‘I should rather think so!’ cried Marjorie, brusquely. ‘If you don’t mind a quarter of an hour’s nice hard scramble, your plan is to go up the Gros Nez cliffs, about a mile from this, and so back to your hotel along the edge of the steep. You are tolerably steady on the legs, I suppose?’ Tolerably! A too shallow purse, a too well endowed brain had combined to force Geoffrey Arbuthnot out of the ranks of the big and world-renowned athletes. But ask the All England football team, ask the men against whom the All England football team has played, if Arbuthnot of John’s be tolerably steady on his legs! ‘I don’t know that I am unusually feeble, Miss Bartrand. My weakness, perhaps, is more of the nerves than the limbs. Point out some path to me that you and the Seigneur are in the habit of treading, assure me, on your honour, that you think that path safe, and perhaps I shall have courage to attempt it.’ ‘Well, when you get free of Tintajeux you must go straight across the corner of the moor to Les Hüets. At the end of a few hundred yards you will find four water-lanes meet. You must take the one that seems to lead away from Petersport, and follow it until you get to Tibot. You know Tibot, of course?’ ‘I am shamefully ignorant, Miss Bartrand. I do not know Tibot.’ ‘After that, a brisk two minutes’ walk down, down, through spongy wet earth churning at every step over your ankles, brings you to the shore. Right in face of you are the Gros Nez heights, and if you get to the top all right (even in broad day it is not considered a very safe climb for strangers), your road home will lie straight before you, along the edge of the cliffs.’ Geff Arbuthnot clasped his forehead. ‘When I get clear of Tintajeux I must go across the moor to an unpronounceable place where four water-lanes meet. Of these I must choose the one that looks least likely to lead anywhere. Then down, down, through spongy wet earth churning up to my ankles at every step, until I catch sight of the cliffs where I shall finally break my neck. Miss Bartrand, will you allow me to ask a favour?’ ‘Doubtless.’ A gleam of white teeth showed the heartiness of the girl’s amusement. ‘It rests with me, though,’ she added maliciously, ‘to say “yes” or “no” to it.’ ‘Unfortunately it rests always with feminine caprice to say “yes” or “no” to the proposals made by men.’ The hour, or the moonlight, or some curiously occult and unknown influence must have been telling on Arbuthnot of John’s. He stood on the brink of a flirtation. ‘As you may have proved to your cost, sir,’ thought Marjorie, not quite without a movement of pity. ‘As you may have proved in that hour--I wonder how many years ago--when the Devonshire peasant girl decided on becoming Mrs. Geoffrey Arbuthnot.’