and presently seemed ready to answer his. So his eyes
asked; and, after a long interval, came the reply, as though she had
unconsciously been waiting a long, long while for the question.

"I suppose you will wish to keep this," he said in a low voice, offering
her the pass. "You will probably desire to preserve it under lock and
key."

She rose to her slender height, took it in her childish hands, hesitated,
then, looking up at him, slowly tore the pass to fragments and loosed
them from her palm into the current of the south wind blowing.

"That does not matter," she said, "if you are going to love me."

There was a moment's silence, then she held out her left hand. He took
it; with her right hand, standing on tiptoe, she reached up and unbarred
the gates. And they passed out together into the infernal splendour of
the sunset forest.

[Illustration]

X

THE riots in London culminated in an episode so cataclysmic that it
sobered the civilised world. Young Lord Marque, replying to a question in
the House of Lords, said: "As long as the British peerage can summon
muscular vigour sufficient to keep a monocle in its eye and extract
satisfaction from a cigarette, no human woman in the British Empire shall
ever cast a bally ballot for any bally purpose whatever. What!"

And the House of Lords rose to its wavering legs and cheered him with an
enthusiasm almost loud enough to be heard above ordinary conversation.

But that unwise and youthful and masculine defiance was the young man's
swan-song. A male suffragette rushed with the news to Miss Pondora
Bottomly; Lord Marque was followed as he left the house; and that very
afternoon he was observed fleeing in a series of startled and graceful
bounds through Regent Park, closely pursued by several ladies of birth,
maturity, and fashion carrying solid silver hair-brushes.

_The Queen_, chronicling the somewhat intimate and exclusive affair a
week later, mentioned that: "Among those present was the lovely Lady
Diana Guernsey wearing tweeds, leather spats, and waving a Directoire
Banner embroidered with the popular device, 'Votes for Women,' in bright
yellow and bottle green on an old rose ground;" and that she had far
outdistanced the aged Marchioness of Dingledell, Lady Spatterdash, the
Hon. Miss Mousely, the Duchess of Rolinstone, Baroness Mosscroppe, and
others; and that, when last seen, she and the Earl of Marque were headed
westward. A week later no news of eit