"You flatter me, M. Demetrius, since I cannot take credit for your clever inventions." "We are all in the same boat, madame." "You, I, and----?" she glanced at him inquiringly. "Your husband." "Can you not grasp the fact that I am a widow? When I have a husband," she smiled meaningly, "do you think he will sanction Mr. Berring rowing in the boat you mention?" Suspicious people are the easiest to gull, and the smile, rather than the words, changed the gloomy doubter into a confiding child. Her enforced diplomacy was gaining her ground already. "My angel! you mean----" Leah cleverly shortened a possible rhapsody. "Of course I do. Ah!" with a sentimental sigh; "what have I done to be so doubted?" "Never by me, I swear. Believe me, soul of my soul----" "Hush!" she raised an admonitory finger to check dithyrambic wooings at an untoward moment. "We are yet in the wood." "Out of it, while here--yes, here, where you so sweetly promised we should become one"; his voice sank tenderly. "After certain preliminaries had been observed, M. Demetrius." "Say, Constantine." "As you will, Constantine. I can deny you few things, after what you have done." "Yet what you deny is what I desire." Lady Jim displayed impatience at this headlong haste. "We are not in Verona, nor will your age permit you to play Romeo to a Juliet of my temperament. When my husband's body is buried"--she laughed consciously--"and my months of mourning are ended, then--well, then--ah, be patient, Constantine." "Am I not to touch your finger-tips meanwhile?" "If it is any satisfaction"; and she gave him her hand to mumble, ruminating meanwhile on this shrinking of giant to dwarf. The unendurable lasted half a minute; then, "Be sensible, M. Demetrius." "Ah!" the child sighed for his lost rattle; "you descend from poetry to prose." She nodded. "Would you versify explanations?" "Explanations?" "Necessary ones. How did you transfer Garth's body to Jamaica?" The doctor looked piteous. "To think of wasting this golden hour," he murmured. "Oh!" The ejaculation was careless, but the instinct was to box a dullard's ears. "Business before pleasure, M. Demetrius." "At least, Constantine." "M. Demetrius," she repeated inflexibly. "We are to marry, well and good; but beforehand, I must understand my position as a Russian princess." The pessimism of the Slav asserted itself in renewed doubts. "I am a simple doctor, madame." "Very simple, if you imagine--but that can be discussed later. Come," cajolingly to a hesitating and sullen being, "an account of your adventures must prove amusing. Cheer me up for the funeral." This extraordinary conclusion staggered a man not easily moved to amazement. "Mon Dieu!" Then in English: "You were weeping some minutes ago, madame." "And I may be weeping some minutes later," she retorted, suppressing rising irritation. "I ask explanations rather than give them. Tell me how you managed."