"To kiss, or not to kiss. That's the question," laughed Bertie.
"Is it?" said Jack. And Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like a large, boiled beetroot.
I had seen Jack coming, long enough to have counted ten before he came. But I did n't count ten. I just let him come.
Bertie could not speak: he could only gurgle. And if I had been a Roman lady in the amphitheatre of Nîmes, or somewhere, I 'm afraid I should have wanted to turn my thumb down.
"What was the beast threatening you with?" Jack wanted to know.
"The beast was threatening to make Lady Turnour think I 'd stolen this brooch, which he 'd taken himself," I panted, through the beatings of my heart.
"If you didn't kiss him?"
"Yes. And he was going to do lots of other horrid things, too. Tell Monsieur Charretier—and let my cousins come and find me at the Hotel Athenée, in Paris, and ⸺"
"He won't do any of them. But there are several things I am going to do to him. Go away, my child. Run off to the house, as quick as you can."
I gasped. "What are you going to do to him?"
"Don't worry. I shan't hurt him nearly as much as he deserves. I 'm only going to do what the Head must have neglected to do to him at school."
