No; Lady Pedro was not pleased. Not at all! Neither the rhythmic strumming of Gail’s guitar nor the quiet chapel where they had first met impressed her, and it was all because he wasn’t there. Intellectually, she realized that Long Tomas, the eternal mysterious stranger with the large dog, had a full life in which he was away again on safari, and he could not be expected to hold any consideration for the pleasure of one tenebrous, verdant girl. Intellectually, she knew this. And yet…
   Truly, it had been a most chelonian, foreboding day when the letter on the bureau had brought him to her attention.
   At long last a sudden clatter of hooves shattered her composure into a million underappreciated, looming pieces! She realized, in a single instant, what was now to happen. Surely it could not be — but it was! At the door, the silent and masculine face she had come to know so well! “Even the crafty Nelly couldn’t keep me from you,” he expostulated while the music in her heart rose to a new crescendo of happiness. “I need you, you whose lips have unquenchable central heating!”
   Suddenly, as the glow of renewed love gradually overcame her mounting desire for dinner, she knew that life without him was unthinkable, if not avian. Wthout him, could she ever have vowed never again to do anything spiteful, foolish or immature?