"The first duty of a servant," said Anthony, "is to know his place."
Valerie stood still and looked at him.
"I wonder you don't call me 'miss,'" she said, shaking her head gravely.
"Very good, miss," said Lyveden.
"That's better," said Miss French contentedly, slipping an arm through his. "And now, if we leave the path and bear to the right, in about two minutes we shall come to my window."
The two had been climbing steadily, but another fifty paces in the direction Miss French had indicated brought them to the foot of a steeper ascent than ever. This was, in fact, a broad natural bank, some thirty feet high. The careful negotiation of a tiny path, followed by a plunge into a thicket, where the stubborn protests of boughs had to be overruled, landed them in a dwarf clearing, which the density of the surrounding bocage rendered a fastness.
Valerie stepped to the far side and parted the branches.
"Look," she said.
They were upon the lip of a heather-edged bluff which fell sheer for perhaps two hundred feet into a pinewood. Beyond, by mammoth terraces, the glory of the forest sank step by colossal step into the purple distance, from which distant in turn a thread of silver argued the ocean. There never was such a staircase. The grandeur of its proportions diminished the rolling world. The splendour of its covering made colour pale.
Anthony gazed spellbound. At length—