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 "like stuck pigs", as Jimmy said later, for quite a long time.

"Is she your friend?" Jimmy asked.

"Yes—oh yes," said the bailiff. "You are my friend, are you not?"

"But yes," Mademoiselle said softly. "I am your friend."

"There! you see," said Jimmy, "the ring does do what I said."

"We won't quarrel about that," said the bailiff. "You can say it's the ring. For me—it's a coincidence—the happiest, the dearest"

"Then you?" said the French governess.

"Of course," said the bailiff. "Jimmy, give your brother some tea. Mademoiselle, come and walk in the woods: there are a thousand things to say."

"Eat then, my Gerald," said Mademoiselle, now grown young, and astonishingly like a fairy princess. "I return all at the hour, and we re-enter together. It is that we must speak each other. It is long time that we have not seen us, me and Lord Yalding!"

"So he was Lord Yalding all the time," said Jimmy, breaking a stupefied silence as the white gown and the grey flannels disappeared among the beech trunks. "Landscape painter sort of dodge—silly, I call it. And fancy her being a friend of his, and his wishing she was here! Different from us, eh? Good old ring!"

"His friend!" said Mabel with strong scorn: "Don't you see she's his lover? Don't you see