“Not you!” said Max.

She opened her eyes.  “You think I wouldn’t dare?”

He looked back at her with composure.  “It is more a matter of caring than daring, my dear,” he said.  “Your heart wouldn’t be in it.  But you are afraid of me all the same.”

She coloured and turned the subject.  “When is Sir Kersley going to make you his partner?”

“Directly I return,” said Max.

“And when will that be?”

He considered a moment.  “I expect to reach England in a month from now.”

“Max!” She sat up again quickly.  “Oh, you’re not going so soon!” she said.

He put his arm round her shoulders.  “But you will be coming back yourself in April.  Nick told me so.”

“In April!  But that’s aeons away!” protested Olga.

His eyes looked down into hers, and the old gleam which once she had taken for mockery hovered there.  Her own eyes flickered and sank before it.  There was something quick and fiery in it that she could not meet.

“I’ll take you back with me,” he said, “if you will come.”

She started a little.  “Oh, no!” she said.

“Why ’Oh, no’?” he enquired.

She was silent for a moment, her face downcast.  “I couldn’t leave Nick—­possibly—­out here,” she said then.

“Why not?  Can’t the little god take care of himself?”

“No.  And I wouldn’t let him if he could.  I shouldn’t feel easy about him.  He—­he—­I feel as if he is trying to walk a tight rope every day.”

“It’s a sort of thing he ought to do very well, I should say,” observed Max.  “But what is he doing it for?”

She looked up.  “He thinks he is getting on splendidly,” she said.  “He and the Rajah are such friends!  But the Rajah isn’t everybody, and I’m not sure even of him.  Someone tried to blow up the fort with a bomb not so very long ago.”

“Oh, that’s the game, is it?” said Max.  “You think a similar little joke might be played on Nick, and if so you want to be there to see.”

She smiled faintly, in a sense relieved that he did not treat the matter too seriously.  “It makes one a little nervous for him,” she said, “though of course there may be no reason for it.”

“I see,” said Max.  “It’s just a nightmare, is it?”

He was watching her intently, and under his look her heart quickened a little.

“It may be all nonsense, yes,” she admitted.  “But in any case I won’t leave Nick out here.  He is in my special charge.”

He laughed.  “Well, there’s no appealing against that.  You will be home in April then.  Will you marry me on Midsummer Day?”

Olga’s eyelids flickered and fell.  “I must think about it,” she said.

He pinched her cheek.  “Say Yes,” he said.

She turned her face impulsively; her lips just touched his hand.  “I wonder if I shall, Max,” she said.

“Say Yes,” he repeated, still softly but with insistence.