nd bite,'
said Scremerston.

'Except bullets,' said Miss Willoughby--Beauty rewarding Valour with a
smile and a glance so dazzling that the good little Yeoman blushed with
pleasure.

'It is a shame!' thought Logan. 'I don't like it now I see it.'

'As to horror of cats,' said the Earl, 'I suppose evolution can explain
it. I wonder how they would work it out in _Science Jottings_. There is
a great deal of electricity in a cat.'

'Evolution can explain everything,' said the Jesuit demurely, 'but who
can explain evolution?'

'As to electricity in the cat,' said Logan, 'I daresay there is as much
in the dog, only everybody has tried stroking a cat in the dark to see
the sparks fly, and who ever tried stroking a dog in the dark, for
experimental purposes?--did you, Lady Mary?'

Lady Mary never had tried, but the idea was new to her, and she would
make the experiment in winter.

'Deer skins, stroked, do sparkle,' said Logan, 'I read that in a book. I
daresay horses do, only nobody tries. I don't think electricity is the
explanation of why some people can't bear cats.'

'Electricity is the modern explanation of everything--love, faith,
everything,' remarked the Jesuit; 'but, as I said, who shall explain
electricity?'

Lady Mary, recognising the orthodoxy of these sentiments, felt more
friendly towards Father Riccoboni. He might be a Jesuit, but he was
_bien pensant_.

'What I am afraid of is not a cat, but a mouse,' said Miss Willoughby,
and the two other ladies admitted that their own terrors were of the same
kind.

'What I am afraid of,' said the Prince, 'is a banging door, by day or
night. I am not, otherwise, of a nervous constitution, but if I hear a
door bang, I _must_ go and hunt for it, and stop the noise, either by
shutting the door, or leaving it wide open. I am a sound sleeper, but,
if a door bangs, it wakens me at once. I try not to notice it. I hope
it will leave off. Then it does leave off--that is the artfulness of
it--and, just as you are falling asleep, _knock_ it goes! A double
knock, sometimes. Then I simply _must_ get up, and hunt for that door,
upstairs or downstairs--'

'Or in my--' interrupted Miss Willoughby, and stopped, thinking better of
it, and not finishing the quotation, which passed unheard.

'That research has taken me into some odd places,' the Prince ended; and
Logan reminded the Society of the Bravest of the Brave. What _he_ was
afraid of was a pair of tight bo