d. That turned the budding drama into farce,
as I meant it should.

It was a weird cave, and would have served excellently for my purpose;
but when I heard there was another to follow--as servants say of the
next course for dinner--I thought it would be an anti-climax to use this
one. Besides, there were a good many people in it. There were tricky
illuminations to show off the best formations, one of which was King
Solomon's Temple, King S. sitting with folded arms at the entrance, his
knees up as if he had a pain; but being only a pink stalagmite, he
couldn't be expected to behave.

Having done justice to Gough's Cavern, we returned to the car, and
skimmed along the splendid, rock-walled road to the next cave, which, it
appears, is a deadly rival of the first. One advertises visits of
Martel, the explorer; the other boasts the approval of royalty. I'm sure
they would love to have a notice up: "By appointment to the King," as if
they were tailors. But what could a king do with a cave nowadays? At one
time, it might have been handy to hide in, but those days and those
kings are changed. I believe, by the way, Britons did hide in one or two
of the Cheddar Caverns, when the Saxons were uncomfortably interested in
their whereabouts, and there are bones, but I'm glad to say we didn't
see them. I hate to be reminded of what I'm built on, and can't bear to
look in the glass after seeing a skull, with or without cross-bones.

In this second cave, when Mrs. Norton was putting an appropriate
prehistoric question I'd coached her up to ask her brother, I linked a
friendly arm in Ellaline's, and bore her off under convoy.

"What a sweet, illuminated stalactite curtain!" said I, rapturously.
"Doesn't it look like translucent coral, and wouldn't you like to have a
dress exactly that colour?"

Thus I managed to keep her with me, and fall behind the others, glaring
at Dick so meaningly as to frighten him away when he showed signs of
lingering.

My scene thus effectively set, and the two leading characters on the
stage together, I lost no time in beginning to recite my lines. It was
in a dark sort of rock-parlour, with some kind of an illuminated
witches' kitchen or devil's cauldron to look at, and give us an excuse
to pause--all very effective.

"Miss Lethbridge," I said, "I have rather a disagreeable duty to
perform."

"When people tell you they have a duty to perform, it goes without
saying that it's disagreeable," she repli