Toby's light laugh came back to him. She was like a white butterfly
flitting before him in the twilight. "I wondered what you'd say. I've
given up jumping rosebushes, and I'm learning to be respectable. It's
rather fun sometimes. Maud is very good to me--and I love Jake, don't
you?"

"Yes, he's a brick; always was," said Bunny enthusiastically. "I'd back
him every time. But, I say. Don't get too respectable, will you? Somehow
it doesn't suit you."

Again he heard her laugh in the darkness--a quick, rather breathless
laugh. "I don't think I'll ever be that," she said. "Do you?"

"I don't know," said Bunny. "But you looked scared to death when you came
in--as if you were mounted on a horse that was much too high for you. I
believe you were afraid of that old daddy of yours."

"I am rather," said Toby. "You see, I don't know him very well. And I'm
not sure he likes me."

"Of course he likes you," said Bunny.

"Why? I don't know why he should."

"Everyone does," said Bunny, with assurance.

"Don't be silly!" said Toby.

They were past the slit in the wall, and were winding upwards now towards
another. Bunny postponed argument, finding he needed all his breath for
the climb. The steps had become narrower and more steeply spiral than
before. His companion mounted so swiftly that he found it difficult to
keep close to her. The ascent seemed endless.

Again they passed a window-slit, and Bunny suddenly awoke to the fact
that the flying figure in front was trying to out-distance him. It came
to him in a flash of intuition. She was daring him, she was fooling him.
Some imp of mischief had entered into her. She was luring him to pursuit;
and like the whirling of a torch in a dark place, the knowledge first
dazzled, and then drew him. All his pulses beat in a swift crescendo.
There was a considerable mixture of Irish deviltry in Bunny Brian's
veins, and anything in the nature of a challenge fired him. He uttered a
wild whoop that filled the eerie place with fearful echoes, and gave
chase.

It was the maddest race he had ever run. Toby fled before him like the
wind, up and up, round and round the winding stair, fleet-footed, almost
as though on wings, leaving him behind. He followed, fiercely determined,
putting forth his utmost strength, sometimes stumbling on the uneven
stairs, yet always leaping onward, urged to wilder effort by the
butterfly elusiveness of his quarry. Once he actually had her within his
reach, a