entrated on you I'd have got you. I wish I had! I
wish I had! But you were such an old flat tyre I thought you were
safe."

"What in heaven's name makes you think you're in love with me?"
exploded Clavering. "Your opinion of me is anything but complimentary,
and I'm everything your chosen companions are not. You don't want me
any more than I want you. You've simply been playing some fool game
with yourself----"

"It's not! It's not! It's the real thing. I've been in love with you
since I was six. Ask daddy. Daddy, didn't I always say I was going to
marry him?"

"Yes, when you were little more of a baby than you are now. Can't you
imagine how ashamed you'll be of such an undignified performance as
this?"

"I ashamed? Not much. I always intend to do just as I please and damn
the consequences."

"A fine wife you'd make for Lee or any other man."

"I'd make him the best wife in the world. I'd do everything he told
me. No, I wouldn't. Yes, I would." Sheer femaleness and the spirit
of the age seesawed inconclusively. "Anyhow, I'd make you happy,
because I'd be happy myself," she added naively. "Much happier than
your grand-mother----"

"Perhaps you will oblige me by making no further allusion to Madame
Zattiany."

"No, I won't. And the first time I see her when there's a lot of
people round I'll tell her just what she is to her face."

"If you dare!" Clavering advanced threateningly and she swung herself
behind her father, who, however, took her firmly by the arm and marched
her to the door.

"Enough of this," he said. "You come home and pack your trunk and
tomorrow we take the first steamer out of New York. If there isn't
one, we'll take the train for Canada----"

"I won't go."

"It's either that or a sanitarium for neurotics. I'll have you
strapped down and carried there in an ambulance. You may take your
choice. Good night, Lee. Forget it, if you can."

As Clavering slammed the door behind them he envied men who could tear
their hair. He had wanted to spend a long evening alone thinking of
Mary Zattiany, dreaming of those vital hours before him, and he had
been treated to a double nightmare. For the moment he hated everything
in petticoats that walked, and he felt like taking a steamer to the
ends of the earth himself. But he was more worn out than he knew and
was sound asleep fifteen minutes later.

XXXIV

Janet had her revenge. Words have a terrible power. And