“Find another dragon,” said Jaffery.

“But supposing I don’t want another dragon?”

“That doesn’t matter in the least.  You’ve got to have one.”

“Say, Jaff Chayne,” cried Liosha, “do you think I can’t look after myself by this time?  What do you take me for?”

I interposed.  “Rather a lonely young woman, that’s all.  Jaffery, in his tactless way, by using the absurd term ‘dragon,’ has missed the point altogether.  You want a companion, if only to go about with, say to restaurants and theatres.”

“I guess I can get heaps of those,” said Liosha, a smile in her eyes.  “Don’t you worry!”

“All the more reason for a dragon.”

“If you mean somebody who’s going to sit on my back every time I talk to a man, I decidedly object.  Mrs. Considine was different and you’re not going to find another like her in a hurry.  Besides—­I had sense enough to see that she was going to teach me things.  But I don’t want to be taught any more.  I’ve learned enough.”

“But it’s just a woman companion that we want to give you, dear,” said Barbara.  “Her mere presence about you is a protection against—­well, any pretty young woman living alone is liable to chance impertinence and annoyance.”

Liosha’s dark eyes flashed.  “I’d like to see any man try to annoy me.  He wouldn’t try twice.  You ask Mrs. Jardine”—­Mrs. Jardine was the keeper of the boarding-house—­“she’ll tell you a thing or two about my being able to keep men from annoying me.”

Barbara did, afterwards, ask Mrs. Jardine, and obtained a few sidelights on Liosha’s defensive methods.  What they lacked in subtlety they made up in physical effectiveness.  There were not many spruce young gentlemen who, after a week’s residence in that establishment, did not adopt a peculiarly deferential attitude towards Liosha.

“Still,” said Jaffery, “I think you ought to have somebody, you know.”

“If you’re so keen on a dragon,” replied Liosha defiantly, “why not take on the job yourself?”

“I?  Good Lord!  Ho! ho! ho!”

Jaffery rose to his feet and roared with laughter.  It was a fine joke.

“There’s a lot in Liosha’s suggestion,” said Barbara, with an air of seriousness.

“You don’t expect me to come and live here?” he cried, waving a hand to the frills and ribbons.

“It wouldn’t be a bad idea,” said I.  “You would get all the advantages and refining influences of a first-class English home.”

He pivoted round.  “Oh, you be—­”

“Hush,” said Barbara.  “Either you ought to stay here and look after Liosha more than you do—­”

He protested.  Wasn’t he always looking after her?  Didn’t he write?  Didn’t he drop in now and then to see how she was getting on?

“Have you ever taken the poor child out to dinner?” Barbara asked sternly.

He stood before her in the confusion of a schoolboy detected in a lapse from grace, stammering explanations.  Then Liosha rose, and I noticed just the faintest little twitching of her lip.