and that I shall stand it all," she said.

"I never said that, Miss Driver. I may have said you had a kind heart
and wouldn't be hard on an old friend." He had his cloth cap in his
hands and kept twisting it about and fiddling with it as he talked. He
smiled all the time, insinuatingly, yet rather uneasily, too.

"It's not your place to make any reference to me," she said haughtily.
"I'll thank you to leave me out of your conversation with these curious
friends of yours, Mr. Powers."

He looked at her, licking his lips. I was a mere spectator, though I do
not think either of them had for a moment, up to now, forgotten my
presence; indeed, both were, in a sense, playing their parts before me.

"I don't know that my friends are more curious than other people's, Miss
Driver. People choose friends as it suits them, I suppose."

She caught the insinuation--he must have meant that she should. Her eyes
blazed with a sudden anger. I knew the signs of that; when it came,
prudence was apt to be thrown to the winds. She rose from her chair and
walked up to where he stood.

"What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

He was afraid; he cowered before her fury: "Nothing," he grumbled
sullenly.

"Then don't say things like that. I don't like them. I won't have them
said. It almost sounded as if you meant a reference to me."

Of course he had meant one. She saw the danger and faced it. She relied
on her personal domination. He was threatening, she would terrify. She
went on in a cool, hard voice--very bitter, very dangerous.

"Once before in your life you threatened me," she said. "I was a child
then, and had no friends. You got off safe--you even got a little
money--a little very dirty money." (He did not like that; he flushed red
and picked at his cap furiously.) "Now I'm a woman and I've got friends.
You won't get any money, and you won't get off safe. Be sure of that.
Who'll employ you if I won't? What character have you except what I
choose to give? I think, if I were a man, I'd thrash you where you
stand, Mr. Powers."

This remark may perhaps have been unladylike--that would have been
Chat's word for it. For my part I thoroughly appreciated and enjoyed it.
She was a fine sight in a royal rage like this.

"But though I'm not a man, I've friends who are. If you dare to use your
tongue against me, look out!"

He could not stand against her nor face her. Indeed it would have been
hard to fight her, unless by forgetting