She felt the conscious jewel burn in her possession. She looked up beseechingly at him, but he only laughed, and, with a swing, lifted the chair a little off the ground as he set her up to the table, as if to show how easily he could put forth strength. There was nothing defiant in him. He was taking her with him--taking her upon the wings of his high spirits; but mischievously, obstinately, he would not show her where the flight was leading, nor let her listen to anything but the rustling of those wings. He was determined to make holiday, whatever was to follow. For the glimpse of blue through the dim window might be the Bay of Naples; and, ah! Chianti. Perhaps the sort one gets down Monte Video way, where France fades into Italy--perhaps, at least if her kind fancy could get the better of the reality. In Sicily there were just such table-cloths as these, and just such fat floor-shaking contadini to wait upon you. And look now at the purple one behind the desk--child or gnome--feet not touching the floor--centuries of Italy in her face. Oh, calculation, indifference! "She wouldn't care if you jumped up and threw me out of the window," he affirmed. "That's why this hole is so harmless. Oh, isn't that harmless? What's more harmless than to let one alone? There's only one dangerous thing here," he grinned and let her take her choice of which. She came straight at it. "You know I can't let you alone." He laughed. "Well, isn't that why we're here at last--that you may dictate your terms?" "I have. Didn't you get my letter?" "Oh, indeed I did. Haven't I obeyed it? Haven't I kept away from your house? Have I tried to approach you?" "Haven't you, though?" she threw at him accusingly. "Ah," he deprecated, "you came to me. I was down in the garden." She looked at him through his persiflage wistfully, searchingly. "But there were other things in that letter." "There were?" He regarded her with grave surprise. Oh, how she mistrusted his gravity! "Why, to be sure there were things--things that you didn't mean--one thing above all others you couldn't mean, that you want me to drop out when the game is half done, to slink away and leave it all like this--abandon you and my Idol so to each other! My dear, for what do you take me?" She burst out. "But can't you see the danger?" He met it quietly. "Certainly. I have been seeing nothing else but the danger--to you. Do you think I've been idle all these days? Every line I have followed has ended in that. It's brought me finally to this." The gesture of his hand included their predicament and the dingy little room. "You'll really have to help me, after all." "Oh, haven't I tried to? That is why I wrote. Don't you see your own danger at all?" "No, but I'd like to." He leaned toward her, brows lifted to a quizzical peak. "Oh, I can't tell you," she despaired. "But somehow I shall have to make you go."