he replied, with a short laugh. There came a swift clatter of raindrops on the cloth. Geoffrey crouched under the wall of the other stack.

“Mind where you tread — here, let me straighten this end,” said Maurice, with a peculiar intimate tone — a command and an embrace. “We s’ll have to sit under it. At any rate, we shan’t get wet.”

“Not get wet!” echoed the girl, pleased, but agitated.

Geoffrey heard the slide and rustle of the cloth over the top of the stack, heard Maurice telling her to “Mind!”

“Mind!” she repeated. “Mind! you say ‘Mind!’“

“Well, what if I do?” he laughed.