And then with some dim instinct of self-protection, she went and told
her three best friends, great students of character all, of this
remarkable phenomenon she had discovered on the other side of the
wall.

"Look here," said Mr. Polly, "I'm wild for the love of you! I can't
keep up this gesticulations game any more! I'm not a Knight. Treat me
as a human man. You may sit up there smiling, but I'd die in torments
to have you mine for an hour. I'm nobody and nothing. But look here!
Will you wait for me for five years? You're just a girl yet, and it
wouldn't be hard."

"Shut up!" said Christabel in an aside he did not hear, and something
he did not see touched her hand.

"I've always been just dilletentytating about till now, but I could
work. I've just woke up. Wait till I've got a chance with the money
I've got."

"But you haven't got much money!"

"I've got enough to take a chance with, some sort of a chance. I'd
find a chance. I'll do that anyhow. I'll go away. I mean what I
say--I'll stop trifling and shirking. If I don't come back it won't
matter. If I do----"

Her expression had become uneasy. Suddenly she bent down towards him.

"Don't!" she said in an undertone.