"You forget the inner doors and the safe."

"True. You might be useful to me there. But I still don't like
leading you in where it isn't absolutely necessary, Bunny."

"Then let me lead you, I answered, and forthwith marched across the
broad, secluded road, with the great houses standing back on either
side in their ample gardens, as though the one opposite belonged to
me. I thought Raffles had stayed behind, for I never heard him at
my heels, yet there he was when I turned round at the gate.

"I must teach you the step," he whispered, shaking his head. "You
shouldn't use your heel at all. Here's a grass border for you: walk
it as you would the plank! Gravel makes a noise, and flower-beds
tell a tale. Wait - I must carry you across this."

It was the sweep of the drive, and in the dim light from above the
door, the soft gravel, ploughed into ridges by the night's wheels,
threatened an alarm at every step. Yet Raffles, with me in his
arms, crossed the zone of peril softly as the pard.

"Shoes in your pocket - that's the beauty of pumps!" he whispered
on the step; his light bunch tinkled faintly; a couple of keys he
stooped and tried, with the touch of a humane dentist; the third
let us into the porch. And as we stood together on the mat, as he
was gradually closing the door, a clock within chimed a half-hour
in fashion so thrillingly familiar to me that I caught Raffles by
the arm. My half-hours of happiness had flown to just such chimes!
I looked wildly about me in the dim light. Hat-stand and oak
settee belonged equally to my past. And Raffles was smiling in my