Quest and Lenora turned away from the window of the hotel, out of which they had been gazing for the last quarter of an hour.  Stretched out before them were the lights of the Exposition, a blur of twinkling diamonds against the black garb of night.  Beyond, the flashing of a light-house and a faint background of dark sea.

“It’s too beautiful,” Lenora sighed.

Quest stood for a moment shaking his head.  The Professor with a pile of newspapers stretched out before him, was completely engrossed in their perusal.  Laura, who had been sitting in an armchair at the further end of the apartment, was apparently deep in thought.  The newspaper which she had been reading had slipped unnoticed from her fingers.

“Say, you two are no sort of people for a holiday,” Quest declared.  “As for you, Laura, I can’t think what’s come over you.  You never opened your mouth at dinner-time, and you sit there now looking like nothing on earth.”

“I am beginning to suspect her,” Lenora chimed in.  “Too bad he had to hurry away, dear!”

Laura’s indignation was not altogether convincing.  Quest and Lenora exchanged amused glances.  The former picked up the newspaper from the floor and calmly turned out the Professor’s lamp.

“Look here,” he explained, “this is the first night of our holiday.  I’m going to run the party and I’m going to make the rules.  No more newspapers to-night or for a fortnight.  You understand?  No reading, nothing but frivolity.  And no love-sickness, Miss Laura.”

“Love-sickness, indeed!” she repeated scornfully.

“Having arranged those minor details,” Quest concluded, “on with your hats, everybody.  I am going to take you out to a cafe where they play the best music in the city.  We are going to have supper, drink one another’s health, and try and forget the last few months altogether.”

Lenora clapped her hands and Laura rose at once to her feet.  The Professor obediently crossed the room for his hat.

“I am convinced,” he said, “that our friend Quest’s advice is good.  We will at any rate embark upon this particular frivolity which he suggests.”

2.

Quest took the dispatch which the hotel clerk handed to him one afternoon a fortnight later, and read it through without change of expression.  Lenora, however, who was by his side, knew at once that it contained something startling.

“What is it?” she asked.

He passed his arm through hers and led her down the hall to where the Professor and Laura were just waiting for the lift.  He beckoned them to follow him to a corner of the lounge.

“There’s one thing I quite forgot, a fortnight ago,” he said, slowly, “when I suggested that we should none of us look at a newspaper all the time we were in California.  Have you kept to our bargain, Professor?”

“Absolutely!”

“And you, girls?”

“I’ve never even seen one,” Lenora declared.