"Not at all. My intellect was never less clouded. In spite of two glasses of ginger beer, my hand is like a spade—I mean a rock. Insert a fly in your eye, and I will remove it unhesitatingly."
"I'll take your word for it," said Agatha.
"One of these days I shall compare you to a burst of melody. At the present moment I am between your dimple and the deep sea."
"The dimple you are," said Agatha, with a smile that promised laughter with difficulty suppressed.
Amusedly I regarded her.
She was very tastefully dressed. A blue silk coat and a white laced blouse beneath it, a pale grey skirt of some soft stuff, grey silk stockings and small grey shoes—these with a hat of crocheted silk that matched her jersey—suited her pretty figure and the April day to rare perfection.
Leaning easily against the worn masonry of the balustrade, slight, lithe and graceful, she was the embodiment of vitality in repose. She stood so still, but there was a light shining in the brown eyes, that were cast down and over the parapet, keeping a careful watch for any indication of Berry's activity, a tell-tale quiver of the sensitive nostrils, an eagerness hanging on the parted lips, which, with her flushed cheeks, lent to a striking face an air of freshness and a keen joie de vivre that was exhilarating beyond description.
"I wonder what's happening," said Agatha, nodding down at the gateway. "Can they get out another way?"
"I'm not sure. There is another gate, but——"
"At last," said a familiar voice. "I wouldn't have missed those stairs for anything. Think of the fools who've trodden them before." The next moment Berry, followed by Mr. Lewis, made his appearance. "Why, here are our little playmates." He advanced beaming. "Don't be shy any longer. And what a storied retreat you have selected!" He indicated the building with a sweep of his arm. "You know, originally this was a helter-skelter lighthouse, but Henry the Eighth lost his mat half-way down the chute, and had it closed down in revenge. There was a great deal of feeling about it. Especially on the part of the King. He hunted from a litter for months."