"I am running away from Archie. He was so excessively dull and disagreeable that I could not bring myself to waste another moment on him, so I ran away and left him just planté là," says Miss Chesney, with a little foreign gesture and a delicious laugh that rings far through the clear air, and reaches Archibald's ears as he draws nearer.
"Come, I hear footsteps," whispers she, slipping her hand into Taffy's. "Help me to hide from him."
So together they scamper still farther away, until at last they arrive breathless but secure in the shrubberies that surround one side of the house.
When they have quite recovered themselves, it occurs to Taffy that he would like to know all about it.
"What was he saying to you?" asks he à propos of Chesney.
"Nothing," promptly.
Taffy, curiously: "Well, certainly that was very disagreeable."
Lilian, demurely: "It was."
At this Taffy lays his hands upon her shoulders and gives her a good shake.
"Tell me directly," says he, "what he was saying to you."