"Shall we go back now?" I suggested. "I've finished my cigar."

"A joke may be carried too far," she exclaimed, stamping her foot as I remember seeing her stamp it as a wicked, flaxen-haired child of five.

"Heaven witness I'm not joking!" I protested. "Nothing I could say would move you in your present frame of mind; the wager gave me my chance. It's a ring against a hand, and on the day that sees you separated from your infernal cause, I come to claim my reward. As long as you and the cause remain unseparated you may keep the ring. I'm backing my luck; I always do, and it never fails me."

Joyce gave the ring a last despairing tug, and then with some difficulty drew the finger of her glove over it.

"How long must I wait before I may have the ring cut?" she asked.

I had not considered that.

"Till my death?" I suggested.

"Sooner than that, I hope."

"Oh, so do I. I want to win the wager and get my stakes back."

Joyce passed out before me into the quadrangle, buttoning her glove as she went. I was feeling elated by what had passed, elated and quite deliciously surprised to find how short-lived her anger had been.