as permission."

"How much does she know?"

"Nothing at all, except that I'm tired of the Riviera and want to go
yachting somewhere--almost anywhere."

"Sure she doesn't suspect?"

"How could she?"

"Well, I suppose she couldn't. And as far as I'm concerned, I don't see
why we shouldn't trust her as if she were one of ourselves; a nice, jolly
little woman, with no harm in her. What motive could she possibly have
for blocking our game?"

"What, indeed? But you know I said so to Roger, and he vowed he'd have
nothing to do with it if any one knew except you and Madeleine Dalahaide
and me. He wouldn't hear of poor Kate's being told, though I assured him
one might trust her. It was all I could do to get him to promise us,
anyway."

"How _did_ you get him to, by the by? He poured whole cataracts of
ice-water on the scheme at first."

"I--I--suppose I wheedled."

"Virgie! I'll bet you said you'd marry him if he'd go in with us!"

"I didn't--exactly say I _wouldn't_."

"Poor old Roger! Shall you be cad enough to chuck him afterward?"

"Oh, I couldn't do that. I shall be so grateful to him for this, that I
shall feel no reward could be too great for him--that is, if we
_succeed_. He is a dear, kind fellow, and I have often made him unhappy.
I've always thought, somehow, that I should end by marrying him."

"Yet you've refused him three times."

"That was to put off the evil day."

"And you came jolly near accepting Loria."

"Did I really, do you think? It seems so long ago, I can hardly remember.
Anyway, everything is different now."

"I'm with you there. By Jove, what a funny world it is! What will Roger
say when he hears that Kate Gardiner is bent on going? If he consents to
her being on board, I don't see why he should go on refusing to take Miss
Dalahaide."

"That's not the same thing at all. One can never do things quite
secretly. They always leak out. Already it has got into the papers
somehow--I suppose through that stupid agent--that I have bought the
Chateau de la Roche, and interest has been revived in the Dalahaide
story. It's so unfortunate that people should begin to talk again just
now! And then if, on top of all this, should come the news that we'd
taken Madeleine Dalahaide off with us on a mysterious yachting
expedition, what would be said? Roger is quite right."

"It seems cruel that she should be left out of it."

"It would be more cruel to have her in, and perhaps ruin everything. She