With a slim brown hand, which, despite all the man's sang-froid, still shook like a leaf in the wind, he lit the cigarette for the girl, looking up into her face as he did so.
"Either I mistake your shape and making quite,
Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite
Called Robin Goodfellow."
There came a little bubble of laughter from Peggy, which seemed to remove all diffidence from Collingwood. "How are you, my friend Puck?" he said.
Peggy perched herself upon the head of the sofa. "Oh, Puck was an imp of mischief," she said.
"Well?" he asked.
The girl puffed her cigarette contentedly for a few seconds; then she bent towards him, swinging her little brown-shoed foot. "Tell me, Colling," she asked: "why weren't my boxes registered?"
"Well—of all the suspicious little demons I ever came across! Registered?"
"Yes, registered."
"Well, I suppose that fool of a porter at Charing Cross forgot to do it," Collingwood replied.
"It was a bit of luck, wasn't it?" Peggy said.