She got up quickly from her bed. She bathed; she did her hair; she dressed; she put on that dainty camisole with its pale blue ribbon twined through intricate meshes and concealed those little garments which proved her to be a true woman--concealed them with the camisole and the mystery of her sex. At breakfast, she talked of having her hair washed that morning. There was no gloss in it, she said. Ronald cast a glance at it, sniffed and then went on with his hasty mouthfuls of porridge. What fools were girls! As if it mattered! As if anyone noticed whether there were gloss or not! The good ship _Albatross_ wanted a new spinnaker, and from whose under-linen that was to be stolen without detection was a far more delicate matter. He had petitioned for white linen shirts for himself for the last six months--white linen shirts are always valuable to a sailor--but he had not got them as yet. This deprivation naturally led to nefarious dealings with the tails of his father’s old white shirts. It was impossible to use his own. You cannot have flannel sails to your ship, if she sails on the Round Pond. On the other waters--the Atlantic, for example--it doesn’t matter so much. There were one or two things he had begun to fancy he would never be able to get. Quite simply, quite pensively, he had said one day at dinner: "I wonder if I shall ever eat the wing of a chicken." They permitted him to wonder--he and his drumstick. One cannot be surprised, then, that he sniggered when Jill talked about the gloss of her hair. "Well, don’t go to this place in the High Street," said her mother. "They’re terribly exorbitant." "I shall go up to town," said Jill. And, up to town she started. There are various ways of going up to town. She chose to cross the Broad Walk with the intention of going by Bayswater. She even made a detour of the Round Pond. It was nicer to walk on the grass--more comfortable under foot. It was not even an uncomfortable sensation to feel her heart beating as a lark’s wings beat the air when it soars. Then the rushing of the wings subsided. He was not there. From that mighty altitude to which it had risen, her heart began to descend--slowly, slowly, slowly to earth. He was not there! But oh! you would never know, until you yourself had played there, the games of hide-and-seek that the big elms afford in Kensington Gardens. On the far side of a huge tree-trunk, she came suddenly upon him, and the slowly fluttering wings of her heart were struck to stillness. There he was, seated upon his chair with a smile upon his lips, in his eyes--spreading and spreading till it soon must be a laugh. And--"Oh!" said she. Then it was that the smile became a laugh. "What are you doing here at this time in the morning?" he asked. "I--I was just going up to town. I--I wanted to go to Bayswater first." How much had he guessed? How long had he seen her looking here and there, and all about her?