He never let his mind dwell on those dreadful syllables any longer than he could help; he never thought of her as Poppy Grace at all.

He thought of her in undefined, extraordinary ways; now as some nameless aerial spirit, unaccountably wandering about in a world too gross for it; and now as the Young Joy, the fugitive actuality.

To-night, after brandy and soda, his imagination possessed itself of Poppy, and wove round her the glory and gloom of the world.

It saw in her, not the incarnation of the rosy moment, but the eternal sacrifice of woman, the tragedy of her abasement, her obedience to the world.

Which, when he came to think of it, was really very clever of his imagination.
Meanwhile Poppy was behaving, as she had behaved for the last fifty nights, like a lunatic humming top.