Sylvia felt that the only way of dealing with Monkley was to stand up to him from the first.
“Oh, shut up!” she broke in. “You can’t frighten me. Next time, perhaps you’ll tell me beforehand what you’re going to do, and then I’ll see if I’ll let you do it.”
He began to laugh. “You’ve got some pluck.”
“Why?”
“Why, to cheek me like that.”
“I’m not Maudie, you see,” Sylvia pointed out.
Presently a spasm of self-consciousness made her long to be once more in petticoats, and, grabbing wildly at her flying boyhood, she said how much she wanted to have adventures. Monkley promised she should have as many as she liked, and bade her farewell, saying that he was going to join her father in a saloon bar round the corner. Sylvia volunteered to accompany him, and after a momentary hesitation he agreed to take her. On the stairs they overtook the baron, very much dressed up, who, in answer to an inquiry from Monkley, informed them that he was going to lunch with the Emperor of Byzantium.
“Give my love to the Empress,” Monkley laughed.
“It’s-s nothing to laugh at,” the baron said, severely. “He lives in West Kensington.”
“Next door to the Pope, I suppose,” Monkley went on.