* * * * * *
"I'm sorry to be so late," she said in a voice devoid of anything in the way of tone or inflection, "and I had to bring my dressing-case, it would be so tiresome to be stranded in the desert with no looking-glass or face cream, wouldn't it?"
"It would be terrible!" was the answer, as though a dearth in dates was in discussion.
And then Jill sat down upon a convenient block of marble, and searching in her cheap bag for one of those Russian cigarette cases of wood, which had the advantage of being inexpensive and distinctive compared to those of gold, silver, or silver gilt, which jingle so irritatingly against the universal gold, silver, or silver gilt bag, took out a cigarette, lit it, and began to make conversation.
It is very difficult to describe the girl's frame of mind at this moment when she stood upon the verge of great happenings, or in fact of any moment when danger, possible or certain, confronted her.
She was perfectly calm, in fact a little dull, with a heart which physically neither slowed nor hastened.
Yet it was not the fearlessness of blissful ignorance, or the aggravating recklessness of the foolhardy.
Three times she had been in actual danger of death: once when her horse bolted, making straight for the cliffs a short way ahead; another time when the receding tide had caught her, pulling her slowly out to sea, and never a boat in sight; and again when taking a pre-breakfast stroll on the Col di Tenda, she had encountered a fugitive of the law desperately making for the frontier, who, half crazed with fear, sleeplessness, and hunger, literally at the point of an exceedingly sharp knife had demanded money, or bracelet, in fact anything which could be transformed into a mattress, and coffee, polenta, cigarette or succulent frittata.
After each of the preceding incidents she had tried to analyse her utter want of feeling, her inability to recognise danger, her almost placid confidence in an ultimate happy ending.
"It doesn't seem to be me, Dads," she had once explained, or tried to explain, to her father, who, in the depths of an armchair and the Sporting News, had no more idea of what she was talking about than the man in the moon. "I seem to be standing outside myself looking at myself. A sort of something seems to come right down, shutting the danger right away from me. I know I'm in it and have to get out of it, but though I pulled Arabia for all I knew, and swam for all I was worth to reach Rock Point, and bluffed that poor devil out of taking Mumsie's bracelet, I kind of did it mechanically, not with any intention of putting things right, for I knew I was not going to die that time, because I'm sure that I shall know when I've got to die . . . understand, Dads?"