ere"--he looked round triumphantly--"who shall
say that the age of romance is dead? Let us go forth and languish in a
German gaol. Think of the notices we shall get in the papers! We'll
give our photographs to The Daily Glass before we start. I expect we
shall see one another in the chapel on Sundays, and I shall write to
you in blood every day, darling, on a piece of my mattress. The
letters will always be in the top left-hand corner of the steak
pudding. Don't say I didn't tell you where to look."

"We shall be able to talk," said I--"by rapping on the wall, I mean."

"Certainly. Once for the letter A, twice for the chambermaid, three
times for the boots. In the meantime, Jonah and you will each have
removed a large stone from the floor of your cells by means of a nail
which he found in his soup. Say you work sixteen hours out of the
twenty-four you ought to have burrowed outside the gates in about five
years."

Jill shuddered. "Austria would be rather nice, just now, wouldn't it?"
she ventured.

"We could go high up if it got hot, of course," said Daphne slowly,
"and the air's nice--"

"I'll find out what we do about shipping the car on Friday," said Berry.

I must have been tired, for I never heard the tea-things taken away.
When I opened my eyes, Berry and Co. had gone. I looked at the jig-saw
and began to wonder what had waked me.

"First of all," said a quiet voice, "I take five and three-quarters.
Do you think you can remember that?"

"I'll try. Long ones, of course."

"Yes, please. Not the ordinary white kid: I like the fawn suede ones."

"With pleasure."

"And now, please, can I be shown over the house?"

I turned and regarded her. Sitting easily in a chair to my right, and
a little behind me, she was holding out to me a slip of paper. I took
it mechanically but I did not look at it.

"Don't move for a minute or two," I said. "You look absolutely
splendid like that."

She smiled. I rather think her frock was of linen--at any rate, it was
blue. Her large straw hat was blue, too, and so were her smart French
gloves and her dainty shoes; her ankles were very pretty, but her
complexion was the thing: She had one of the clearest skins I have
ever seen, and the delicate bloom of her cheeks was a wonder in itself.
I could not well see her eyes, for she was sitting with her head thrown
back--her gloved right hand behind it holding down the brim of her
hat--and as she was looking a