--at the girl's cold-blooded, brazen
effrontery.

By Jove, I wondered if I _could_ pink her!

I wasn't sure. I had gone at her in a cunning, subtle way: the hand of
steel in the glove of what's-its-name, you know; the curving, velvet
thrust of the needle rapier--all that sort of rot--and she had merely
given me back a Roland for my what's-its-name. I felt a bit dashed, you
know.

Idea seized me that perhaps, though, something more brutally direct
would--

"See here," I said, fixing my monocle sternly and folding my arms--for I
had got back my hand under pretense of fixing my part. "You don't mean
to say that Jack would ever ask _you_ to take charge here!"

Rather plain and direct, that, don't you think? Sort of heavy broadsword
stroke, you know. But she took it full and clean--never winced or turned
a hair. Just looked thoughtful.

"Yes," she said slowly. "Jacky says it'll have to come to that some
day--_some_ arrangement. Neither of us ever want to marry."

"Oh!"

And my monocle dropped!

Couldn't chirp another word, you know! Just stood there, round-mouthed
and staring blankly--kind of fascinated, too, dash it--and wondering
what particular freak cult _hers_ was. And I felt myself getting redder
and redder every second! Then the awful thought came to me that this
advanced and emancipated dowd had been the friend and companion of my
darling--that her poisonous influence had been felt for months; was
being exerted still. I wondered how she could look me in the face, but
she _wasn't_. No, she had switched her head around and was glaring at
the servants down the hall. So I just swayed there, trying to think, and
boring at the back of her head, till it came to me dully that her hair
didn't match her what-you-call-'ems, and my dashed brain just seized on
and clung to this like a drowning man does to a what-you-may-call-it.

"_Thom_-as!" the frump exploded.

One of the footmen who was doubled over, red-faced and writhing, in the
exercise of some pleasantry with his companion, straightened with an
aggrieved air. He ambled toward us.

"Some specimens that Mr. Billings gathered--plants and foliage; he left
them in the car," jerked the frump. "See they are cared for."

The man nodded indifferently and slouched away.

Her frown gloomed after him and her voice snapped at his laggard heels:

"And Flora--send Flora to me. Is she asleep somewhere?"

She faced me with an acid grimace and shrug.

"You see how it i