"Oh!" Flip said, "Oh, that's one of my favorites!" Madame replaced the book. "Mine too. I keep your father's things next to Boutet de Monvel, which shows you how much I think of him." It was one of the most beautiful afternoons Flip had spent in a long time. She did not once think a dreary or bitter thought, such as, "I'm the most unpopular girl in the school. That ought to make Eunice happy." When the bell rang for dinner and Madame sent her downstairs, for once she was almost eager to get to her place in the dining room. Tables were changed on Thursday, and she was at an unchaperoned table with only Erna from her room this week, but all the girls in the class whispered excitedly as she came in, "Philippa!" "Pill!" "Here she is!" "Where have you been?" "What happened to you?" She stood decorously behind her chair and waited for Mlle. Dragonet to say grace. Erna burst out as they sat down, "Pill, we've been frantic! We thought you'd been kidnapped or something. If you hadn't come to dinner we were going to tell Signorina you were lost. What on earth happened to you?" Flip actually grinned. "To me? What do you mean? Nothing." "Stop being so smug," Esmée Bodet said, tossing her hair back. "I told you she'd just sneaked off somewhere and there wasn't any point worrying about her." "But how could she just sneak off somewhere!" Erna cried. "We tied her so she couldn't possibly get away." "That's right," Flip agreed. "What happened, Pill, what happened?" Erna begged. "Oh," Flip said airily, "my fairy godmother came and rescued me." "But where were you during tea? Jackie and I missed tea looking for you and Signorina almost gave us Deportment Marks because we wouldn't tell her what we were doing." "Oh, I went over to Thônon," Flip told her, "and had tea with a duke." Erna and the other girls were looking at her with something like respect and for the first time Flip felt that she had triumphed. 8 The next afternoon, after Sunday Quiet Hour, Flip slipped off to the chateau again. Paul was expecting her. "Hello, Flip!" Paul shouted as soon as he saw her. "Hello!" she shouted back. She hurried across the rough ground to where he was waiting for her by the loose shutter. But when she reached him they both fell silent, somehow overcome with shyness. Paul ran his fingers over the flaking paint of the shutter and Flip searched about wildly in her mind for something to say. Gloria or Sally or Esmée would know what to say to a boy; they had all been on dates; but Flip could not think of any words that would not sound inane.