d!

But her claws raked on: "I tell you you just can't be familiar with
grooms and hail-fellow-well-met with footmen without demoralizing
them--and that's what Francis does." She jerked this out viciously, and
while I gasped, went on: "_You_ know very well, Mr. Lightnut, if you
play cards and drink and carouse with your men-servants until two or
three o'clock in the morning, you can't reasonably look for respect from
them." She breathed heavily. "The trouble is, Francis has no
self-respect--no _pride_!"

Her uplifted hands fumbled and jerked the hat from her tossing head.
"Sometimes," she breathed through her teeth, "when I think of Francis, I
feel like I'd like to--" The words died behind her teeth as she ground
them--yes, _ground_ them. She jabbed the pins into the hat savagely and
at random and tossed it after the coat. And this time she put the
ball--in a big Benares jar that stood against the wall.

But I was counting forty-four!

Ever try that when you were angry and wanted to insult somebody?
Preacher told us about it once at the old Harvard Union, and _I_ thought
it a devilish good idea. Gives you time, you know, to think up the
things to say that otherwise you would be turning over in your mind
afterward as the scathing, clever things you _might_ have said.

So, by the twenty-eighth count, I had her; and jamming my hands almost
through my pockets, I faced her with a withering frown.

"By Jove, if I were you, Miss--er--" Dash me if I hadn't forgotten her
name! "If you feel that way, _I_ don't see why the de--H'm! I mean why
do you stay on here and--er--_sacrifice_ yourself?" I drawled this in
the most devilish sarcastic way! "I'd pack my jolly trunk and get as far
away as I could."

I added earnestly--coaxingly: "And _stay_ away, you know!"

And I took a deep breath, for I expected to see her wilt or go straight
up in the air. I knew it was a toss-up for either.

Not she! She just twisted a sour smile at me.

"Ummh!" she grunted. "Perhaps you don't know that Francis has suggested
that to me several times--frankly and rudely--when I have complained.
That may surprise you."

It did not surprise me--not at all, by Jove! What _did_ surprise me was
that my Frances had ever allowed this jolly female barnacle to fasten on
her in this way. Remembered a remark of Jack Ellsworth's about some
bounder visiting at his house that he said "the old man couldn't pry
loose with a crowbar." Devilish coarse way to expr