Her manner placed the matter before him.

"Holidays is different," said Mr. Polly.

"I don't want to actually _break_ the rules," she said.

"Leave them behind you," said Mr. Polly with a catch of the breath,
"where they are safe"; and marvelling at his own wit and daring, and
indeed trembling within himself, he held out a hand for her.

She brought another brown leg from the unknown, and arranged her skirt
with a dexterity altogether feminine. "I think I'll stay on the wall,"
she decided. "So long as some of me's in bounds--"

She continued to regard him with eyes that presently joined dancing in
an irresistible smile of satisfaction. Mr. Polly smiled in return.

"You bicycle?" she said.

Mr. Polly admitted the fact, and she said she did too.

"All my people are in India," she explained. "It's beastly rot--I mean
it's frightfully dull being left here alone."

"All _my_ people," said Mr. Polly, "are in Heaven!"

"I say!"

"Fact!" said Mr. Polly. "Got nobody."