"Do you really mean what you just said?" she queried.
"I really do," I answered.
"Well, then, do you paddle a canoe?"
"Yes, but what has that to do with the question?" I replied perplexedly.
"Everything," she responded. "Robert is stationed at Corbeille, fifteen miles below here on the Seine. I have the canoe and tomorrow I want you to go with me down the river to Robert.".
My mind made a swift diagnosis of the situation. All exits from Paris carefully watched; suspicion rife everywhere—strangers off in a canoe; a sentinel challenge and a shot from the bank.
"Let us first consider———" I began.
"We can do that in the canoe to-morrow," she interrupted.
And I capitulated, quite as Paris had.
We stepped out into the darkness that cloaked the silent city from its aerial ravagers. As we walked I mused upon this modern maiden's Iliad. While a thousand hug the quiet haven, what was it that impelled the one to cut moorings and range the deep? A chorus of croaking frogs greeted our turn into a park.