Patapouf, by a series of etapes and delours, approached, and was
secured.

Susanna, meanwhile, having laid her rosary and prayer-book on the
grass, unbuttoned her blue flannel jacket, and removed from round her
waist, where it was doing duty as a belt, a broad band of
cherry-coloured ribbon. This, with Anthony's penknife, she slitted and
ripped several times lengthwise, till she had obtained a yard or two of
practicable tether.

"Now, first, we must make him a collar," she said, measuring off what
she deemed ribbon sufficient for that purpose.

Anthony held Patapouf, who, flattered by their attentions, and
unsuspicious of their ulterior aim, submitted quietly, while Susanna
adjusted the collar to his neck. They had to stand rather close
together during this process; I am not sure that sometimes their
fingers did n't touch. From Susanna's garments--from her hair?--rose
never so faint a perfume, like the perfume of violets. I am quite sure
that Anthony's heart was in a commotion.

"There," she remarked, finishing the collar with a bow, and bestowing
upon the bow a little tap of approbation; "red and black--it's very
becoming to him, is n't it?"

Then she tied Patapouf to the tree, leaving him, in charity, perhaps
twice his own length of tether free, and resumed possession of her book
and beads.

An instant later, she had slightly inclined her head, smiled a good-bye
into Anthony's eyes, and was moving briskly away, in the direction of
Craford New Manor.

VII

Adrian, pink with the livelier pink of Adrian freshly tubbed and
razored, and shedding a cheerful aroma of bay-rum, regarded Anthony,
across the bowlful of roses that occupied the centre of the breakfast
table, with a show of perplexity.

In the end, thrusting forward his chin, and dropping his eyelids,
whereby his expression became remote and superior, "The state of mind
of a person like you," he announced, "is a thing I am totally unable to
conceive."

And he plunged his spoon into his first egg.

"It is inexplicable, it is downright uncanny," Anthony was thinking, as
he munched his toast, "the effect she produces upon a man; the way she
pursues one, persists with one. I see her, I hear her voice, her
laughter, as clearly as if she were still present. I can't get rid of
her, I can't shut her out."

Adrian, his announcement provoking no response, spoke up.

"I am utterly unable," he repeated, "to conceive the state of mind of a
pers