stante,
Genoa."

"Oh, then you--"

"Acted for you on my own responsibility. There was nothing else to do,
if _anything_ were to be done; and you'd seemed to fall in with my
suggestion. It would have been a pity, I thought, if your visit to
Avignon were to be spoiled by a thing like that."

"Meaning Monsieur Charretier? I hardly slept last night for dwelling on
the pity of it."

"It's all right, then? I haven't put my foot into it?"

"Your foot! You've put your _brains_ into it. You said the other night
that I had presence of mind. It was nothing to yours."

"All's forgotten and forgiven, then?"

"It's forgotten that there was anything to forgive."

"And the 'motor maid' business? You didn't think it too clumsy?"

"I thought it most ingenious."

"It wasn't a lie, you know. I haven't a happy talent for lying. I do, or
rather did when I had nothing else on hand, send occasional sketches to
a paper. But the more I look at my 'motor maid,' the more I feel I
should like to keep her--in my sketch-book--if you're willing I should
have her?"

"Then I don't get my promised five shillings?" I laughed.

"I'll try and make up the loss to you in some other way."

"I have you to thank that I didn't lose my situation. So the debt is on
my side."

"You owe me the scolding you got. I oughtn't to have lured you into the
corridor."

"It was on my business. And there was no other way."

"It was my business to have thought of some other way."

"Are you your sister's keeper?"

"I wish I--Look here, mademoiselle _ma soeur_, I'm all out of repartees.
Perhaps I shall be better after breakfast. I shall be able to eat, now
that I know you've forgiven me."

"I don't believe you would care if I hadn't," I exclaimed. "You are so
stolid, so phlegmatic, you Englishmen!"

"Do you think so? Well, it would have been a little awkward for me to
have taken you about on a sightseeing expedition this morning if we were
at daggers drawn--no matter how appropriate the situation might have
been to Avignon manners of the Middle Ages, when everybody was either
torturing everybody else or fighting to the death."

"_Are_ you going to take me about?"

"That's for you to say."

"Isn't it for Lady Turnour to say?"

"Sir Samuel told me last night that I shouldn't be wanted till two
o'clock, as he was going to see the town with her ladyship. He wanted to
know if we could sandwich in something else this afternoon, as he
considered a whole d