"I believe you're right, and anyway, you are very clever," said the Boy. "What does one do for a man who has saved one's life?" "If you were only a girl, now--a Princess in a fairy story--you would bestow upon me your hand," I replied gaily. "As it is--I can't at the moment think of a punishment to fit the crime." "Though I can't be a Princess, I might play the Prince, and give you a ring," he said, pulling at the queer seal ring he always wore. "But it wouldn't fit the crime--I mean the finger." "Mere mortals never argue when the fairy Prince makes them a present. Do take the ring. I should like you to have it to--remember me by." "To remember you by? But such chums as we have got to be don't give memory much pull; they arrange to see each other often." "Fairy Princes vanish sometimes, you know." "If I take your ring, will you appear if I rub it?" The Boy was smiling, but his eyes looked grave. "If when the Fairy Prince has vanished--that is, if he _should_--you want to see him really badly, try rubbing the ring. It might work. But you'll probably lose the ring before that--and the memory." I answered by hooking the ring, which was far too small for the least of my fingers, into the spring-loop which held my watch on its chain. "My watch and I are one," I said. "Only burglary or death can separate me from the ring now; and if I'm smashed next time Jack Winston lets me drive his motor car, there will probably be a romantic little paragraph in the papers--perhaps even a pathetic verse--about the ring on the dead man's watch-chain, which will give you every satisfaction." "The boat's whistling," said the Boy. "We'd better run, if we want to see the Abbey of Hautecombe before lunch." We did run, and caught the boat in that uncertain and exciting manner which brings into play a physical appurtenance unrecognised by science, _i.e._, the skin of the teeth. Under the awning which shaded the deck, we took the only two seats not occupied by an abnormally large German family,--abnormally large individually as well as collectively,--and settled ourselves for half an hour's enjoyment of a charming water-panorama. "What a heavenly place Aix is!" exclaimed the Boy fervently. "I'm so glad I came." "I thought yesterday that you were disappointed in the place." "Oh, yesterday was yesterday. To-day's to-day. How glorious everything is, in the world. I do love living. And I like everybody so much. What nice, good creatures one's fellow beings are. My heart warms to them. I don't believe anybody's really horrid, through and through. I should like to pat somebody on the shoulder." "Queer thing; I feel exactly the same way this morning," said I. "Shall we throw ourselves on one another's bosom, and kiss each other on both cheeks, German fashion, to show our good will towards all mankind? I'm sure our travelling companions would warmly sympathize with our _schwärmerei_."