"Just one garment, a robe that would come from your shoulders to your knees, loose and clinging, soft and white, with a strap of pearls to hold it on."
"It sounds draughty," she commented; "and it might show my horrid scars."
"It would suit you admirably."
"And, I suppose, it would suit you admirably, too, to be lying about on cushions with me so attired waiting on you," she said quickly. "Bringing you sherbet and hubble-bubbles, or whatever you call those big pipe things that men smoke in Eastern pictures and on cigar-box lids. And I shouldn't dare call my soul my own. I should tremble at your look. That one garment would place me at a terrible disadvantage."
"I might not be a severe task-master. I might only ask you to do one thing."
"And what would that be?"
"In English, I could say it in two words; spell it in six letters."
Pansy darted a quick look at him, and a little mocking smile came and hovered on her mouth.
She was too accustomed to men and their ways not to guess what the two words that could be spelt in six letters were.
She sat quiet for a moment or two, an impish look on her face. Then she rattled off a riddle in English:—