hing
to him or to his aunt. Let Dick and me fight it out between us."

He laughed again. "With all my heart, if you want to fight. But I won't
have you annoyed. If he annoys you he must go. I will get rid of him."

"Dick can't annoy me if he doesn't make trouble for me with you, Sir
Lionel," I said. (And that was the truth.) "Only, if you'll just trust
me to manage him?"

"You're very young to undertake the management of a man."

"Dick isn't a man. He's a boy."

"And you--are a child."

"I may seem a child to you," I said, "but I'm not. I'll be so happy, and
I'll thank you so much, if you'll just let things go on as they are for
a little while. You'll be glad afterward if you do."

And he will, when I've gone and Ellaline has come. He will be glad he
didn't give himself too much trouble on my account. But I'm not going to
think now of what his opinion of me may be _then_. At present he has a
very good, kind opinion. Even though I am a child in his eyes, I am a
dear child; and though it can't last, it does make me happy to be dear
to him, in any way at all--this terrible Dragon of Ellaline's.

But that isn't the end of our conversation. The real end was an
anti-climax, perhaps, but I liked it. For that matter, the tail of a
comet's an anti-climax.

It was only that, when we'd talked on, and he'd promised to trust me,
and leave the reins in my hands, while he attended solely to the
steering of his motor-car, I said: "Now we must go in. Mrs. Senter will
be wanting to finish her rubber." (I forgot to tell you that he
explained she'd had a telegram, and had been obliged to hurry and write
a letter, to catch the last post. That had stopped a game in the
middle.)

"Oh, hang it all, I suppose she will!" he grumbled, more to himself than
to me, because, if he'd paused to think, he would have been too polite
to express himself so about a guest, whatever his feelings were. But
that's why I was pleased. He spoke impulsively, without thinking. Wasn't
it a triumph, that he would rather have stayed there in the garden, even
with a "child," than hurry back to that radiant white-and-gold (and
black) vision?

Now you know why I am so pleased with life.

All that happened last night, and to-day we have had "excursions," but
no "alarums." We (every one, not just he and I) have been to Kent's
Cavern, where prehistoric tigers' teeth grinned at us from the walls,
and have taken a walk to Babbicombe Bay, where we had tea. I thin