"Motoring, I presume," Mabane remarked, "is amongst the pleasures denied to the young ladies of the convent?"
She laughed gaily.
"Pleasures! Why, there are no pleasures for those poor girls. One may not even smile, and as for games, even they are not permitted. I think that it is shameful to make such a purgatory of a place. One may not, one could not, be happy there. It is not allowed."
She caught the look which flashed from Mabane to me, and turned instantly around.
"Oh, Monsieur Arnold," she cried breathlessly, "you do not think—I shall not have to return there?"
"Not likely!" Arthur interposed with vigour. "By Jove! if anyone shut you up there again I'd come and fetch you out."
She threw a quick glance of gratitude towards him, but her eyes returned almost immediately to mine. She waited anxiously for me to speak.
"If we can possibly prevent it," I said slowly, "you shall never return there. I do not think that it is at all the proper place for you. But you must remember that we are, after all, people of no authority. Someone might come forward to-morrow with a legal right to claim you, and we should be helpless."