"But"—Folly held fast to his arm, with a little frown of solicitude to excuse her persistence—"if you feel so sure Morphew means mischief—"
"Do you need more proof than you've had tonight?"
"Then surely he'll have set somebody to watch the house already—"
"The front of it, yes. Precisely why I'm anxious to get away before he can set spies to guard the rear. If you have no objection, I shall leave by these windows after putting out the lamp."
"But why?" Folly adorably pouted. "You're safe enough here."
"Madame will forgive if I make so bold as to question that." She let fall her lovely lashes to deny Lanyard's meaning smile, but still held on. "And every minute I linger makes the danger outside more real."
"Then . . . don't leave at all . . ."
"Madame is generous to a fault. She forgets the world is never broad-minded. There are the servants to be considered, the neighbours—"
"A lot I care what people think, it's you I'm thinking of!"
Suffused with facile sentiment, the face at Lanyard's shoulder was that of an exquisite and ingenuous child, vibrant with glad recognition of a world whose wonder and beauty had till that moment been all unsuspected. And the worst of it was, she knew it . . . No: the real worst of it was that it wasn't art, it wasn't put on, she wasn't coquetting, actually she was stirred to the depths of her being and meant with all of her every lovely nuance of her looks. Even Lanyard knew an instant when nothing in life seemed more desirous than those lambent eyes and the yielding mouth whose lips trembled with her hastened breathing. . . .