"Yes!" A husky voice filtered through the vizor of Carnaby's helmet, as he flourished the sword in his hand. "If you try fooling I'll cut your----" "Hush!" Lalage commanded, as she drew back into the obscurity of a recess. "Some one coming." "Nice evening this evening," muttered Peckover ruefully as the door softly opened. CHAPTER XXIII "Mr. Gage--Percy--are you there?" "Yes, I'm here," was the lugubrious response. "Have you been waiting long?" Ethel asked, coming close to him. "Hours," he declared feelingly, then quickly corrected the statement. "No, I mean, not long." Back in the darkness he fancied he could see the truculent eyes glaring through the bars of the helmet. "I couldn't get away," Ethel said invitingly. "Had to dodge Dagmar." "Ho! she wanted to come too, did she?" Peckover remarked in desperation. "The more the merrier." Ethel drew back with rather a sour look on her expectant face. "Mr. Gage, what do you mean?" Then with characteristic tenacity, she sidled up to him again. "Percy, how cold you are," she observed reproachfully. "Cold?" he returned miserably. "Yes, it is a bit chilly. Enough to give any fellow the shivers. Chamber of Horrors is a fool to it. I mean," he quickly added, as an ominous movement of Carnaby's sword caught his eye, "the armour strikes cold." "Of course," said Ethel huffily, "if you would prefer Dagmar, I'll go and send her to you." "Oh, no; please don't trouble. You'll do," he replied, with an indifference born of desperation. The lady resolved to try another tack. "Oh, Mr. Gage," she said, with a tremor in her voice; "how unkind you are!" Her face was so close to him that the trial was almost more than he could stand. "No, no, not unkind," he denied, looking wildly round for a way of escape. "So changed," she insisted. "No, not changed," he replied equivocally. "So distant." "Wish I was--a hundred miles distant," he groaned to himself. "Can't help it," he declared, goaded by the consciousness of those four eyes magnetizing him from the darkness. "Perhaps I've been too familiar." "Oh, no," she protested, growing desperate in turn, as the prize of a millionaire husband seemed slipping from her. "If I don't mind it Percy, dear----" She put out her arms, but he fell back. "Don't," he exclaimed, the hateful words almost choking him. "It isn't proper, you know." "I'm afraid," she urged forlornly. "I have been too absurdly proper." "Oh, no--yes, I mean, no, no." In his state of mind Peckover found it impossible to differentiate between what he longed and what he was forced to say. "You said to-day it was dry work," Ethel observed caressingly. "You may have a sip if you like." The invitation, reminding him, with a difference, of his Crystal Palace and Welsh Harp days, was well nigh too much for the well-versed philander of the suburbs. "Oh, don't, don't!" he almost shrieked. "Please go away. You will drive me mad. This is awful," he groaned.