"Not fonder than we are," said Myra, smiling at him.



IV.

BEFORE LUNCH


I found Myra in the hammock at the end of the loggia.

"Hallo," I said.

"Hallo." She looked up from her book and waved her hand. "Mentone on the
left, Monte Carlo on the right," she said, and returned to her book
again. Simpson had mentioned the situation so many times that it had
become a catch-phrase with us.

"Fancy reading on a lovely morning like this," I complained.

"But that's why. It's a very gloomy play by Ibsen, and whenever it's
simply more than I can bear, I look up and see Mentone on the left, Monte
Carlo on the right--I mean, I see all the loveliness round me, and then I
know the world isn't so bad after all." She put her book down. "Are you
alone?"

I gripped her wrist suddenly and put the paper-knife to her throat.

"_We_ are alone," I hissed--or whatever you do to a sentence without any
"s's" in it to make it dramatic. "Your friends cannot save you now.