tares me in the face."

Glancing around at the handsome furnishings, Alicia replied carelessly:

"I'm not responsible for your wrongdoing. I want to protect my friends.
If they are a lot of sheep as you say, that is precisely why I should
warn them. They have implicit confidence in me. You have borrowed their
money, cheated them at cards, stolen from them. Your acquaintance with
me has given them the opportunity. But now I've found you out. I refuse
any longer to sacrifice my friends, my self-respect, my sense of
decency." Angrily she continued: "You thought you could bluff me. You've
adopted this coward's way of forcing me to receive you against my will.
Well, you've failed. I will not sanction your robbing my friends. I will
not allow you to sell them any more of your high-priced rubbish, or
permit you to cheat them at cards."

Underwood listened in silence. He stood motionless, watching her flushed
face as she heaped reproaches on him. She was practically pronouncing
his death sentence, yet he could not help thinking how pretty she
looked. When she had finished he said nothing, but, going to his desk,
he opened a small drawer and took out a revolver.

Alicia recoiled, frightened.

"What are you going to do?" she cried.

Underwood smiled bitterly.

"Oh, don't be afraid. I wouldn't do it while you are here. In spite of
all you've said to me, I still think too much of you for that."
Replacing the pistol in the drawer, he added: "Alicia, if you desert me
now, you'll be sorry to the day of your death."

His visitor looked at him in silence. Then, contemptuously, she said:

"I don't believe you intend to carry out your threat. I should have
known from the first that your object was to frighten me. The pistol
display was highly theatrical, but it was only a bluff. You've no more
idea of taking your life than I have of taking mine. I was foolish to
come here. I might have spared myself the humiliation of this
clandestine interview. Good night!"

She went toward the door. Underwood made no attempt to follow her. In a
hard, strange voice, which he scarcely recognized as his own, he merely
said:

"Is that all you have to say?"

"Yes," replied Alicia, as she turned at the door. "Let it be thoroughly
understood that your presence at my house is not desired. If you force
yourself upon me in any way, you must take the consequences."

Underwood bowed, and was silent. She did not see the deathly pallor of
his face. Op