This advice she gave to Etta when that young person, before going to bed, told her the marvellous news. But Etta’s anxiety as to future ways and means was the least of her preoccupations, which consisted, in the main, of wonder at Tommy’s transcendent perfections, and at her extraordinary good fortune in winning the favour of such a miracle of a man. Clementina left her radiant and went to bed with a headache and a bit of a heartache. The one little Elf of Romance that had crossed her grey path she had snubbed unmercifully. Would ever another chance come by? Would he not go back and tell his congeners of the flinty-bosomed, sour-avised female who had nearly frightened him to death; and bid them all beware of her devastating presence? It was no use her saying that she loved the Elf with all her heart, but had to dissemble her love, for the Elf, like the lover in the poem, would naturally ask the historic question. Yet she did love him, and in the secrecy of her soul longed for such another—but one perhaps who would put before her a less Puckish proposition. How could she attract one? With what lure could she entice him? “Bosh!” she said, after a couple of sleepless hours. “It’s high time I was back at work again.” Now, be it here definitely stated that Clementina misjudged the Elf. He was mightily amused by her treatment of him, and ran away with his elfin thumb to his elfin nose in the most graceless and delicious manner possible. He swore revenge. In his cobweb seat he thought hard. Then he slapped his thighs and laughed, and returned to Elfland where he raised a prodigious commotion. The result of this will be duly set forth in the following pages. “We leave Paris to-morrow,” said Clementina; buttoning her cotton gloves. “I must work, and Tommy must work, and Etta must learn to cook and sew and scrub saucepans. The holiday is about to end.” Two sighs greeted the announcement. “Can’t we have one other day?” Etta pleaded. “You just need the extra day to make you quite fit again,” said Tommy. Clementina, unmoved by pleading or sophistry, replied, “We start to-morrow.” Etta looked at Tommy and sorrowfully licked from her finger-tips the squirted cream of an _éclair_. They had just finished tea at Colombin’s, a form of amusement to which Etta was addicted. She liked the crowded room, the band, the bustle of the waitresses and the warm smell of tea and chocolate and pastry. She also had the perverted craving of female youth to destroy its appetite for dinner. She looked at Tommy and cleansed herself from _éclair_ like a dainty kitten; but Tommy’s eyes were fixed to the entrance of the tea-room. He half rose from his chair. “Lord Almighty, if that isn’t Uncle Ephraim!” “Where?” cried Clementina.