rs,
and you're going to give it straight back to me! This minute! Do you
_hear_?"

Anna stared at her, and at Henry, and sat down plump and cried into
her handkerchief, from sheer hysterical reaction.

"Oh, yes," said Henry. "Through the back door, if you say so. But
that's the regular business entrance. I suppose the agent thought it
looked better, too."

"The agent! That Standish man! You _conspired_. You--"

Henry's chin went up. "Excuse me, Aunt Mirabelle, but I didn't know
the first thing about it until Bob Standish told me he had a client
ready to close, and to pay in advance. I didn't even know your man by
sight. I'd have rented it to anybody on earth on the same terms."

The little chairman edged forward. "Miss Starkweather--Mrs. Mix--I
knew how you feel about motion pictures, of course, but how could _I_
know you wouldn't even want to be in the same building with--"

"Oh, dry up!" She whirled on the lawyer. "Is that fair? Do you call
that fair? _Do_ you?"

Mr. Archer put his hand on Henry's shoulder, and nodded benignly. "To
tell the truth, Mrs. Mix, I can't see where this concerns you
personally at all. It's a straightforward commercial transaction
between Henry and Mr. McClellan."

"It isn't, either! Mr. McClellan had authority from the League to get
us a hall and sign a lease in his own name. I had the directors give
it to him, myself. And it was _my_ money that paid for it! Mine!"

Henry grinned at the lawyer. "I didn't know it until last Saturday.
Bob told me if I'd make a dirt-low rent I could get it in advance, and
up to Saturday I didn't even know who I was dickering with."

His aunt was menacing. "Henry Devereux, if you try to cheat me out of
my rightful property by any such flim-flam as this, I ... I ... I
don't know _what_ I'll do!"

"Oh, don't, Aunt Mirabelle," said Henry compassionately. "You know I
won't be a hog about it."

Some of the fury went out of her expression, and Mirabelle was on the
verge of sniffling. "That's just exactly it. I _know_ you won't. And
the humiliation of it to _me_. When you know perfectly well if
_I_'d--"

She stopped there, with her mouth wide open. They all waited,
courteously, for her to speak, but Mirabelle was speechless. She was
thinking partly of the past, and partly of the future, but chiefly of
the present--the hideous, unnecessary present in which Mr. Mix was
motoring serenely about the city, paying out good money to theatre
managers. Mirabell