"But----" "Certain conventions," said Adèle, "are still observed. Have I ever refused you?" "You couldn't. That's why I don't ask you." "O-o-oh, I don't believe you," said Adèle. "If it was Leap Year----" "Pretend it is." "--and I wanted to dance with you----" "Pretend you do." The music stopped with a crash, and a moment later a Frenchman was bowing over my wife's hand. "May I come for a dance later?" he asked. "Not this evening. I've promised the next four----" "There will, I trust, be a fifth?" "--and, after that, I've given my husband the lot. You do understand, don't you? You see, I must keep in with him. He feeds me and lodges me and clothes me and----" The Frenchman bowed. "If he has clothed you to-night, Madame, I can forgive him anything." We passed to a table at which Berry was superintending the icing of some champagne. "Ah, there you are!" he exclaimed. "Had your evening dance? Good. I ordered this little hopeful _pour passer le temps_. They've two more baubles in the offing, and sharp at one-thirty we start on fried eggs and beer. Judging from the contracts into which my wife has entered during the last six minutes, we shall be here till three." Here he produced and prepared to inflate an air-cushion. "The great wheeze about these shock-absorbers is not to----" There was a horrified cry from Daphne and a shriek of laughter from Adèle and Jill. "I implore you," said my sister, "to put that thing away." "What thing?" said her husband, applying the nozzle to his lips. "That cushion thing. How could you----" "What! Scrap my blow-me-tight?" said Berry. "Darling, you rave. You're going to spend the next four hours afloat upon your beautiful toes, with a large spade-shaped hand supporting the small of your back. I'm not. I'm going to maintain a sitting posture, with one of the 'nests for rest' provided by a malignant Casino directly intervening between the base of my trunk and the floor. Now, I know that intervention. It's of the harsh, unyielding type. Hence this air-pocket." With that, he stepped on to the floor, raised the air-cushion as if it were an instrument of music, and, adopting the attitude and manners of a cornet soloist, exhaled into the nozzle with all his might. There was a roar of laughter. Then, mercifully, the band started, and the embarrassing attention of about sixty pairs of eyes was diverted accordingly. A moment later my brother-in-law and I had the table to ourselves. "And now," said Berry, "forward with that bauble. The Rump Parliament is off." Perhaps, because it was a warm evening, the Casino's furnaces were in full blast. After a while the heat became oppressive. Presently I left Berry to the champagne and went for a stroll in the Palmarium. As I was completing my second lap-- "Captain Pleydell," said a dignified voice. I turned to see Mrs. Waterbrook, leaning upon a stick, accompanied by a remarkably pretty young lady with her hair down her back.