ar it
spoken of slightingly."

"Your home! It has not taken the slightest notice of you for twelve
years. Your people dropped you as if you were a hot potato."

"They have taken me up again." Still in amazement at her own boldness,
but somehow learning something as she went on.

He walked over to her side, and stood before her.

"Look here, Rosalie," he said. "You have been taking lessons from your
sister. She is a beauty and young and you are not. People will stand
things from her they will not take from you. I would stand some things
myself, because it rather amuses a man to see a fine girl peacocking.
It's merely ridiculous in you, and I won't stand it--not a bit of it."

It was not specially fortunate for him that the door opened as he was
speaking, and Betty came in with her own invitation in her hand. He
was quick enough, however, to turn to greet her with a shrug of his
shoulders.

"I am being favoured with a little scene by my wife," he explained. "She
is capable of getting up excellent little scenes, but I daresay she does
not show you that side of her temper."

Betty took a comfortable chintz-covered, easy chair. Her expression was
evasively speculative.

"Was it a scene I interrupted?" she said. "Then I must not go away
and leave you to finish it. You were saying that you would not 'stand'
something. What does a man do when he will not 'stand' a thing? It
always sounds so final and appalling--as if he were threatening horrible
things such as, perhaps, were a resource in feudal times. What IS the
resource in these dull days of law and order--and policemen?"

"Is this American chaff?" he was disagreeably conscious that he was not
wholly successful in his effort to be lofty.

The frankness of Betty's smile was quite without prejudice.

"Dear me, no," she said. "It is only the unpicturesque result of
an unfeminine knowledge of the law. And I was thinking how one is
limited--and yet how things are simplified after all."

"Simplified!" disgustedly.

"Yes, really. You see, if Rosy were violent she could not beat you--even
if she were strong enough--because you could ring the bell and give her
into custody. And you could not beat her because the same unpleasant
thing would happen to you. Policemen do rob things of colour, don't
they? And besides, when one remembers that mere vulgar law insists
that no one can be forced to live with another person who is brutal or
loathsome, that's simple, isn't it? Yo