m, when she saw him first in Kunitz. A dull
red crept into her face when she remembered that day and what
followed. "It isn't very snug," she said at last, trying to hide by a
careful coldness of speech all the strange things she was feeling.
"When it rains there are puddles by the door. The door, you see, opens
into the street."

"I see," said the Prince.

There was a silence.

"I don't suppose you really do," said Priscilla, full of strange
feelings.

"My dear cousin?"

"I don't know if you've come to laugh at me?"

"Do I look as if I had?"

"I dare say you think--because you've not been through it
yourself--that it--it's rather ridiculous."

"My dear cousin," protested the Prince.

Her lips quivered. She had gone through much, and she had lived for
two days only on milk.

"Do you wipe the puddles up, or does old Fritzing?"

"You see you _have_ come to laugh."

"I hope you'll believe that I've not. Must I be gloomy?"

"How do you know Fritzing's here?"

"Why everybody knows that."

"Everybody?" There was an astonished pause. "How do you know we're
here--here, in Creeper Cottage?"

"Creeper Cottage is it? I didn't know it had a name. Do you have so
many earwigs?"

"How did you know we were in Symford?"

"Why everybody knows that."

Priscilla was silent. Again she felt she was being awakened from a
dream.

"I've met quite a lot of interesting people since I saw you last," he
said. "At least, they interested me because they all knew you."

"Knew me?"

"Knew you and that old scound--the excellent Fritzing. There's an
extremely pleasant policeman, for instance, in Kunitz--"

"Oh," said Priscilla, starting and turning red. She could not think of
that policeman without crisping her fingers.

"He and I are intimate friends. And there's a most intelligent
person--really a most helpful, obliging person--who came with you from
Dover to Ullerton."

"With us?"

"I found the conversation, too, of the ostler at the Ullerton Arms of
immense interest."

"But what--"

"And last night I slept at Baker's Farm, and spent a very pleasant
evening with Mrs. Pearce."

"But why--"

"She's an instructive woman. Her weakest point, I should say, is her
junkets."

"I wonder why you bother to talk like this--to be sarcastic."

"About the junkets? Didn't you think they were bad?"

"Do you suppose it's worth while to--to kick somebody who's down? And
so low down? So completely got to the bottom?"

"K