seated on the fender. But perhaps
I don't count."

"Oh, I didn't mean that, you know."

"I should hope not, when I've bought a special new dress just to
fascinate you. A creation I mean. When they cost as much as this one
did, you have to call them names. What do you think of it?"

Freddie seated himself on another section of the fender, and regarded
her with the eye of an expert. A snappy dresser, as the technical term
is, himself, he appreciated snap in the outer covering of the other
sex.

"Topping!" he said spaciously. "No other word for it. All wool and a
yard wide. Precisely as mother makes it. You look like a thingummy."

"How splendid. All my life I've wanted to look like a thingummy, but
somehow I've never been able to manage it."

"A wood-nymph!" exclaimed Freddie, in a burst of unwonted imagery. He
looked at her with honest admiration. "Dash it, Jill, you know,
there's something about you! You're--what's the word?--you've got such
small bones."

"Ugh! I suppose it's a compliment, but how horrible it sounds! It
makes me feel like a skeleton."

"I mean to say, you're--you're dainty!"

"That's much better."

"You look as if you weighed about an ounce and a half. You look like
a bit of thistledown! You're a little fairy princess, dash it!"

"Freddie! This is eloquence!" Jill raised her left hand, and twiddled
a ringed finger ostentatiously. "Er--you _do_ realize that I'm
bespoke, don't you, and that my heart, alas, is another's? Because you
sound as if you were going to propose."

Freddie produced a snowy handkerchief, and polished his eye-glass.
Solemnity descended on him like a cloud. He looked at Jill with an
earnest, paternal gaze.

"That reminds me," he said. "I wanted to have a bit of a talk with you
about that--being engaged and all that sort of thing. I'm glad I got
you alone before the Curse arrived."

"Curse? Do you mean Derek's mother? That sounds cheerful and
encouraging."

"Well, she is, you know," said Freddie earnestly. "She's a bird! It
would be idle to deny it. She always puts the fear of God into me. I
never know what to say to her."

"Why don't you try asking her riddles?"

"It's no joking matter," persisted Freddie, his amiable face overcast.
"Wait till you meet her! You should have seen her at the station this
morning. You don't know what you're up against!"

"You make my flesh creep, Freddie. What am I up against?"

Freddie poked the fire scientifically, and assiste