Lucie hesitated a moment, remembering Paulette’s charges, but she managed to get around the subject by saying: “Why can’t you? When Paulette comes back she will permit me to open the door, though while she is out I may not.” Odette laughed. “My case is even worse, for I am locked in.” “Then when those old ones return we can visit, I hope.” “I shall like that. Do you not think you’d better take in your dog? The police do not allow us to place anything on the window sill, you know.” “But Pom Pom is not a thing,” returned Lucie laughing; “I consider him a person.” Odette laughed in response but drew in her head and Lucie did the same. Paulette would not return for another hour, during which time would hang heavy on her hands. She wished that Paulette were not so particular, and that Odette’s guardians were not such exacting ones. “There could not be the slightest objection to my opening the door to Odette, that I know,” she said to Pom Pom. “If only she could get out I certainly would do it. Hark! What is that?” Pom Pom pricked up his ears and growled at a sharp noise which seemed to come from the next room. “Hush, Pom Pom; it is not possible to find out what that is when you make such a fuss,” said Lucie. “It cannot be a bird, yet what else? Certainly that is something tapping on the window. I will go and peep. Softly now, softly.” She tiptoed to the next room, and saw pressed against the window pane the merry face of Odette. In another moment the window was opened and in slipped the little neighbor. Lucie looked at her in amazement. “How in the world did you get here?” she asked. Odette laughed. “It was not so difficult. I could not open my door and you were not permitted to open yours, so I told myself that one must contrive another way. There was nothing said about windows, you perceive, therefore I come by way of windows.” “But how?” repeated Lucie. “Where there are trap doors, roofs, and gutters it is easy to one who is used to climbing,” returned Odette with a little shrug of the shoulders and a nonchalant air. “So then you climbed through a trap door, down the roof, made your way across a gutter and dropped down on the balcony outside there. I don’t see how you had the courage. I can climb trees but when it comes to a thing like this--” Lucie shook her head in sheer wonder at the audacity of it. “I am not one to lose my head,” returned Odette serenely. “But if you had fallen.” “I should have been killed, instantly. What matter? One must die sooner or later, and at least I have no one to grieve for me. So much the sooner would I meet my father and mother again. Now I shall stay till those old ones return and we shall tell each other of what has been, and what has come to us in these sad days.” But Lucie’s thoughts were still upon Odette’s daring deed. “Suppose you had been seen from the street; the police would have come dashing in, and then--”