ot to know you hadn't put this thing
back. It's about the best of the lot she hadn't got plastered on for the
servants' ball."

"It was careless," I admitted. "But it was your fault. You came in, and
were so horrid, and upset me so much that I forgot what I'd put into
the bag already, and what I hadn't."

"Lady T. doesn't know I went back to her room."

"I'll tell her!" I cried.

"I'll bet you'll tell her, right enough. But I can tell a different
story. I'll say I didn't go near the room. My story will be that I was
walkin' through the woods this afternoon on my way to Charretier's
chateau when I saw you with the thing in your hands, lookin' at it.
Probably goin' to ask the shuvver to dispose of it for you--what? and
share profits."

"Oh, you coward!" I exclaimed, and snatched the diamond brooch from him.

Instantly he let go my dress, laughing.

"_That's_ right! That's what I wanted," he said. "Now you've got it, and
you can keep it. I'll tell Lady T. where to look for it--unless you'll
change your mind, and give me that kiss."

I was so angry, so stricken with horror and a kind of nightmare fear
which I had not time to analyze, that I stood silent, trembling all
over, with the brooch in my hand. How silly I had been to play his game
for him, just like the poor stupid cat who pulled the hot chestnut out
of the fire! I don't think any chestnut could ever have been as hot as
that bursting sun!

I wanted to drop it in the grass, or throw it as far as I could see it,
but dared not, because it would be my fault that it was lost, and Lady
Turnour would believe Bertie's story all the more readily. She would
think he had seen me with the jewel, and that I'd hidden it because I
was afraid of what he might do.

"To kiss, or not to kiss. _That's_ the question," laughed Bertie.

"Is it?" said Jack. And Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall
collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like
castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like a
large, boiled beetroot.

I had seen Jack coming, long enough to have counted ten before he came.
But I didn't count ten. I just let him come.

Bertie could not speak: he could only gurgle. And if I had been a Roman
lady in the amphitheatre of Nimes, or somewhere, I'm afraid I should
have wanted to turn my thumb down.

"What was the beast threatening you with?" Jack wanted to know.

"The beast was threatening to make Lady Turnour think