"No serious damage," smiled the lady, who is known in Deauville as
_Madame Cythère_, "but you had better go and console her. I think she
has seen the devil for the first time."

He opened the door of their sunny bedroom, and found Asako packing
feverishly, and sobbing in spasms.

"My poor little darling," he said, lifting her in his arms, "whatever
is the matter?"

He laid her on the sofa, took off her hat, and loosened her dress,
until gradually she became coherent.

"He tried to kiss me," she sobbed.

"Who did?" her husband asked.

"The Vicomte de Brie."

"Damned little monkey," cried Geoffrey, "I'll break every miserable
bone in his pretence of a body."

"Oh, no, no," protested Asako, "let us go away from here at once. Let
us go to Switzerland, anywhere."

The serpent had got into the garden, but he had not been a very adroit
reptile. He had shown his fangs; and the woman had promptly bruised
his head and had given him an eye like an Impressionist sunset, which
for several days he had to hide from the ridicule of his friends.