"When did I do these things?" "Why, when you told her to let herself go. When you showed her your sketches and talked to her about the places, and the sea, all the things you had seen; the things she had dreamed of and never seen." The young girl spoke as if she was indignant with him for reveling in opportunities that were Frida's by right. "But she shall see them. She shall go away from this, and be herself and nobody else in the world." "It's too late--it's not as if she were young." "Young? She's a good deal younger than I am, though she's thirty and I'm twenty-four--twenty-five next September. Frida's young because she's got the body of a woman, the mind of a man, and the soul of a baby. She'll begin where other women end, will Frida. Wait till she's been abroad with me, and you'll see how her soul will come on, in a more congenial climate." "Where are you going?" "We're going everywhere. Venice--Rome--Florence--the Mediterranean--the regular thing. And to all sorts of queer outlandish places besides--Scandinavia, the Hebrides, and Iceland; everywhere that you can go to by sea. The sea----That's you again." "The deuce it is! I doubt if I've done the kind thing, then. I seem to have roused passions which will never be satisfied. When she comes back----" Miss Chatterton's voice sank. "She never will come back." "Never? How about the Colonel?" Miss Chatterton smiled. "That's the beauty of it. It's the neatest, sweetest, completest little plot that ever was invented, and it's simplicity itself, like its inventor--that's me. I suppose you know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?" "Well, not all. Who _could_ know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?" "You know enough, I daresay. By taking her away--I mean Frida--we force the Colonel's hand." "You might explain." "I never saw a man who wanted so many things explained. Don't you see that, as long as Frida stays at home, petting and pampering him and doing all his work for him, he'll never take the trouble to marry; but as soon as she goes away, and stays away----" "I see, I see; he marries. You force his hand--and heart." "Exactly. And, if he marries, Frida stays away altogether. She's free." "Yes; she's free. If she goes; but she'll never go." "Won't she? She's going next Monday. It's all arranged. I've told her that she's in her father's way, that he wants to marry, and keeps single for her sake. And she believes it." He walked up and down with his hands in his pockets, a prey to bewildering emotions. "It's ingenious and delightful, your plot," said he. "But I can't say that I grasp all the _minutiae_, the practical details. For instance (it's a brutal question, but), who's going to provide the--the funds for this expedition to Scandinavia--or was it Abyssinia?" "Funds? Oh, that's all right. She's got any amount of her own, though you wouldn't know it."