ospitality does not place Miss Lindsay above
suspicion, the more shame for us. How would you feel if anyone else made
such a remark?"

"Oh, stuff!" said Jane peevishly. "You are always preaching long
rigmaroles about nothing at all. I did not say there was any impropriety
about Gertrude. She is too proper to be pleasant, in my opinion."

Sir Charles, unable to trust himself further, frowned and left the room,
Jane speeding him with a contemptuous laugh.

"Don't ever be such a fool as to get married," she said, when he was
gone. She looked up as she spoke, and was alarmed to see Agatha seated
on the pianoforte, with her ankles swinging in the old school fashion.

"Jane," she said, surveying her hostess coolly, "do you know what I
would do if I were Sir Charles?"

Jane did not know.

"I would get a big stick, beat you black and blue, and then lock you up
on bread and water for a week."

Jane half rose, red and angry. "Wh--why?" she said, relapsing upon the
sofa.

"If I were a man, I would not, for mere chivalry's sake, let a woman
treat me like a troublesome dog. You want a sound thrashing."

"I'd like to see anybody thrash me," said Jane, rising again and
displaying her formidable person erect. Then she burst into tears, and
said, "I won't have such things said to me in my own house. How dare
you?"

"You deserve it for being jealous of me," said Agatha.

Jane's eyes dilated angrily. "I!--I!--jealous of you!" She looked round,
as if for a missile. Not finding one, she sat down again, and said in a
voice stifled with tears, "J--Jealous of YOU, indeed!"

"You have good reason to be, for he is fonder of me than of you."

Jane opened her mouth and eyes convulsively, but only uttered a gasp,
and Agatha proceeded calmly, "I am polite to him, which you never
are. When he speaks to me I allow him to finish his sentence without
expressing, as you do, a foregone conclusion that it is not worth
attending to. I do not yawn and talk whilst he is singing. When he
converses with me on art or literature, about which he knows twice as
much as I do, and at least ten times as much as you." (Jane gasped again)
"I do not make a silly answer and turn to my neighbor at the other side
with a remark about the tables or the weather. When he is willing to be
pleased, as he always is, I am willing to be pleasant. And that is why
he likes me."

"He does NOT like you. He is the same to everyone."

"Except his wife. He likes me so mu