"But it can be very funny, can't it?" said Belvane coaxingly. "I
wished for something humorous to happen to you, but I never
thought----"

"Ah," said Udo, "now we've got it."

He spoke with an air of a clever cross-examiner who has skilfully
extracted an admission from a reluctant witness. This sort of tone
goes best with one of those keen legal faces; perhaps that is why
Belvane laughed again.

"You practically confess that you did it," went on Udo magnificently.

"Did what?"

"Turned me into a--a----"

"A rabbit?" said Belvane innocently.

A foolish observation like this always pained Udo.

"What makes you think I'm a rabbit?" he asked.

"I don't mind what you are, but you'll never dare show yourself in the
country like this."

"Be careful, woman; don't drive me too far. Beware lest you rouse the
lion in me."

"Where?" asked Belvane, with a child-like air.

With a gesture full of dignity and good breeding Udo called attention
to his tail.

"That," said the Countess, "is not the part of the lion that I'm
afraid of."

For the moment Udo was nonplussed, but he soon recovered himself.

"Even supposing--just for the sake of argument--that I am a rabbit, I
still have something up my sleeve; I'll come and eat your young
carnations."

Belvane adored her garden, but she was sustained by the thought that
it was only July just now. She pointed this out to him.

"It needn't necessarily be carnations," he warned her.

"I don't want to put my opinion against one who has (forgive me)
inside knowledge on the subject, but I think I have nothing in my
garden at this moment that would agree with a rabbit."

"I don't mind if it _doesn't_ agree with me," said Udo heroically.

This was more serious. Her dear garden in which she composed, ruined
by the mastications--machinations--what was the word?--of an enemy!
The thought was unbearable.

"You aren't a rabbit," she said hastily; "you aren't really a rabbit.
Because--because you don't _woffle_ your nose properly."

"I could," said Udo simply. "I'm just keeping it back, that's all."

"Show me how," cried Belvane, clasping her hands eagerly together.

It was not what he had come into the garden for, and it accorded ill
with the dignity of the Royal House of Araby, but somehow one got led
on by this wicked woman.

"Like this," said Udo.

The Countess looked at him critically with her head on one side.

"No," she said, "that's quite wrong."

"Natur