ch would surprise Donnington
_now_.

"Don't shut your door," he muttered. "It might wake someone up. Just
blow out the candles, and leave the door open."

She obeyed him; and then he took her arm--again blinded by the sudden
obscurity in which they were now plunged.

"I hate going downstairs," she said fretfully. "Somehow I feel as if
downstairs were full of Them!"

"Full of _them_?" he repeated. "What on earth do you mean, Bubbles?"

And Bubbles murmured fearfully: "You know perfectly well what I mean.
And it's all my fault--all my fault!"

He whispered rather sternly back: "Yes, Bubbles, it _is_ your fault. Why
couldn't you leave the thing alone just for a little while--just through
the Christmas holidays?"

"I felt so tempted," she muttered. "I forget who it was who said
'Temptation is so pleasing because it need never be resisted.'"

He uttered an impatient exclamation under his breath.

"Let's sit down on the staircase," she pleaded, "I'm warmer now. I think
this would be a nice place to sit down."

She sank down on one of the broad, low steps just below the landing, and
pulled him down, nestling up close to him. "Oh, Bill," she whispered,
"it _is_ a comfort to be with you--a real comfort. You don't know what
I've gone through since I came up to bed. I felt all the time as if
Something was trying to get at me--something cruel, revengeful,
miserable!"

"You ate too much at dinner," he said shortly. "You oughtn't to have
taken that brandy-cherries ice."

They had very soon got past the stage during which Donnington had tried
to say pretty things to Bubbles.

"Perhaps I did"--he felt the gurgle of amusement in her voice. "I was
very hungry, and the food here is very good. It must be costing a lot of
money--all this sort of thing. How nice to be rich! Oh, Bill, how _very_
nice to be rich!"

"I don't agree," he said sharply. "Varick doesn't look particularly
happy, that I can see."

"I wonder if Aunt Blanche would marry him _now_?"

"I don't suppose he'd give her the chance--now."

It wasn't a very chivalrous thing to say, or hear said, and Bubbles
pinched him so viciously that he nearly cried out.

"You're not to talk like that of my Aunt Blanche. Quite lately--not
three months ago--someone asked her to marry him for the thousandth
time! But of course she said no--as I shall do to you, a thousand times
too, if we live long enough."

She waited a moment, then said slowly: "Her man's rather like