“You can’t ask me a favour,” he replied, “because it wouldn’t be a favour.  It would be my privilege.”

“But if you put it like that I can’t ask you.”

“You must!” he said firmly.

Then she told him something of the predicament of Jane Foley.  He listened with an expression of trouble.  Audrey finished bluntly:  “She’s my friend.  And I want you to take her on the yacht to-night after it’s dark.  Nobody but you can save her.  There!  I’ve asked you!”

“Jane Foley!” he murmured.

She could see that he was aghast.  The syllables of that name were notorious throughout Britain.  They stood for revolt, damage to property, defiance of law, injured policemen, forcible feeding, and all sorts of phenomena that horrified respectable pillars of society.

“She’s the dearest thing!” said Audrey.  “You’ve no idea.  You’d love her.  And she’s done as much for Women’s Suffrage as anybody in the world.  She’s a real heroine, if you like.  You couldn’t help the cause better than by helping her.  And I know how keen you are to help.”  And Audrey said to herself:  “He’s as timid as a girl about it.  How queer men are, after all!”

“But what are we to do with her afterwards?” asked Mr. Gilman.  There was perspiration on his brow.

“Sail straight to France, of course.  They couldn’t touch her there, you see, because it’s political.  It is political, you know,” Audrey insisted proudly.

“And give up all our cruise?”

Audrey bent forward, as she had seen Tommy do.  She smiled enchantingly.  “I quite understand,” she said, with a sort of tenderness.  “You don’t want to do it.  And it was a shame of me even to suggest it.”

“But I do want to do it,” he protested with splendid despairful resolve.  “I was only thinking of you—­and the cruise.  I do want to do it.  I’m absolutely at your disposal.  When you ask me to do a thing, I’m only too proud.  To do it is the greatest happiness I could have.”

Audrey replied softly: 

“You deserve the Victoria Cross.”

“Whatever do you mean?” he demanded nervously.

“I don’t know exactly what I mean,” she said.  “But you’re the nicest man I ever knew.”

He blushed.

“You mustn’t say that to me,” he deprecated.

“I shall, and I shall.”

The sound of the thirty-six variations still came very faintly over the water.  The sun sent cataracts of warm light across all the estuary.  The water lapped against the boat, and Audrey was overwhelmed by the inexplicable marvel of being alive in the gorgeous universe.

“I shall have to back water,” she said, low.  “There’s no room to turn round here.”

“I suppose we’d better say as little about it as possible,” he ventured.

“Oh!  Not a word!  Not a word till it’s done.”

“Yes, of course.”  He was drenched in an agitating satisfaction.