He himself had no doubt kissed girls in dozens, but he knew now that even to mention the word to this girl was a different thing. It did not need Olwen Howel-Jones's aghast little "_What----?_" to forbid him to go further than the word. He took his hand away with a little rueful laugh. "'_Archibald_, certainly not!' Eh? _I_ wouldn't have tried." "No. Of course not," said Olwen, repressively, but feeling a trifle shaken. Who would have thought of his saying such a thing to her? Who would have dreamt that the Charm would threaten to work to cross-purposes like this? Her small face took an invulnerable look. She swept some bits of blackberry leaves off her skirt, and prepared to turn homewards. He walked with her to where the trees met the telegraph-posts of the shaded road. There, as he said good-bye to her, this little young officer added, with a wistfulness: "But I would give anything to!" CHAPTER XI THE FEASTING OF THE CHARM "There's that that would be thought upon, I trow, beside the bride. The business of the kitchen's great, For it is fit that men should eat, Nor was it there denied." Sir John Suckling. Crowded hours were to follow that quiet afternoon in the forest. A morning or so afterwards Olwen darted out into the hall, where she had caught a glimpse of the bride-to-be going past in a great hurry. "Miss Walsh----!" "Oh, Olwen," said Miss Walsh, stopping breathlessly. "Oh, I do want to talk to you, but I haven't a moment. It's the lunch today, you know, the _déjeuner intime_ for all his relations and friends. They've had the cards----" Olwen nodded; she had sent her "_faire part_" card home to Wales as a curiosity. "It's to be down in Madame Leroux's own sitting-room; she says better so than having the party in the _salle_ after the hotel visitors have had lunch," explained Miss Walsh, always breathless. "Oh, I feel I must go down and see if I can help her, but it is so difficult to understand when she will talk French so dreadfully fast----" "Let me come too," entreated Olwen, eyes suddenly alight. "Let me help, do! I can generally make out even her fast French." "Very well--if _you_ ask her!" Madame Leroux was talking faster French that morning than they had ever heard from her before. They found her in the basement, a whole region of the hotel that was unknown ground to Olwen, peopled by a tribe of workers whose sallow faces she had never seen before, and who were flying hither and thither on errands undreamt of on the upper floors. Even so the stoke-hole of a liner is unthought about on its polished decks.