He turned to the fire and picked up the tongs.

She laughed.

"No, I mean the prisoners; I was listening to their voices. Just now
they were throwing snowballs."

Endymion dropped the tongs with a clatter; picked them up, set them in
place, and faced the room again with a flush which might have come
from stooping over the fire.

"Come to breakfast, dear," said Dorothea, busy with the tea-urn. "I
have a small plan I want your permission for, and your help. It is
about the prisoners. General Rochambeau and M. Raoul--"

"Are doubtless prepared to teach me my business," snapped Endymion,
who seemed in bad humour this morning.

"No--but listen, dear! They praise you warmly. For whom but my brother
would these poor men have worked as they did upon the Orange Room--
and all to show their gratitude? But it appears the worst part of
captivity is its tedium and the way it depresses the mind; one sees
that it must be. They dread Sundays most of all. And I said I would
speak to you, and if any way could be found--"

"My dear Dorothea," Endymion slipped his hands beneath his coat-tails
and stood astraddle, "I have not often to request you, to mind your
own affairs; but really when it comes to making a promise in my name--"

"Not a promise."