"We shan't break _our_ heads," said I. "We'll break other people's wicked heads, that deserve to be broken; and they're aching hard already with sheer rage, because you've made a beautiful new bubble for yourself, ever so much bigger and brighter than the old one they tried to burst. Only _tried_, because they may find that it didn't smash when it seemed to! Then if the old bubble is saved, there'll be two, solid as crystal and brilliant as rainbows--_boomerang_ bubbles--that will come blowing back to break the brutes who wanted to burst them!" Captain March laughed out aloud, and I saw Sidney turn involuntarily with a slight, nervous start, as if he fancied that the laugh must be directed against him. "Irish Peggy, you're inimitable!" said Eagle. "Look out for your metaphors, or you'll be turning my bubble into a bull!" "Hang metaphors!" I retorted. "I wish I _could_ turn the bubble into a bull, not an Irish, but a wild one, and _set_ it at two or three people. Perhaps I shall yet! And what has made you suddenly change your mind, Eagle? At Liege, in hospital, you told me how you hated Sidney Vandyke and felt as if you could choke his life out." "I haven't changed my mind," he said. "I hate Vandyke now as I hated him then, more if possible. That's not Christian, but I can't help it, or else I don't try to help it; I'm not sure which. If by killing Vandyke I could get back what he took from me, I should do my best to kill him. But I am just cool enough, where he is concerned, to realize that I can't help myself by hurting him; rather the contrary. That's where we come to the stone wall. So I'm not going to smash what he has left of my head on the stones he piled up against me. To do that would be giving the enemy great satisfaction, wouldn't it?" "Perhaps!" I had to agree with a sigh. "But if the circumstances ever change in my favour," Eagle went on, his pleasant face hardening into grimness, "and I can get revenge without putting myself in the wrong, God help Vandyke!" "I hope He _won't_ help him, when that time comes!" I exclaimed. "And I believe it will come. Something often tells me so--tells me that I----" "That you--what?" Eagle prompted me as I broke off. "That I shall have some hand in the--the retribution, whatever it may be. It's what I always pray for."