. Put on
your hat and come with me."

He seemed all impulse, sparkling to the novelty of the idea.

"Well, but------" She hesitated.

"I've got one--a beauty, a monster! I noticed the wind was getting up
yesterday. Come!"

He pulled at her hand; she obeyed him, not quickly. She put on her hat,
a plain straw, a thick jacket, gloves. Kite-flying in London seemed an
odd notion. Was it lively and entertaining, or merely silly? Which ought
it to be?

Eustace shouted to her from the tiny hall.

"Hurry!" he cried.

The wind yelled beyond the door, and Winifred ran down, beginning to
feel a childish thrill of excitement. Eustace held the kite. It was,
indeed, a white monster, gaily decorated with fluttering scarlet and
blue ribbons.

"We shall be mobbed," she said.

"There's no one about," he answered. "The gale frightens people."

He opened the door, and they were out in the crying tempest. The great
clouds flew along the sky like an army in retreat. Some, to Winifred,
seemed soldiers, others baggage-waggons, horses, gun-carriages, rushing
pell-mell for safety. One drooping, tattered cloud she deemed the
colours of a regiment streaming under the stars that peeped out here
and there--watching sentinel eyes, obdurate, till some magic password
softened them.

As they crossed the road she spoke of her cloud army to Eustace.

"This kite's like a live thing," was his reply. "It tugs as a fish tugs
a line."

He did not care for the tumult of a far-off world.

They entered the Park. It seemed, indeed, strangely deserted. A
swaggering soldier passed them by, going towards the Marble Arch. His
spurs clinked; his long cloak gleamed like a huge pink carnation in
the dingy dimness of the startled night. How he stared with his
unintelligent, though bold, eyes as he saw the kite bounding to be free.

Eustace seemed delighted.

"That man thinks us mad!" he said.

"Are we mad?" Winifred asked, surprised at her own strange enjoyment of
the adventure.

"Who knows?" said Eustace, looking at her narrowly. "You like this
escapade?"

"Yes," she answered.

"My mask!" he thought, secretly longing to be quietly by the fire
sipping tea and reading _Punch_. "She loves that."

They were through the trees now, across the broad path, out on the open
lawns.

"Now for it!" he shouted, as the wind roared in their faces.

He paid out the coils of the thin cord. The white monster skimmed,
struggled near the ground, returned, dart