"Where do you propose I should go? To the theatre to-night? I hate theatres." He spoke irritably. "No," she said in a low, soft voice; "let's break the compact, just for once--_just for once!_" She was instinctively taking advantage of a kind of weakness he showed this morning for the first time--due to his nervous fatigue--the weariness of long self-repression. "Certainly not!" he answered, with no conviction whatever. "Whose birthday is it? It isn't Christmas Day--it isn't Midsummer Day. No! I don't see any excuse for doing it." "Yes, there's a reason! It will be Sexagesima Sunday next week!" "So it will!" "Ah, you admit that! Well, let's go and have lunch at Richmond--or somewhere like that!" "My poor dear child, what's the matter! You're not sane.... Besides, it's impossible," said Woodville, hesitating, in a hopeful voice. "It isn't impossible. Papa's gone out for the whole day. Leave it to me! I'll arrange it. If the worst came to the worst, I could tell papa that I longed for a little air and made you take me down to Richmond! Why! you know he wouldn't mind. He would see nothing in it. We'd be back before five." Woodville looked tempted. "Besides, there would _be_ nothing in it," added Sylvia softly. He took her hand. "Temptress!" he said. "Of course there wouldn't be any earthly harm in it," he said doubtfully. "Then we're going to do it!" "Are we, Eve?" "Oh, Frank!" she exclaimed passionately, "it's too absurd, too unnatural! Why shouldn't we have a moment's happiness? Aren't we going to be married next year?" "Probably, if I live through this one." She was smiling, for she knew she had won. "Yes, you'll live through it all right--if you only have a little fresh air and change of scene now and then!" "I couldn't do it, Sylvia!--How should we go?" "Drive in a hansom?" "No, I'll meet you at the Underground Railway at Earl's Court." "When?" she asked. "In twenty minutes." "All right. We'll have a holiday! Everybody has a holiday sometimes! It's a heavenly day! We will go and walk in Richmond Park and forget all about the compact worries till we come back at tea-time. Papa won't, then, be back, and no one will ever know anything about it!" She clapped her hands. He smiled at her. "It's settled," he said. As she went out of the door, she murmured, "In twenty minutes, then," and vanished, radiant.