"What are _you_ doing here?" she parried, laughing. And then, perceiving his increased trouble, and that she was failing in tact, she went on rapidly, with a screwing up of the childish shoulders and something between a laugh and a grin: "It's my back. It seems it's not strong. And so we've taken an ever so jolly little house for the autumn, because of the air, you know. Didn't you know?" No, he did not know. That was the worst of strained relations. You were not informed of events in advance. "Where?" he asked. "Oh!" she said, pointing. "That way. On the road to Rottingdean. Near the big girls' school. We came in on that lovely electric railway--along the beach. Have you been on it, Mr Coe?" Terrible! Rottingdean was precisely the scene of his honeymoon. The hazard of fate was truly appalling. He and his wife might have walked one day straight into the arms of her sister! He went hot and cold. "And where are the others?" he asked nervously. "Mamma"--she coloured as she used this word, so strange on her lips--"mamma's at home. Father may come to-night. And Ada has brought us here so that Jean can have his hair cut. He didn't want to come without me." "Ada?" "Ada's a new servant. She's just gone in there again to see how long the barber will be." Mimi indicated a barber's shop opposite. "And I'm waiting here," she added. "Mimi," he said, in a confidential tone, "can you keep a secret?" She grew solemn. "Yes." She smiled seriously. "What?" "About meeting me. Don't tell anybody you've met me to-day. See?" "Not Jean?" "No, not Jean. But later on you can tell--when I give you the tip. I don't want anybody to know just now." It was a shame. He knew it was a shame. He deliberately flattered her by appealing to her as to a grown woman. He deliberately put a cajoling tone into his voice. He would not have done it if Mimi had not been Mimi--if she had been an ordinary sort of English girl. But she was Mimi. And the temptation was very strong. She promised, gravely. He knew that he could rely on her. Hurrying away lest Jean and the servant might emerge from the barber's, he remembered with compunction that he had omitted to show any curiosity about Mimi's back. III