fully smashed on Beryl."

"I should say _Dr._ Pentridge if I was a little girl," I formulated to
the accompaniment of rather a ghastly grin. "Well, is that the secret?
because if so I haven't said I could keep one yet."

"_Ach_! Well, you won't say I said so, hey?"

"I won't say anything at all about it, Iris," I answered magisterially.
"And little girls oughtn't to think about such things."

She opened her big blue eyes wide at the reproof. Then detecting the
mirth--such as it was--depicted on my own face, she bestowed such a
whole-souled pinch upon my brown and bared forearm, as caused me to sing
out and stamp.

"You spiteful little cat. Wait till we get at those bees' nests. You
deserve to be jolly well stung."

She pranced round me, chuckling maliciously.

"Ha-ha! That's what you get for coming the solemn old school-baas over
me," she crowed. Then--"There, there. You're not _kwaat_ with me, are
you?"

The insinuating little rogue. As if she didn't know she could have done
anything she liked to me!

We did not take out the bees' nests that day. My mind was full of what
had gone before, and I listened to the sunny child's chatter, fearful
lest her precocious eyes should see through my own secret--wondering,
too, whether her interruption of us had been for good or the reverse.
She had interrupted us at a critical juncture. What had Beryl been on
the point of saying to me? What was she saying even then to that other?
Had I let slip an opportunity? And yet--and yet I if so, how could I
have seized such opportunity under the circumstances? Of course I could
not.

But what she had or had not said to that other seemed likely to remain a
mystery, and the same held good of what he had said to her, for neither
by word or hint did Beryl let fall any inkling of the matter.

After Pentridge had gone, things seemed to shake down as usual, but for
me a line was drawn, and the glowing, idyllic happiness of the last few
months seemed shut back as though beyond an iron door.

One day when Septimus Matterson and I were alone together, something
moved me to follow Beryl's advice and tell him of my disaster--though I
had hardly done so than I felt it was a more complete burning of my
boats. He was very concerned, and said so.

"Don't lose heart, though, Kenrick," he said. "Many a man has had a
bigger knock than that and has come out smiling. When do you say you
will know beyond all doubt whether things ar