into his eyes and the light went out of her own; among its paint and powder her audacity lay dead.  It was as if she saw on his face the shadow of Lucia Harden, and knew that her hour had come.

She met it laughing.  “Good-night, Ricky-ticky.”

As he took her hand he muttered something about being “fearfully sorry.”

“Sorry?” Poppy conjured up a poor flickering ghost of her inimitable wink.  “The champagne was bad, dear.  Don’t you worry.”

When he had left her, she flung herself face downwards on the divan.  “Oh, dicky, will you hold your horrid little tongue?” But as she sobbed aloud, the canary, symbol of invincible Propriety, rocked on his perch and shook over her his piercing and exultant song.