Somehow, when Robin had announced that the ladies were on the roof he had imagined the roof as a large, flat expanse.  It was nothing of the kind.  So far as he could distinguish in the deep gloom it had leaden pathways, but on either hand it sloped sharply up or sharply down.  He might have fallen sheer into a chasm, or stumbled against the leaden side of a slant.  He descried a lofty construction of carved masonry with an iron ladder clamped into it, far transcending the net.  Not immediately did he comprehend that it was merely one of the famous Lechford chimney-stacks looming gigantic in the night.  He walked cautiously onward and came to a precipice and drew back, startled, and took another pathway at right angles to the first one.  Presently the protective netting stopped, and he was exposed to heaven; he had reached the roof of the servants’ quarters towards the back of the house.

He stood still and gazed, accustoming himself to the night.  The moon was concealed, but there were patches of dim stars.  He could make out, across the empty Green Park, the huge silhouette of Buckingham Palace, and beyond that the tower of Westminster Cathedral.  To his left he could see part of a courtyard or small square, with a fore-shortened black figure, no doubt a policeman, carrying a flash-lamp.  The tree-lined Mall seemed to be utterly deserted.  But Piccadilly showed a line of faint stationary lights and still fainter moving lights.  A mild hum and the sounds of motor-horns and cab-whistles came from Piccadilly, where people were abroad in ignorance that the raid was not really over.  All the heavens were continually restless with long, shifting rays from the anti-aircraft stations, but the rays served only to prove the power of darkness.

Then he heard quick, smooth footsteps.  Two figures, one behind the other, approached him, almost running, eagerly, girlishly, with little cries.  The first was Queen, who wore a white skirt and a very close-fitting black jersey.  Concepcion also wore a white skirt and a very close-fitting black jersey, but with a long mantle hung loosely from the shoulders.  Both were bareheaded.

“Isn’t it splendid, G.J.?” Queen burst out enthusiastically.  Again G.J. had the sensation of being at sea—­perhaps on the deck of a yacht.  He felt that rain ought to have been beating on the face of the excited and careless girl.  Before answering, he turned up the collar of his overcoat.  Then he said: 

“Won’t you catch a chill?”

“I’m never cold,” said Queen.  It was true.  “I shall always come up here for raids in future.”

“You seem to be enjoying it.”

“I love it.  I love it.  I only thought of it to-night.  It’s the next best thing to being a man and being at the Front.  It is being at the Front.”

Her face was little more than a pale, featureless oval to him in the gloom, but he could divine from the vibrations of her voice that she was as ecstatic as a young maid at her first dance.