reupon she hit him
smartly over the head and bade him lie down. Her respect, however, for
Sypher increased.

They were joined by Emmy and Septimus.

"I think I could manage it," said the latter, "if I cut a hole a foot
square in the board and fixed a magazine behind it."

"There will be no necessity," returned Sypher. "Mrs. Middlemist has ordered
its immediate removal."

That was the end of the board episode. The next day he had it taken down
and chopped into fire-wood, a cart-load of which he sent with his humble
compliments to Mrs. Middlemist. Zora called it a burnt offering. She found
more satisfaction in the blaze that roared up the chimney than she could
explain to her mother; perhaps more than she could explain to herself.
Septimus had first taught her the pleasantness of power. But that was
nothing to this. Anybody, even Emmy, curly-headed baby that she was, could
turn poor Septimus into a slave. For a woman to impose her will upon Clem
Sypher, Friend of Humanity, the Colossus of Curemongers, was no such
trumpery achievement.

Emmy, when she referred to the matter, expressed the hope that Zora had
rubbed it into Clem Sypher. Zora deprecated the personal bearing of the
slang metaphor, but admitted, somewhat grandly, that she had pointed out
the error in taste.

"I can't see, though, why you take all this trouble over Mr. Sypher," said
Emmy.

"I value his friendship," replied Zora, looking up from a letter she was
reading.

This was at breakfast. When the maid had entered with the post Emmy had
gripped the table and watched with hungry eyes, but the only letter that
had come for her had been on theatrical business. Not the one she longed
for. Emmy's world was out of joint.

"You've changed your opinion, my dear, as to the value of men," she
sneered. "There was a time when you didn't want to see them or speak to
them or have anything to do with them. Now it seems you can't get on
without them."

"My dear Emmy," said Zora calmly, "men as possible lovers and men as
staunch friends are two entirely different conceptions."

Emmy broke a piece of toast viciously.

"I think they're beasts," she exclaimed.

"Good heavens! Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. They are."

Then, after the quick, frightened glance of the woman who fears she has
said too much, she broke into a careless half-laugh.

"They are such liars. Fawcett promised me a part in his new production and
writes to-day to say I can't have it."

As