ould have mentioned it--_that_ was
safe: especially one silly ass who was always reading of some jolly
comet that was coming. _He_ would know about the nights.

"Yes--oh, yes, there are just as many," I affirmed positively, and added
quickly: "_More_, you know!" For suddenly I remembered it was leap-year,
and I knew there was some jolly rhyme about leap-year gives us one day
more--so, of course, there'd be another _night_!

"You don't know how glad I am to hear you say that," she said musingly.
"There are just as many knights, you mean, but the conditions have
changed--the _man_ is changed--is that it?"

I should say the man was changed! "Oh, dash it, yes!" I blurted. By
Jove, I hoped there wouldn't be another change.

"You mean"--with a little, challenging, puzzled smile, she leaned
forward, her elbow resting upon her knee like a sculptured, Grecian
pillar; her flower-like curving fingers supporting her chin like a
Corinthian what's-its-name, you know, the sort of thing the ancient
what-you-call-'ems always added to top off their stunning marble
columns--_you_ know!--well, like that--"you mean we may find knights,
not only in the field, but in the shops, upon the streets--even in the
slums; or in the hospitals, in the church or even on the bench--_that_
is your idea?"

It _wasn't_ my idea at all--I should say not! Who wanted to spend nights
prowling around _that_ way? Why--why, it wasn't respectable, dash it!
Besides, that sort of thing--excursioning about seeing things--was
devilish tiresome, if you asked me. I never did do it, even abroad,
where you meet Americans, jolly bored and tired, doing all sorts of rum
places no one else ever thinks of, don't you know.

And as for a _bench_! Well, it was like her, in her innocence of the
world, not to know how downright vulgar that would be. I had seen
couples sitting evenings in the park--and I _knew_!

But I answered tactfully:

"I don't mean those places so much, don't you know--I think we can find
lots jollier and better nights elsewhere." And I closed my free eye and
beamed at her through my glass. "Don't have to go so far, you know;
under one's own roof, or--er--some one else's roof, for instance--why
not _here_?" I jerked my head toward the old stone pile behind us.

"Oh!"--her eyebrows lifted at me--"so you've thought of that, too?"--she
nodded gravely--"you mean in the library there?"

I winked assent.

The library suited _me_ all right!

"Just now," s