n.

"Why? You are fully dressed, are you not?"

"Assuredly."

"Then what reason can you have for refusing to come when I ask it? Is it
simply that you wish to defy me? I am not accustomed to being
disobeyed."

"Are you then so sure of obedience, _mon cher_?" She raised her gorgeous
eyes and laughed up at him with indulgent amusement. Her manner was that
of a young empress who regards any criticism of herself as an audacious
jest, so unprecedented as to be diverting. "Are you sure that you have
nothing yet to learn? I said I should not come down to the
breakfast-room--because I did not wish to come."

"You mean that you still refuse?"

"If you desire to call it that. I would not seem ungracious.... I should
prefer the word 'decline.'"

"Then that is reason enough why you _are_ coming."

Mary lifted her brows in incredulous amusement, but Hamilton Burton did
not smile in response. He came a step nearer her chair and said very
quietly: "While you are in my house I wish you to appear at the
breakfast-table. This morning is a good time to begin. Will you
accompany me on your own feet, or will you make your initial appearance
kicking those same feet, while I carry you down like a child in a
tantrum? There are about five seconds available for you to give the
question mature deliberation."

"Thank you, _cheri_." Her mirthful pupils were not flecked with
annoyance. "Five seconds are four seconds more than I need. I shall not
go either way."

Hamilton made no further comment. With the apparent ease of one taking
up a child from its cradle, he bent down and gathered her slender figure
in his arms, then, lifting her bodily from her chair, he turned toward
the door.

For an instant, she lay against his shoulder, too astounded for protest.
Then her satin slippers began beating a furious tattoo and her small
fists pummeling him as her cheeks flamed and her mismatched eyes burst
into indignant fire. These demonstrations her brother ignored as he
carried her in effortless fashion out into the broad hall and half-way
down the stairs. She had ceased to struggle by that time and was gasping
in wordless wrath. But at the turn of the stairway into the lower hall
he paused and stood still, while their eyes met and locked in a brief,
hot duel of wills.

"Now," he inquired calmly, "shall this be the manner of your first
appearance before my secretary and butler, or will you make the rest of
the journey on your own power?"

Fo