fter her? Didn't he write?
Didn't he drop in now and then to see how she was getting on?

"Have you ever taken the poor child out to dinner?" Barbara asked
sternly.

He stood before her in the confusion of a schoolboy detected in a lapse
from grace, stammering explanations. Then Liosha rose, and I noticed
just the faintest little twitching of her lip.

"I don't want Jaff Chayne to be made to take me out to dinner against
his will."

"But--God bless my soul! I should love to take you out. I never thought
of it because I never take anybody out. I'm a barbarian, my dear girl,
just like yourself. If you wanted to be taken out, why on earth didn't
you say so?"

Liosha regarded him steadily. "I would rather cut my tongue out."

Jaffery returned her gaze for a few seconds, then turned away puzzled.
There seemed to be an unnecessary vehemence in Liosha's tone. He turned
again and approached her with a smiling face.

"I only meant that I didn't know you cared for that sort of thing,
Liosha. You must forgive me. Come and dine with me at the Carlton this
evening and do a theatre afterwards."

"No, I wont!" cried Liosha. "You insult me."

Her cheeks paled and she shook in sudden wrath. She looked magnificent.
Jaffery frowned.

"I think I'll have to be a bit of a dragon after all."

I recalled a scene of nearly two years before when he had frowned and
spoken thus roughly and she had invited him to chastise her with a
cleek. She did not repeat the invitation, but a sob rose in her throat
and she marched to the door, and at the door, turned splendidly,
quivering.

"I'm not going to have you or any one else for a dragon. And"--alas for
the superficiality of Mrs. Considine's training--"I'm going to do as I
damn well like."

Her voice broke on the last word, as she dashed from the room. I
exchanged a glance with Barbara, who followed her. Barbara could convey
a complicated set of instructions by her glance. Jaffery pulled out
pouch and pipe and shook his head.

"Woman is a remarkable phenomenon," said he.

"A more remarkable phenomenon still," said I, "is the dunderheaded
male."

"I did nothing to cause these heroics."

"You asked her to ask you to ask her out to dinner."

"I didn't," he protested.

I proved to him by all the rules of feminine logic that he had done so.
Holding the match over the bowl of his pipe, he puffed savagely.

"I wish I were a cannibal in Central Africa, where women are in proper
subje