bags walling the west front and the side
portals of the grandest cathedral in France suggest comfortable security
rather than fear. The jackdaws and pigeons that used to be at home in
the carvings, camp contentedly among the bags, or walk in the neglected
grass where sleep the dead of long ago. I didn't want to remember just
then, or let any one else remember, that twenty miles away were the
trenches and thousands of the dead of to-day!

Never can Amiens have been such a kaleidoscope of colourful animation
since Henri II of France and Edward VI of England signed the treaty of
peace here, with trains of diplomatists and soldiers of church and state
and dignified rejoicings!

It wasn't until we were inside the cathedral that I forgot my
manoeuverings. The soft, rich light gave such a bizarre effect to the
sandbags protecting the famous choir carvings, that I was all eyes for a
moment: and during that moment Julian must have signed to his sister to
decoy Mother Beckett away from me. When I hauled my soul down from the
soaring arches as one strikes a flag, there was Puck at my side and
there were Mother Beckett and Dierdre disappearing behind
sandbag-hillocks, in the direction of the celebrated Cherub.

"I suppose you want me jolly well to understand," said Puck, smiling,
"that even if your brother Brian and my sister Dare are fools over each
other, you won't be fooled into forgiving a poor, broken-voiced
Pierrot?"

"I've nothing to forgive you for, personally," I said. "Only----"

"Only, you don't want to be friends?"

"No, I don't want to be friends," I echoed. "Why can't you be content
with being treated decently before people, instead of following me
about, trying always to bring upon yourself----"

"A lamp might ask that question of a moth."

I laughed. "You're less like a moth than any creature I ever met!"

"You don't believe I'm sincere."

"Do moths specialize in sincerity in the insect world?"

"Yes," Puck said, more gravely than usual. "Come to think of it, that's
just what they _do_. They risk their lives for the light they love. I
'follow you about,' as you put it, because I love you and want to
persuade you that we're birds of a feather, made for each other by
nature and fate and our mutual behaviour. We belong together in life."

"Do you really believe you can blackmail me into a partnership?" I
turned at bay. "You must have seen that I wanted to keep out of your
way----"

"Oh, I saw all right.