Why the ordinary human being should ever desire to walk up hill I have never been able to discover. For me, the comfortable places. But with Lady Auriol the craving was symbolical of character. I agreed. "Choose the least inaccessible," I pleaded. We mounted the paths through the vines. At the top, we sat down. I wiped a perspiring brow. She filled her lungs with the air stirred by a faint breeze. "Whereabouts is this circus?" she asked suddenly. I told her, waving a hand in the direction of Clermont-Ferrand. "How far?" "About two or three miles." "I'll go there this evening," she announced calmly. "What?" I nearly jumped off the wooden bench. "My dear Auriol," said I, "my heart's dicky. You oughtn't to spring things like that on me." "I don't see where the shock comes in. Why shouldn't I go to a circus if I want to?" "It's your wanting to go that astonishes me." "You're very easily surprised," she remarked. "You ought to take something for it." "Possibly," said I. "But why on earth do you want to see the wretched Lackaday make a fool of himself?" "If you take it that way," she said icily, "I'm sorry I mentioned it. I could have gone without your being a whit the wiser." I lifted my shoulders. "After all, it's entirely your affair. You talked a while ago about mourning your mystery--which suggested a not altogether unpoetical frame of mind." "There s no poetry at all about it," she declared. "That's all gone. We've come to facts. I'm going to get all the facts. Crucify myself with facts, if you like. That's the only way to get at Truth." When a woman of Auriol's worth talks like this, one feels ashamed to counter her with platitudes of worldly wisdom. She was going to the Cirque Vendramin. Nothing short of an Act of God could prevent her. I sat helpless for a few moments. At last, taking advantage of a gleam of common sense, I said: "It's all very well for you to try to get to the bedrock of things. But what about Lackaday?" "He's not to know." "He'll have to know," I insisted warmly. "The circus tent is but a small affair. You'll be there under his nose." I followed the swift change on her face. "Of course--if you don't care if he sees you..." She flashed: "You don't suppose I'm capable of such cruelty!" "Of course not," said I. She looked over at the twin spires of the cathedral beneath which the town slumbered in the blue mist of the late afternoon. "Thanks, Tony," she said presently. "I didn't think of it. I should naturally have gone to the best seats, which would have been fatal. But I've been in many circuses. There's always the top row at the back, next the canvas...." "My dear good child," I cried, "you couldn't go up there among the lowest rabble of Clermont-Ferrand!" She glanced at me in pity and sighed indulgently.