“You know M. Raoul?  He has left, forgetting this book, which belongs to him.  Run down to the small gate, that’s a good girl—­you will overtake him easily, since he is walking round by the avenue—­and return it, with my compliments.”

Polly picked up her skirts and ran.  A narrow path slanted down across the slope of the park to the nurseries—­a sheltered corner in which the Bayfield gardener grew his more delicate evergreens—­and here a small wicket-gate opened on the high road.

The gate stood many feet above the road, which descended the hill between steep hedges.  She heard M. Raoul’s footstep as she reached it, and, peering over, saw him before he caught sight of her; indeed, he had almost passed with-out when she hailed him.

“Holloa!” He swung almost rightabout and smiled up pleasantly.  “Is it highway robbery?  If so, I surrender.”

Polly laughed, showing a fine set of teeth.

“I’m ’most out of breath,” she answered.  “You’ve left your book behind, and my mistress sent it after you with her compliments.”  She held it above the gate.

He sprang up the bank towards her.  “And a pretty book, too, to be found in your hands!  You haven’t been reading it, I hope.”

“La, no!  Is it wicked?”

“Much depends on where you happen to open it.  Now if your sweetheart—­”

“Who told you I had one?”

“Tut-tut-tut!  What’s his name?”

“Well, if you must know, I’m walking out with Corporal Zeally.  But what are you doing to the book?” For M. Raoul had taken out a penknife and was slicing out page after page—­in some places whole blocks of pages together.

“When I’ve finished, I’m going to ask you to take it back to your mistress; and then no doubt you’ll be reading it on the sly.  Here, I must sit down:  suppose you let me perch myself on the top bar of the gate.  Also, it would be kind of you to put up an arm and prevent my overbalancing.”

“I shouldn’t think of it.”

“Oh, very well!” He climbed up, laid the book on his knee and went on slicing.  “I particularly want her to read M. Rousseau’s reflections on the Pont du Gard; but I don’t seem to have a book marker, unless you lend me a lock of your hair.”

“Were you the gentleman she danced with, at ‘The Dogs,’ the night of the snowstorm?”

“The Pont du Gard, my dear, is a Roman antiquity, and has nothing to do with dancing.  If, as I suppose, you refer to the ‘Pont de Lodi,’ that is a totally different work of art.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“And I don’t intend that you shall.”

He cut a small strip of braid from his coat, inserted it for a bookmarker, and began to fold away the excised pages.  “That’s why I am keeping these back for my own perusal, and perhaps Corporal Zeally’s.”

“Do you know him?” She reached up to take the book he was holding out in his left hand, and the next instant his right arm was round her neck and he had kissed her full on the lips.  “Oh, you wretch!” she cried, breaking free; and laughed, next moment, as he nearly toppled off the gate.