te," she said in a voice devoid of anything in
the way of tone or inflection, "and I had to bring my dressing-case, it
would be so tiresome to be stranded in the desert with no looking-glass
or face cream, wouldn't it?"

"It would be terrible!" was the answer, as though a dearth in dates was
in discussion.

And then Jill sat down upon a convenient block of marble, and searching
in her cheap bag for one of those Russian cigarette cases of wood,
which had the advantage of being inexpensive and distinctive compared
to those of gold, silver, or silver gilt, which jingle so irritatingly
against the universal gold, silver, or silver gilt bag, took out a
cigarette, lit it, and began to make conversation.

It is very difficult to describe the girl's frame of mind at this
moment when she stood upon the verge of great happenings, or in fact of
any moment when danger, possible or certain, confronted her.

She was perfectly calm, in fact a little dull, with a heart which
physically neither slowed nor hastened.

Yet it was not the fearlessness of blissful ignorance, or the
aggravating recklessness of the foolhardy.

Three times she had been in actual danger of death: once when her horse
bolted, making straight for the cliffs a short way ahead; another time
when the receding tide had caught her, pulling her slowly out to sea,
and never a boat in sight; and again when taking a pre-breakfast stroll
on the Col di Tenda, she had encountered a fugitive of the law
desperately making for the frontier, who, half crazed with fear,
sleeplessness, and hunger, literally at the point of an exceedingly
sharp knife had demanded money, or bracelet, in fact anything which
could be transformed into a mattress, and coffee, polenta, cigarette or
succulent frittata.

After each of the preceding incidents she had tried to analyse her
utter want of feeling, her inability to recognise danger, her almost
placid confidence in an ultimate happy ending.

"It doesn't seem to be me, Dads," she had once explained, or tried to
explain, to her father, who, in the depths of an armchair and the
_Sporting News_, had no more idea of what she was talking about than
the man in the moon. "I seem to be standing outside myself looking at
myself. A sort of something seems to come right down, shutting the
danger right away from me. I know I'm in it and have to get out of it,
but though I pulled Arabia for all I knew, and swam for all I was worth
to reach Rock Poin