_You_ thought that I thought Amiens would be my
great chance, and you made up your mind it shouldn't be if you could
help it. Well, you won't be able to help it much longer, because I've
got something you want, and you can't get it except through me."

"I doubt very much that I could want anything you have," I said.

"Give your imagination wings."

"You are always teasing me to guess things I don't care to guess!"

"Here comes Dierdre back with Mrs. Beckett so I won't worry you to
guess. I've got a message from the Wandering Jew. Do you want it, or
don't you?"

CHAPTER XXVIII

If Julian had suddenly popped down an apple on the top of my head, _a
la_ Gessler and the son of William Tell, and thereupon proceeded to
shoot it off, I could have been no more amazed. For once he outflanked
me, caught me completely off my guard! I saw by the impish gleam in his
eye how delighted he was with himself.

"Yes or no, please; quick!" he fired the next volley as I stood
speechless.

"Yes!" I gasped. "I do want the message--if it's for me. But why should
he send word through you?"

"He didn't. I caught it as I might catch a homing carrier-pigeon. You
know, my motto is 'All's fair in love and war.' In my case, both
exist--your fault! Besides, what I did was for your good."

"What did you do--what did you _dare_ to do?"

"Dare!" Puck mimicked my foolish fury. "'Dare' is such a melodramatic
word from you to me. I can't tell you now what I did, or the message--no
time. But I'm in as much of a hurry as you are. When can I see you
alone?"

I hesitated, because it would be like him to cheat me with some trick,
and chuckle at my rage. I couldn't see how a message from Paul Herter
for me had reached Julian O'Farrell, unless he'd intercepted a letter.
It seemed far more likely that Puck was romancing, yet I felt in my
bones and heart and solar plexus that he wasn't! I simply _had_ to
know--and in a flurry, before Mother Beckett and Dierdre were upon us, I
said, "This afternoon, at three, when Mrs. Beckett is having her nap.
I'll meet you in the garden of the hotel."

Though I dash along with this story of mine, Padre, as if I went
straight on describing the scene between Julian and me from beginning to
end, without a break, it isn't really so. I've been interrupted more
than once, and may be again; but I shall tell you everything that's
happened since we came to Amiens, as if I wrote consecutively. You can
understand bet