you in
Paris, for instance, and we should never have had those talks.... And--and
there's a lot more reasons--I shall tell you another time--about Madame
Piriac and so on. Now do say you aren't vexed!"

"I think you've been splendid," he said, with enthusiasm. "I think the
girls of to-day _are_ splendid! I've been a regular old fogey, that's what
it is."

"Now there's one thing I want you not to do," Audrey proceeded. "I want you
not to alter the way you talk to me. Because I'm really just the same girl
I was last night. And I couldn't bear you to change."

"I won't! I won't! But of course----"

"No, no! No buts. I won't have it. Do you know why I told you just this
afternoon? Well, partly because you were so perfectly sweet last night. And
partly because I've got a favour to ask you, and I wouldn't ask it until
I'd told you."

"You can't ask me a favour," he replied, "because it wouldn't be a favour.
It would be my privilege."

"But if you put it like that I can't ask you."

"You must!" he said firmly.

Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley. He listened
with an expression of trouble. Audrey finished bluntly: "She's my friend.
And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it's dark. Nobody
but you can save her. There! I've asked you!"

"Jane Foley!" he murmured.

She could see that he was aghast. The syllables of that name were notorious
throughout Britain. They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance of
law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that
horrified respectable pillars of society.

"She's the dearest thing!" said Audrey. "You've no idea. You'd love her.
And she's done as much for Women's Suffrage as anybody in the world. She's
a real heroine, if you like. You couldn't help the cause better than by
helping her. And I know how keen you are to help." And Audrey said to
herself: "He's as timid as a girl about it. How queer men are, after all!"

"But what are we to do with her afterwards?" asked Mr. Gilman. There was
perspiration on his brow.

"Sail straight to France, of course. They couldn't touch her there, you
see, because it's political. It _is_ political, you know," Audrey insisted
proudly.

"And give up all our cruise?"

Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do. She smiled enchantingly. "I
quite understand," she said, with a sort of tenderness. "You don't want to
do it. And it was a shame of me even to suggest it."