mingled emotions shot through with fiery
streaks of wrath. Presently these simmered down to a residue of angry
amazement and curiosity. If you have been accustomed all your life to
regard yourself as an empress of absolute dominance over slavish
masculinity, and are suddenly subjected to a violent slap across the
face from the hand of the most highly favored slave, some allowance is
due you of outraged sensibilities. Chiefly, however Esme wondered WHY.
WHY, in large capitals, and with an intensely ascendant inflection.

Her first impulse had been to telephone Hal a withering message. More
deliberate thought suggested the wisdom of making sure of her ground,
first. The result was a shock. From her still infuriated guardian she
had learned that, technically, she was the owner, with full moral
responsibility for the "Pest-Egg." The information came like a dash of
extremely cold water, which no pumess, reformed or otherwise, likes.
Miss Elliot sat her down to a thoughtful consideration of the "Clarion."
She found she was in good company. Several other bright and shining
lights of the local firmament, social, financial, and commercial, shared
the photographic notoriety. Slowly it was borne in upon her open mind
that she had not been singled out for reprehension; that she was simply
a part of the news, as Hal regarded news--no, as the "Clarion" regarded
news. That Hal would deliberately have let this happen, she declined to
believe. Unconsciously she clung to her belief in the natural
inviolability of her privilege. It must have been a mistake. Hal would
tell her so when he saw her. Yet if that were so, why had he sent word,
the day after, that he couldn't keep his appointment? Would he come at
all, now?

Doubt upon this point was ended when Dr. Elliot, admitted on the
strength of his profession to the typhus ward, and still exhibiting
mottlings of wrath on his square face, had repeated his somewhat
censored account of his encounter with "that puppy." Esme haughtily
advised her dear Uncle Guardy that the "puppy" was her friend. Uncle
Guardy acidulously counseled his beloved Esme not to be every species of
a mildly qualified idiot at one and the same time. Esme elevated her
nose in the air and marched out of the room to telephone Hal Surtaine
forthwith. What she intended to telephone him (very distantly, of
course) was that her uncle had no authority to speak for her, that she
was quite capable of speaking for herself, and th