o him if he would come so
persistently within snubbing distance. Besides, she really did not owe
him any courtesy, after the way he had dared to treat her.

But he only laughed at her, and turned to the door. "I shouldn't be so
cocksure of that if I were you," he said, opening it with a flourish. "I
have a wonderful knack of getting what I want."

She flung him the gauntlet of her contemptuous defiance as she passed
him. "Really?" she said.

He took it up instantly, with disconcerting assurance. "Yes, really," he
said.

And to Olga all unbidden there came a sudden little tremor of shuddering
remembrance as there flashed across her inner vision the spectacle of a
green dragon-fly swooping upon a poor little fluttering scarlet moth.

CHAPTER IV

THE SETTING OF THE WATCH

To return to the Priory with her _bete-noir_ seated in triumph beside
her was a trick of fortune that Olga had been very far from
anticipating. There was no help for it, however, for he was determined
to go thither, notwithstanding her assurance that the master of the
house was from home. He leaned back at his ease and watched her drive
with frank criticism.

"I had no idea you were so accomplished," he remarked, as they skimmed
up the long Priory drive. "I should have thought you were much too
nervous to drive a car."

Olga was never nervous except in his presence, but she would have rather
died than have had him know it.

"Nick taught me," she said, "years ago, when he first lost his arm. It's
about the only thing he can't do himself."

"I've noticed that he's fairly agile," commented Max. "What did he have
his arm cut off for? Couldn't he make himself conspicuous enough in any
other way?"

Olga's cheeks flamed. "He was wounded in action," she said shortly.

Max cocked one corner of his mouth. "And so entered Parliament in a
blaze of glory," he said. "Vote for the Brave! Vote for the Veteran!
Vote for the One-Armed Hero! Never mind his politics! That empty sleeve
must have been absolutely invaluable to him in his electioneering days."

But joking on this subject was more than Olga could bear. The sight of
the empty sleeve was enough to bring tears to her eyes at times even
now. To hear it thus lightly spoken of was intolerable.

"How dare you say such a thing!" she exclaimed. "As if
Nick--Nick!--would ever stoop to take advantage of a thing like that.
Nick, who might have won the V.C., only--" She broke off with vehement
self