n't! I wouldn't! It's horrid of you to talk
like that!"

"Quite indecent, dear, I admit. But have you never noticed how indecent
the truth can be? What a pity to waste such a lovely blush on me! I
presume he hasn't begun to make love to you yet?"

"Of course he hasn't! No man would be such a fool with you within
reach!" thrust back Olga, goaded to self-defence.

"But I am not within reach," said Violet, with a twirl of the cigarette.

"Far more so than I," returned Olga with spirit. "Anyhow, he never went
out of his way to have tea with me."

A peal of laughter from her companion put a swift end to her
indignation. Violet was absolutely irresistible when she laughed. It was
utterly impossible to be indignant with her.

"Then you think if I am there perhaps he will be persuaded to stay at
home to tea?" she chuckled mischievously. "Well, my dear, I'll come, and
we will play at battledore and shuttlecock to your heart's content. But
if the young man turns and rends us for our pains--and I have a shrewd
notion that that's the sort of young man he is--you mustn't blame me."

She tossed away her cigarette with the words, and turned inwards,
sweeping Olga with her with characteristic energy. She was never still
for long in this mood.

They passed through the great hall to a Gothic archway in the south
wall, close to the wonderful stained window. Olga glanced up at it with
a slight shiver as she passed below.

"Isn't it horribly realistic?" she said.

The girl beside her laughed lightly. "I rather like it myself; but then
I have an appetite for the horrors. And they've made the poor man so
revoltingly sanctimonious that one really can't feel sorry for him. I'd
cut off the head of anybody with a face like that. It's a species that
still exists, but ought to have been exterminated long ago."

With her hand upon Olga's arm, she led her through the Gothic archway to
a second smaller hall, and on up a wide oak staircase with a carved
balustrade that was lighted half-way up by another great window of
monastic design but clear glass.

Olga always liked to pause by this window, for the view from it was
magnificent. Straight out to the open sea it looked, and the width of
the outlook was superb.

"Oh, it's better than Redlands," she said.

"I don't think so," returned Violet. "Redlands is civilized. This isn't.
Picture to yourself the cruelty of bottling up a herd of monks here in
full view of their renounced liberty. I