"'Beautiful Daisy, it is a bomb of which I think I have every reason to be proud. The principal ingredient is fulminate of mercury. It will make a terrible noise, but do no harm worth speaking of. You wonder; but I will explain. What is the object of a bomb? To terrorise. What is the most effective cause of terror? Noise. By noise, far more than by any other means, shall we frighten governments into conceding our demands.'
"She was not indignant, as some women would have been, but only curious.
"'I'd just love to have a look at that bomb,' she said.
"'But, beautiful Daisy,' I replied, 'even if you saw it, you would never know that it was a bomb. That is another of its merits. It can be made up to look like anything—like a cigar-case, for example, or a photograph album, or a purse.'
"'How clever!'
"'Still,' I said, 'if you would deign to accept the humble hospitality of a bachelor's roof——'
"She was emancipated—even for an American. The usual proprieties seemed to have no hold upon her.
"'I will,' she said, 'and if I'm alive to-morrow, I'll be passing here about this time.'
"And then we said good-bye. If only I had known! But I must not anticipate.
"I prepared a feast for my beautiful Daisy—such a feast as my modest means permitted. We had tea and fruits, and bread and butter, and cream, and honey—real honey, not the poisonous stuff they make at Zurich. Imagine, then, my consternation when she burst into a flood of tears, exclaiming—