“That’s the modern flaming sword,” he continued.  “The color stirs something inside me.  Ugly, isn’t it?”

“It is ugly,” she confessed thoughtfully.  “Yet it’s the flag we fight under, too, isn’t it?  And we’d fight for it if we had to, just as we fought for the other—­our own.”

“I love your ‘we,’” he laughed happily.

She nestled closer to him.

“Are you still hating the Caribbean?”

“I?  I’m loving it the second-best thing in the world.”

“But I loved it first,” she reminded him jealously.  “Dearest,” she added, with one of her swift swoops of thought, “what was that funny title the British Secretary of Legation had?”

“What?  Oh, Captain the Honorable Carey Knowles?”

“Yes.  Well, I shall have a much nicer, more picturesque title than that when we come back to Caracuna—­dear, dirty, dangerous, queer, riotous, plague-stricken old Caracuna!”

“Then my liege ladylove intends to come back?” he asked.

“Of course.  Some time.  And in Caracuna I shall insist on being Mrs. the Unspeakable Perk.”

THE END