"I'm not in the least tired," she said. "I'm stepping out like a man, don't you think? I've enjoyed everything beyond words. What a world it is for adventures once you step outside the charmed circle of your relations. Look at all the things that have happened to us already!" "I didn't mean anything to happen except pleasant things," said he. "Ah!" she said, with a fleeting seriousness, "life isn't like that. But there's been nothing but pleasant things so far--at least, almost nothing." "Won't you take my arm?" he said. "What for?" "To help you along, I suppose," he said, lamely. She stopped expressly to stamp her foot. "I don't want helping along," she said. "I'm not a cripple or a baby--and--" He did not answer. And they walked on in silence through the starry, silent night. She spoke first. "I don't want helping along," she said. "But I'd like to take your arm to show there's no ill-feeling. You take an arm on the way to dinner," she assured the stars, "and why not on the way to Tunbridge?" The way to Tunbridge was short. They found a car, and the night held no more adventures for them. But in a sheltered nook in the weir stream below Jezebel's Lock a candle set up on a plate illuminated the green of alder and ash and the smooth blackness of the water, shedding on a lonely supper that air as of a festival which can only be conferred by candle-light shining on the green of growing leaves. There, out of sight of the towing-path, Mr. William Beale, charmed to fancy and anticipation by the possession of a golden milled token, made himself a feast of the "broken vittles" in the derelict Midlothian basket, and in what was left of the red wine of France toasted the lady of his adventure. "'Ere's to 'er," he said to the silence and mysteries of wood and water. '"Ere's to 'er. She was a corker, for sure. Sight too good for a chap like 'im," he insisted, adding the natural tribute of chivalry to beauty; drank again and filled his pipe. Edward, from sheer force of habit, had smoothed the parting with tobacco. "Not but," said William the Silent--"not but what I've known worse than 'im, by long chalks. Ten bob a week--and 'e'll send it along, too--good as a pension. 'E'll send it along." He did. William the Silent had not misjudged his man. XI THE GUILDHALL "WHERE is Charles?" she asked next day. Edward had called for her early, had paid the Midlothian's bill and tipped the Midlothian's servants, and now they were in a taxi on their way to Paddington. She had definitely put her finger on the map that morning, and its tip had covered the K's of Kenilworth and Warwick. She was still almost breathless with the hurry with which she had been swept away from the safe anchorage of the hotel, "and couldn't we have the hood down?" she added. "Charles," said Edward, "is at present boarded out at a mews down Portland Road way, and I think we'd better keep the hood up. Look here! I never thought of the newspapers. This is worse than ever."