"I will tell you what I think," she said. "I believe you are really a student, and, whatever you had to leave your country for, it was nothing you've any cause to be ashamed of. I expect you were accused of plotting against your Government--and I don't care if you did, because you wouldn't have if they'd governed properly. Anyway, you escaped, and thought you'd be safe if you could get a post in the Royal Gardens. There! it is only a guess, of course, and you needn't tell me whether I'm right or not." He allowed her to think she was, as it was a far more creditable explanation than any he could have invented for himself. "It was rather clever of me to guess all that," she said. "But it would have been cleverer of you to choose something you knew a little more about than gardening, wouldn't it? And we can't be strangers after this. That thing there," and she indicated the headless serpent, which had now ceased to writhe, and lay limp in the grass, with all its brilliant colour faded to dingy grey, "introduced us, but it carelessly forgot to mention our names." "Perhaps," he said, quite seriously, "it did not know them." "That _would_ account for it, certainly," agreed Daphne, with equal gravity, though her eyes danced. "Then I'd better explain that I was Princess Ruby's governess before we came here. Since then I've been a sort of lady-in-waiting--and now I'm nothing at all. I'm in disgrace, like you. My name is Daphne Heritage. Now, tell me yours ... Girofle?... Well, I am going back to the Pavilion now. I don't feel safe anywhere else.... Yes, you can see me out of this dreadful place--just in _case_ there should be another snake about," she conceded, for her nerves were beginning to feel a reaction, and she was glad of his protection. So he walked humbly by her side, saying little for fear of saying too much, till they came within sight of the Pavilion and then she dismissed him. "We will say good-bye here," she said; "and you mustn't keep at a distance any more--it would be too absurd, now--you must come and speak to me, of course. Though I _may_ be sent back to England at a moment's notice, and then you won't see me again. But if you don't, I shall never forget how bravely you risked your life for me." She gave him her hand; he held its cool silken softness for a moment and would have raised it to his lips but for this new humility of his. Then, with a friendly but almost careless little nod, she was gone, leaving him with the conviction that it was indifferent to her whether they ever met again or not.