insults, it was the one that robbed her of the
very dignity she should assume to rebuke it. The more vehemently she
resented it, the more laughable became the whole affair.

But she would resent it, she would resent it, and Landry Court should
be driven to acknowledge that the sorriest day of his life was the one
on which he had forgotten the respect in which he had pretended to hold
her. He had deceived her, then, all along. Because she
had--foolishly--relaxed a little towards him, permitted a certain
intimacy, this was how he abused it. Ah, well, it would teach her a
lesson. Men were like that. She might have known it would come to this.
Wilfully they chose to misunderstand, to take advantage of her
frankness, her good nature, her good comradeship.

She had been foolish all along, flirting--yes, that was the word for it
flirting with Landry and Corthell and Jadwin. No doubt they all
compared notes about her. Perhaps they had bet who first should kiss
her. Or, at least, there was not one of them who would not kiss her if
she gave him a chance.

But if she, in any way, had been to blame for what Landry had done, she
would atone for it. She had made herself too cheap, she had found
amusement in encouraging these men, in equivocating, in coquetting with
them. Now it was time to end the whole business, to send each one of
them to the right-about with an unequivocal definite word. She was a
good girl, she told herself. She was, in her heart, sincere; she was
above the inexpensive diversion of flirting. She had started wrong in
her new life, and it was time, high time, to begin over again--with a
clean page--to show these men that they dared not presume to take
liberties with so much as the tip of her little finger.

So great was her agitation, so eager her desire to act upon her
resolve, that she could not wait till morning. It was a physical
impossibility for her to remain under what she chose to believe
suspicion another hour. If there was any remotest chance that her three
lovers had permitted themselves to misunderstand her, they were to be
corrected at once, were to be shown their place, and that without mercy.

She called for the maid, Annie, whose husband was the janitor of the
house, and who slept in the top story.

"If Henry hasn't gone to bed," said Laura, "tell him to wait up till I
call him, or to sleep with his clothes on. There is something I want
him to do for me--something important."

It was close