The question was answered by the fish, because the main string broke, and they went slithering all over the hall. "I don't know, sir, I'm sure where they'd better be put," said Hargreaves, looking rather frightened. "Can't you get a dish or something from the kitchen?" "No, sir, I'm afraid I can't. Cook always has her ladyship's orders to take the key of the basement door up to bed with her, and she's rather funny about being woke up." "But look here," Vibart protested, "we can't leave all these splendid fish to get trodden on. They're whiting! You know, those fish they usually serve like kittens running after their tails. They won't have any tails left if they're going to be walked over by everybody." He looked round the hall, and his eye fell upon the card-tray. "Here's the very thing," he cried, and emptying the cards into the umbrella stand, he began to heap as many whiting as he could on the tray. "Well, that's saved enough for breakfast. We'll put the rest in a corner. Lend me your apron." The prim Hargreaves was as much taken aback by this suggestion as her colleague Hopkins had been taken aback by Jasmine's attempt to borrow a chemise on the evening of her arrival. But mechanically she divested herself, and the whiting were hung up in a bundle on the hat-rack. "I'll be round very early," Harry promised Jasmine. "Sorry I've let you in for trouble. I enjoyed myself--well, tremendously." "So did I," she said. "Tremendously." Hargreaves without her apron seemed scarcely willing to open the door for him; but she managed to do it somehow, and Jasmine went slowly upstairs to the sound of bolts being driven home, of chains clanking, and latches clicking. It was like being taken back to prison. Immediately after breakfast the next morning Lady Grant showed her sense of the gravity of the occasion by postponing her household duties until she had had what she called an explanation with her niece about her behaviour last night. As soon as they were closeted in the drawing-room, Jasmine, supposing that she really was anxious for an explanation, began to give a perfectly straightforward account of the misadventure. Lady Grant, however, cut her short before she had time even to explain the accident by which she and Vibart were separated from the rest of the party. "I am sorry, my dear Jasmine, to find that your only object is to make excuses for your behaviour. There is nothing I dislike so much as excuses." "But I haven't begun to excuse myself yet," Jasmine retorted.