should need it, came Clarence Heyl's whimsical bit
of advice. Her mind released it now, complete.

"If you double your fist this way, and tuck your thumb alongside, like
that, and aim for this spot right here, about two inches this side of
the chin, bringing your arm back and up quickly, like a piston, the
person you hit will go down, limp. There's a nerve right here that
communicates with the brain. The blow makes you see stars, and bright
lights----"

She went limp in his arms. She shut her eyes, flutteringly. "All
men--like you--have a yellow streak," she whispered, and opened her
eyes, and looked up at him, smiling a little. He relaxed his hold, in
surprise and relief. And with her eyes on that spot barely two inches
to the side of the chin she brought her right arm down, slowly, slowly,
fist doubled, and then up like a piston--snap! His teeth came together
with a sharp little crack. His face, in that second, was a comic mask,
surprised, stunned, almost idiotic. Then he went down, as Clarence Heyl
had predicted, limp. Not with a crash, but slowly, crumpingly, so that
he almost dragged her with him.

Fanny stood looking down at him a moment. Then she wiped her mouth with
the back of her hand. She walked out of the room, and down the hall. She
saw the little Jap dart suddenly back from a doorway, and she stamped
her foot and said, "S-s-cat!" as if he had been a rat. She gathered up
her hat and bag from the hall table, and so, out of the door, and down
the walk, to the road. And then she began to run. She ran, and ran, and
ran. It was a longish stretch to the pretty, vine-covered station. She
seemed unconscious of fatigue, or distance. She must have been at least
a half hour on the way. When she reached the station the ticket agent
told her there was no train until six. So she waited, quietly. She put
on her hat (she had carried it in her hand all the way) and patted her
hair into place. When the train came she found a seat quite alone, and
sank into its corner, and rested her head against her open palm. It was
not until then that she felt a stab of pain. She looked at her hand, and
saw that the skin of her knuckles was bruised and bleeding.

"Well, if this," she said to herself, "isn't the most idiotic thing that
ever happened to a woman outside a near-novel."

She looked at her knuckles, critically, as though the hand belonged to
some one else. Then she smiled. And even as she smiled a great lump came
into her t