g to a sovereign that he'll be
delighted with my suggestion, and put it into his next edition without
delay. No charge! Given away! The lot for a penny-three-farthings. In
fact, I make it a present to him. Noble, eh? Give it to him for
_nothing_!"

"About its price," says Miss Kavanagh thoughtfully.

"Think you so? You are dull to-night, Jocelyne. Flashes of wit pass you
by without warming you. Yet I tell you this idea that has flowed from my
brain is a priceless one. Never mind the door--he's not coming yet.
Attend to me."

"_Who's_ not coming?" demands she, the more angrily in that she is
growing miserably aware of the brilliant color that is slowly but surely
bedecking her cheeks.

"Never mind! It's a mere detail; attend to _me_ and I entreat you," says
Mr. Browne, who is now quite in his element, having made sure of the
fact that she is expecting somebody. It doesn't matter in the least who
to Mr. Browne, expectation is the thing wherein to catch the
embarrassment of Miss Kavanagh, and forthwith he sets himself gaily to
the teazing of her.

"Attend to _what_?" says she with a little frown.

"If you had studied your Bible, Jocelyne, with that care that I should
have expected from you, you would have remembered that forty odd years
the Israelites hankered after those very fleshpots of Egypt to which I
have been alluding. Now I appeal to you, as a sensible girl, would
anybody hanker after anything for forty odd years (_very_ odd years as
it happens), unless it was to their advantage to get it; unless, indeed,
the object pursued was _priceless_!"

"You ask too much of _this_ sensible girl," says Miss Kavanagh, with a
carefully manufactured yawn. "Really, dear Dicky, you must forgive me if
I say I haven't gone into it as yet, and that I don't suppose I shall
ever _see_ the necessity for going into it."

"But, my good child, you must see that those respectable people, the
Israelites, wouldn't have pursued a mere shadow for forty years."

"That's just what I _don't_ see. There are such a number of fools
everywhere, in every age, that one couldn't tell."

"This is evasion," says Mr. Browne sternly. "To bring you face to face
with facts must be my very unpleasant if distinct duty. Joyce, do you
dare to doubt for one moment that I speak aught but the truth? Will you
deny that Cleopatra, that old serpent of the----"

"Ha--ha--ha," laughs Joyce ironically. "I wish she could hear you. Your
life wouldn't be worth a