“Haven’t you had enough of it?” he said, at last.

And she answered him with a quivering laugh.  “No, not nearly.  I’m spinning out every single second.”

“Ah, but they won’t wait,” he said.  “Come!  I think we’re safely lost now.  Let us go!”

She turned obediently from a glorious spread of gloxinias, and he made a way for her through the buzzing crowd to the entrance.  When Dick spoke with the voice of authority, it was her pleasure to submit.

She felt her pulses tingle as she followed him, to be alone with him again, to feel herself encompassed by the fiery magic of his love, to yield throbbing surrender to the mastery that would not be denied.  Yet when he turned to her outside in the hot sunshine with the blaring band close at hand she almost shrank away, she almost voiced a pretext for continuing their unprofitable wandering through the stifling tents.  For, strangely, though he smiled at her, there was about him in that moment a quality that went near to scaring her.  Something untamed, something indomitable, looked out at her from his glittering eyes.  It was almost like a challenge, as if he dared her to dispute his right.

“That’s better,” he said, drawing a deep breath.  “Now we can get away.”

“We shan’t get away from the people,” she said.

He threw a rapid glance around.  “Yes, we shall—­with any luck.  Come along!  I know the way.  There’s a little landing-stage place down by the lake.  We’ll go there.  There may even be a boat handy—­if the gods are kind.”

The gods were kind.  They skirted the terraced gardens, which were not open to the public, and plunged down a winding walk through a shrubbery that led somewhat sharply downwards, away from the noise and the crush into cool green depths of woodland through which at last there shone up at them the gleam of water.

Juliet was panting when at length her guide paused.  “My darling, what a shame!” he said.  “But hang on to me!  There are some steps round the corner, and they may be slippery.  We’ll soon be down now, and there’s not a soul anywhere.  Look!  There’s a fairy barque waiting for us!”

She caught sight of a white skiff, lying in the water close to the bank.  As he had predicted, the final descent was a decided scramble, but he held her up until the mossy bank was reached; and would have held her longer, but with a little breathless laugh she released herself.

“My shoes are ruined,” she remarked.

As they were of light grey suede, and the precipitous path they had travelled was a mixture of clay and limestone the ruin was palpable and very thorough.  Dick surveyed them with compunction.

“I say, they’re wet through!  You must take them off at once.  Get into the boat!”

“No, no!” She laughed again with more assurance.  “I am not going to take them off.  We couldn’t dry them if I did, and I should never get them on again.  Do you think we ought to get into the boat?  Suppose the owner came along?”