“But how are we to get to everywhere, or anywhere?” asked Jeanne.

“Really!” said Dudu, as if quite out of patience.  “When you are running up and down the terrace, in your other life, you don’t stand still at one end and say, ‘Dudu, how am I to get to the other?’ You move your feet, which were given you for the purpose.  And in present circumstances, instead of your feet, you naturally——­”

“Move our wings,” cried Jeanne.  “Oh, of course.  We’re to fly.  But you see, Dudu, we’re accustomed to having feet, and to running and walking with them, but having wings is something new.”

Dudu still looked rather contemptuous, and Hugh gave a little pull to Jeanne’s hand.

“Let’s set off,” he said.

“But where are we to go to?” asked Jeanne.

Dudu gave a little croak.  “Really,” he said again.  “What am I here for?”

“Oh, to show us the way, of course,” said Jeanne.  “You’re going to steer us, I suppose, on the top of my head.  Well, we’re quite ready.”

Off they set.  The flying this time was really quite a pleasure in itself, and the higher up they rose the easier and swifter it seemed to become.  The hall was lighted from the roof—­at least the light seemed to come down from among the arches so high up that their form was only vaguely seen.  But whether it was daylight or what, the children did not know, and perhaps it did not occur to them to think.  They just flew softly on, till suddenly Dudu veered to one side and stopped them in front of a low carved door with a step before it just large enough for them to stand on.  They had not noticed this door before—­the hall was so very large and the door in comparison so small, and the step before it had looked just like a little jutting-out ledge in the carving, till they were close to it.

“Don’t turn round,” said Dudu, “for fear it should make you giddy.  Push the door and go in at once.”

The children did so.  The door yielded, and then immediately—­they were such well-behaved doors in the tapestry palace—­closed behind them.  And what the children now saw was a small winding stair, the lowest steps of which were close to their feet.

“Here,” said Dudu, “I will leave you.  You can’t go wrong.”

He flew down from Jeanne’s head as he spoke.  Jeanne gave her head a little shake; she seemed not altogether sorry to be freed from her head-dress, for a head-dress with feelings is a somewhat uncomfortable affair.

“I don’t mind you getting off my head, Dudu,” she said.  “But you might take a turn on Cheri’s for a change.  I think it’s rather shabby of you to leave us already.”

Hugh looked at Jeanne in surprise.  He could not understand how it was that Jeanne ventured to speak so coolly to the raven—­she who in their daylight life was so frightened of him that she would hardly go near him for fear he should turn her into a mouse, or in some other way bewitch her!