So he made the melodrama a comedy, and the moments of deadly peril he treated lightly. And one thing 304 he avoided altogether, and that was how he had kissed Ilse Dumont.
When he finished his account of his dreadful situation in the stateroom of Ilse Dumont, and how at the last second her unerring shots had shattered the bomb clock, cut the guy-rope, and smashed the water-jug which deluged the burning fuses, he added with a very genuine laugh:
“If only some photographer had taken a few hundred feet of film for me I could retire on an income in a year and never do another stroke of honest work!”
The Princess smiled, mechanically, but Rue Carew dropped her white face on the Princess Naïa’s shoulder as though suddenly fatigued.
CHAPTER XXVII
FROM FOUR TO FIVE
The Princess Mistchenka and Rue Carew had retired to their respective rooms for that hour between four and five in the afternoon, which the average woman devotes to cat-naps or to that aimless feminine fussing which must ever remain a mystery to man.
The afternoon had turned very warm; Neeland, in his room, lay on the lounge in his undershirt and trousers, having arrived so far toward bathing and changing his attire.