"I believe you have persuaded me; but Cecilia"—
She was again at the point of loosening her hold upon the cord that linked her shallop to Ariel's isle, but my own youth was resurgent in me.
I rose hastily, the better to break the current of her thought.
"Those men down there! They are in the hands of a higher fate than we control. I don't know the game"—
"But if"—she broke in.
"But if you gave away the secret, explained it to me, you would throw me back into my darkest chimney to hope no more. Leave it to me; trust me; lean upon me! I assure you that all will be well."
She bent her head and yielded herself to reverie for a moment. Then she sprang to her feet in that indescribably light, graceful way that erased at least fifty of her years from the reckoning, and was herself again.
"Arnold Ames," she said, laughing a little but gazing up at me with unmistakable confidence and liking in her eyes, "we will go through with this to the end. And whether that slipper really fell at your feet in Beacon Street or in the even less likely precincts of Rittenhouse Square, or under the windows of the Spanish Embassy in Washington, I believe that you are my good knight, and that you will see me safely through this singular adventure."
And I, Arnold Ames, but lately a student of chimneys, bent and kissed Miss Octavia's hand.