"Well?" he said vaguely.

"I wonder," she replied, "whether you'd mind tasting it first, just to see whether it has anything intoxicating in it?"

John thought that this was a strange sort of young woman to take into supper, but he did as she bid him. He took a large portion of the trifle on to a plate and tasted it. She gazed at him in a very anxious manner.

"It has," he said, "and it's lovely!"

The light went out of her eyes. "Then I think I'll just have some blanc-mange," she said.

"There's nothing intoxicating in that," he replied, going to get it for her.

"Do you know," she murmured when he had returned and she was eating the blanc-mange, "I almost wish you had said there was nothing intoxicating in the trifle!..."

"That would have been a lie," John interrupted.

"Yes, but!... Oh, well, this blanc-mange is quite nice!"

John tempted, her. "Taste the trifle anyway," he said.