suggestion of a whimper. So, "I congratulate you, Mr. Steele. I should have had a man like you to advise me when I laid out Summit City."
"She's a good little sport, after all," said Bill Steele to Bill Steele. And to Beatrice, lightly: "All done in honour of the Queen, you know. Glad she approves. But she is interested most of all …"
"In the kitchen!" cried Beatrice quickly, guessing what was coming and promptly forestalling him. "May I peek inside?"
This time, turning swiftly, she surprised for the first time in Steele's eyes a flash of admiration. He hid it without delay, masking it with his old laughing look. But she had seen it. And … though of course there was no reason in it and she knew it … a little pleasurable thrill danced down her blood. Bill Steele at their first meeting had challenged all that there was of woman in her; now let him look out for himself. If it was to be war between them, then let it be war many sided, guerre à outrance! Let there be never an available weapon left rusting in its sheath.
"The chef's realm is apart from the king's palace," Steele told her with an assumption of dignified gravity. "Lest smells of onions and hot grease assail the royal nose. There is the kitchen."
He pointed. Beatrice saw it now, though until this moment it had gone unnoticed, so did it blend in with the forest behind it. It was what the folk of Mexico or Southern California would term a ramada, though its walls were of fir boughs instead of willow withes. A square, flat roofed shed rudely made but defying pas-
