“Would you like my advice as well?” he questioned.

She met his quizzing look with her frank eyes.  “What is your advice?” she said.

He held her hand in his.  “You haven’t forgotten, have you, the sole condition on which I extended my protection to you?  No.  I thought not.  We won’t discuss it.  The time is not yet ripe.  And, as you say, the Night Moth in this weather, though safe, might not be a very comfortable abiding-place.  But—­don’t forget she is quite safe, my Juliette!  I should like you to remember that.”

He spoke with a strange emphasis that must in some fashion have conveyed more than his actual words, for quite suddenly her throat worked with a sharp spasm of emotion.  She put up her hand instinctively to hide it.

“Thank you,” she said.  “If I need—­a city of refuge—­I shall know which way to turn.  Now for your advice!”

“My advice!” He was looking at her with those odd, unstable eyes of his that ever barred the way to his inner being.  “It depends a little on the condition of your heart—­that.  When it comes to this in an obstacle race, there are three courses open to you.  Either you refuse the jump and drop out—­which is usually the safest thing to do.  Or you take the thing at full gallop and clear it before you know where you are.  Or you go at it with a weak heart and come to grief.  I don’t advise the last anyway.  It’s so futile—­as well as being beastly humiliating.”

She smiled at him.  “Thank you, Charles!  A very illuminating parable!  Well, I don’t contemplate the first—­as you know.  I must have a try at the second.  And if I smash,—­it’s horribly difficult, you know—­I may smash—­” Sudden anguish looked at him out of her eyes, and a hard shiver went through her as she turned away.  “Oh, Charles!” she said.  “Why did I ever come to this place?”

He made a frightful grimace that was somehow sympathetic and shrugged his shoulders.  “If you smash, my dearly-beloved, your faithful comrade will have the priceless privilege of picking up the pieces.  Why you came here is another matter.  I have sometimes dared to wonder if the proximity of my poor castle—­No?  Not that?  Ah, well then, it must be that our destinies are guided by the same star.  To my mind that is an even more thrilling reflection than the other.  Think of it, my Juliette, you and I—­helplessly kicking like flies in the cream-jug—­being drawn to one another, irresistibly and in spite of ourselves, even leaving some of our legs behind us in the desperate struggle to be calm and reasonable and quite—­quite moral!  And then a sudden violent storm in the cream-jug, and we are flung into each other’s unwilling arms where we cling for safety till the crack of doom when all the milk is spilt!  It’s no use fighting the stars, you know.  It really isn’t.  The only rational course is to make the stars fight for you.”

He peered round at her to see how she was taking his foolery; and in a moment impulsively she wheeled back, the distress banished from her face, the old steadfast courage in its place.