If one of them was a friend of yours, would you turn him
down because he carried a broom? Of course you wouldn't."

"No, but----"

"But what?"

"The first duty of a servant," said Anthony, "is to know his place."

Valerie stood still and looked at him.

"I wonder you don't call me 'miss,'" she said, shaking her head gravely.

"Very good, miss," said Lyveden.

"That's better," said Miss French contentedly, slipping an arm through
his. "And now, if we leave the path and bear to the right, in about
two minutes we shall come to my window."

The two had been climbing steadily, but another fifty paces in the
direction Miss French had indicated brought them to the foot of a
steeper ascent than ever. This was, in fact, a broad natural bank,
some thirty feet high. The careful negotiation of a tiny path,
followed by a plunge into a thicket, where the stubborn protests of
boughs had to be overruled, landed them in a dwarf clearing, which the
density of the surrounding bocage rendered a fastness.

Valerie stepped to the far side and parted the branches.

"Look," she said.

They were upon the lip of a heather-edged bluff which fell sheer for
perhaps two hundred feet into a pinewood. Beyond, by mammoth terraces,
the glory of the forest sank step by colossal step into the purple
distance, from which distant in turn a thread of silver argued the
ocean. There never was such a staircase. The grandeur of its
proportions diminished the rolling world. The splendour of its
covering made colour pale.

Anthony gazed spellbound. At length--

"I didn't know there was such a view in all England," he said.

Miss French smiled. Then she moved cautiously forward, till she was
clear of the bushes, there to sit down upon a billowing cushion of
heather which grew conveniently about as close to the edge of the bluff
as it was prudent to venture. Abstractedly Anthony followed her and,
after a glance about him, took his seat by her side upon a patch of
gravel.

"I'm in your debt," he said simply. "Deeper than I was before."

Valerie nodded at the wonder of landscape.

"I'll make you a present of this," she said. "What else do you owe me
for?"

Anthony spread out his hands.

"Your society," he said.

"You've paid for that--with your own."

"Your pity, then."

"I've never pitied you," said Valerie.

"You've stooped," said Anthony.

"I've not stooped," was the fierce reply.

"We won't argue it," said Anthony.