she found herself unexpectedly face to face with two tinhatted and unwashed Tommies in a subterranean cavern, lit only by a feeble gleam of daylight from the roof, was obvious; but she was too well bred to allow her emotions to master her. For a moment, conscious thought seemed to be suspended in her. Then, as the objects about her took shape, she decided that she must be dreaming.

At once all sense of fear left her. If it was only a dream, she argued to herself, it could not matter what happened to her. She waited with a kind of amused expectancy to see what turn events would take.

Alf and Bill, on the other hand, were not a little disturbed. They had realized at once that Eustace, in his ignorance, had committed an awful social solecism. Even the resourceful Bill's imagination[Pg 69] boggled at the idea of explaining to this dainty vision how she came to be in her present surroundings. They stood before her, embarrassed and tongue-tied. Alf thought of recalling the djinn and telling him to take her straight back; but his very real and increasing fear of offending his familiar forbade. Besides, his visitor was very lovely, and filled his jaded masculine eye with a lively sense of satisfaction.

[Pg 69]

After a while the silence became oppressive and Isobel spoke.

"Where am I?" she asked. "Who are you?"

Bill, who had been making a surreptitious and feline toilet in the gloomy recesses of the dug-out, stepped forward and saluted.

"Don't be frightened, miss," he said soothingly, "but this 'ere's a dug-out in France, on the Western Front."

"That proves it," said Isobel to herself, with a certain satisfaction. "It is just a vivid dream. Perhaps it's telepathy or levitation or something. Anyway, the great point to remember is that I'm not really here at all."

The two men watched her anxiously. Both had expected her to be terrified at the news. Her air of unruffled serenity alarmed them, because neither could understand it.

"Now let me see," she continued her train of thought—"a few minutes ago, I was in the Park with Peggy—but perhaps I dreamt that, too. In[Pg 70] fact I must have.... I don't remember going to bed, though.... Oh, well, it's no good worrying, it'll be all right when I wake up. A dug-out?" She echoed Bill's words uncertainly.

[Pg 70]

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