Anne smiled maliciously. Her meaning was clear and the Prince flushed. "What man would attempt it!" he exclaimed. "What man indeed," he added, "save one who would throw away his life to no purpose. Come, Miss Wellington, I am sure you do not seek my life." "By no means," said the girl beginning to relent, but still enjoying the success of her _coup_. "But really that is a small leap for a man. My driver, I believe--" Her face suddenly lighted with a new inspiration. Hastily she walked to the top of the bluff. "McCall," she cried. "Will you come here a minute?" As the two arrived at the chasm, she nodded to the opposite side. "If you cleared that would it be a remarkable leap?" Armitage surveyed the gap with his eye, looked behind him and studied the ground. "Not especially, Miss Wellington, so far as distance is concerned." He had done his nineteen feet in the running broad jump. "Ah, just so," broke in the Prince. "It is the condition which would follow a slip or mistake in judgment." Anne shook her head impatiently at Koltsoff's obvious eagerness. "I do not believe McCall thought of that; nervous systems vary in their intensity." Some part of the situation Armitage grasped. It was clear that for some reason she had dared the Prince to make the jump and that he had declined. The ground upon which they were standing was a few feet above the rocks on the other side of the chasm and the three stood about a dozen feet from the mouth. She turned to Armitage. "Am I right, or do you share Prince Koltsoff's psychological views?" Koltsoff, who from the beginning had chafed at the position in which she had placed him, pitting him against a servant, walked to one side with a low sibilant exclamation. "Not at all," said Armitage, and without further words he drew back a few feet and started swiftly for the fissure. Anne, who had not intended that the incident should thus get away from her, acted upon flashing instinct, before the situation could formulate itself in her mind. She sprang at Armitage as he passed her, her hands tightly clasping about his neck, and pulled him backward with all her strength. Armitage half stumbling, stopped, and the girl, releasing her hands, stepped back with a sob of nervous anger. "You--you--oh, you idiot!" she exclaimed. "How dare you frighten me so! Now--go back to the car!" "I did not mean to frighten you, Miss Wellington," he replied, not altogether in the mild, impersonal tone of a servant. "It was a perfectly easy jump. I thought you--" "Go to your car, please," interrupted the girl sternly.