"I'm quite sure I couldn't," I answered helplessly. "Seraph, can you do anything with her?"

"Nobody can do anything with her...."

"Seraph!"

"...against her will."

"That's better."

I struck at a propitious moment.

"When we leave here," I said to the Seraph, "you're to take her hand and not let go till you're back in the hotel again. I give her into your charge. Treat her...."

I hesitated, and Sylvia interrogated me with a King's Ransom smile.

"Treat her as she deserves," I said. "If she were my wife, ward or daughter, I should slap her and send her to bed. So would you, so would any man worthy of the name."

"Would you, Seraph?"