And besides, you can ask me for so many other things which I should be so happy to give you.

Come now, at once, make a wish and I will gratify it immediately." In a frolicsome way he sought to take her hand again.

But she drew back with an air of much dignity.

"No, you hear me, my dear fellow, I will have nothing whatever to do with you--nothing, so long as I don't play Pauline." He understood her fully, and he knew her well enough to realise how rigorously she would treat him.

Only a kind of grunt came from his contracted throat, though he still tried to treat the matter in a jesting way.