“Now this is what happened the other day. (Why do you allow me to be discursive, dear people?) You know my car was held up by Sinn Feiners? I, who adore everything lawless! But it was simply for being Anthony’s daughter, of course. They hate him so. “You know how I drive for miles and miles, entirely alone, just so as to feel the air in my face, and my hands--rather small, really, by comparison--controlling that great swift machine. Well, I’d got to such a lonely place that it was like finding God--when suddenly these men appeared. “I wasn’t a bit frightened--I never am frightened--but it was horrible, all the same. And I kept thinking of the people who’d be so sorry if I were killed, and wondering who’d be the sorriest, and who’d remember longest.” =(_She looked round the room, her dark brows raised in an expression part whimsical, part pathetic._)= “All this isn’t the adventure, you know, though they took my jewels, and tied me up to a bench on a sort of heath place. They tied me here, and here.” She held out a slim ankle, and extended both wrists. “Dear hearts, don’t, don’t touch me! I’m so dreadfully on edge to-night. Nothing to do with the adventure, though. That was altogether beautiful. “You see there was another woman on the bench, to whom they’d done exactly the same thing--only she’d been walking, not driving. They left us together, and said they’d come back later and shoot us. Terrorism, of course, but it would be such an ugly way of going out, wouldn’t it? “She and I looked at one another, tied to either end of that bench, and in some way that I simply can’t describe, our spirits leapt together. She, it turned out afterwards, recognised me at once--that’s the worst of being too weak to refuse sittings when one’s pestered by every photographer in London--but I hadn’t the least idea who she was, and don’t care. Bright red hair, quite distinguished-looking, and altogether rather lovely in a pallid, blanc-de-Ninon way, though no actual physical charm. But I felt it wouldn’t have mattered if she’d been a _déclassée_. By the way, what is a _déclassée_? “This still isn’t the adventure--besides, you know this part already, all of you--but some of those ruffians came back again, and untied us, and said we could find our own way home. They’d taken my car, needless to say. I gave them one of my looks--the sort that means I’m really, really angry, like when someone kisses me in a clumsy way, or spills something on my frock--and the men melted, literally melted, away. Then she and I began to walk, and this is really when the part that matters started to happen.