"With a jump, precisely—and the jump was hers!" laughed Tony. "All's well that ends well!" He was heated—he wiped his excited brow, and Mrs. Beever looked at him as if it struck her that she had helped him to more emotion than she wished him. "She's a most extraordinary girl," he went on, "and the effort she made there, all unprepared for it"—he nodded at the very spot of the exploit—"was magnificent in its way, one of the finest things I've ever seen." His appreciation of the results of this effort seemed almost feverish, and his elation deepened so that he turned, rather blindly, to poor Paul. "Upon my honour she's cleverer, she has more domestic resources, as one may say, than—I don't care whom!"
"Oh, we all know how clever she is!" Mrs. Beever impatiently grunted.
Tony's enthusiasm, none the less, overflowed; he was nervous for joy. "I thought I did myself, but she had a lot more to show me!" He addressed himself again to Paul. "She told you—with her coolness?"
Paul was occupied with another cigarette; he emitted no sound, and his mother, with a glance at
