and gone home, and let it keep on with
him to one of the farthermost tracks westward, where so much of the
fighting was reported to have taken place. But everything on the way was
as quiet as on the East Side.

Suddenly the car stopped with so quick a turn of the brake that he
was half thrown from his seat, and the policeman jumped down from the
platform and ran forward.

IV

Dryfoos sat at breakfast that morning with Mrs. Mandel as usual to pour
out his coffee. Conrad had gone down-town; the two girls lay abed much
later than their father breakfasted, and their mother had gradually
grown too feeble to come down till lunch. Suddenly Christine appeared at
the door. Her face was white to the edges of her lips, and her eyes were
blazing.

"Look here, father! Have you been saying anything to Mr. Beaton?"

The old man looked up at her across his coffee-cup through his frowning
brows. "No."

Mrs. Mandel dropped her eyes, and the spoon shook in her hand.

"Then what's the reason he don't come here any more?" demanded the girl;
and her glance darted from her father to Mrs. Mandel. "Oh, it's you, is
it? I'd like to know who told you to meddle in other people's business?"

"I did," said Dryfoos, savagely. "I told her to ask him what he wanted
here, and he said he didn't want anything, and he stopped coming. That's
all. I did it myself."

"Oh, you did, did you?" said the girl, scarcely less insolently than she
had spoken to Mrs. Mandel. "I should like to know what you did it for?
I'd like to know what made you think I wasn't able to take care of
myself. I just knew somebody had been meddling, but I didn't suppose it
was you. I can manage my own affairs in my own way, if you please, and
I'll thank you after this to leave me to myself in what don't concern
you."

"Don't concern me? You impudent jade!" her father began.

Christine advanced from the doorway toward the table; she had her hands
closed upon what seemed trinkets, some of which glittered and dangled
from them. She said, "Will you go to him and tell him that this
meddlesome minx, here, had no business to say anything about me to him,
and you take it all back?"

"No!" shouted the old man. "And if--"

"That's all I want of you!" the girl shouted in her turn. "Here are
your presents." With both hands she flung the jewels-pins and rings and
earrings and bracelets--among the breakfast-dishes, from which some of
them sprang to the floor. She stood a moment