"I don't know," replies he, calmly; "I never shall, I suppose. I perfectly hated it all the while, especially the guides, who were more like assassins than anything else. I think they hated me, too, and would have given anything to pitch me over some of the passes." Portia laughs. "I can sympathize with you," she says. "Danger of any sort has no charm for me. Yet I wanted those flowers. I think"--idly--"I shall always want them, simply because I can't get them." "You shall have them in three seconds if you will only say the word," says Dicky Browne, who is all but fast asleep, and who looks quite as like descending a rugged cliff as Portia herself. "I am so glad I don't know the 'word,'" says Portia, with a little grimace. "It would be a pity to endanger a valuable life like yours." Dulce turns to Mr. Gower. "You may smoke if you like," she says, sweetly. "I know you are longing for a cigarette or something, and _we_ don't mind." "Really though?" says Gower. "Yes, really. Even our pretty town-lady here," indicating Portia, "likes the perfume in the open air." "Very much indeed," says Portia, graciously, leaning a little toward Gower, and smiling sweetly. "A moment ago I told myself I could not be happier," says Stephen, glancing at Dulce. "And indeed I wanted nothing further--but if I may smoke--if I have your permission to light this," producing a cigar, "I shall feel that my end is near; I shall know that the gods love me, and that therefore I _must_ die young." As he places the cigar between his lips he leans back again at Dulce's feet with a sigh suggestive of unutterable bliss. "We were talking about you just before you came," says Dulce, with a little friendly nod, bending over his recumbent form, and making him a present of a very adorable smile. "We had all, you know, formed such different opinions about you." "What was your opinion," asks he, rising to a sitting posture with an alacrity not to be expected from a youth of his indolence. In this last attitude, however, it is easier to see Dulce's charming face. "I _should_ like to know that." His manner implies that he would not like to hear the opinion of the others. "It was nothing very flattering, I am afraid," said Dulce, with a little laugh. "I was--to confess the truth--just in the very faintest degree nervous about you." "About _me_!" "Yes," she laughed softly again; "I thought you might be a 'blue-and-white young man,' and that idea filled me with dismay. I don't think I like a 'soul-ful eyed young man,' _too_ much." "I'm so glad I'm of the 'threepenny 'bus' lot," says Gower, with a smile. "Ye gods! what a shocking thought is the other. Look at my hair, I entreat you, Miss Blount, and tell me does it resemble the lanky locks of Oscar?" "No, it is anything but wylde," says Dulce, glancing at his shaven crown, that any hermit might be proud of: "and do you know I am glad of your sanity; I should quite hate you if you were a disciple of that school."