tch?"

"Yes, Pa-_pah_, but I haven't come to that yet----"

"Did you go near it?"

"Quite near----"

"You didn't touch it, did you?"

"I was going to tell you----"

"_Did_ you?" he bellowed musically. "Answer me, Sybilla!"

"Y-yes--I did."

"What did you suppose it to be?"

"I thought--we all thought--that you kept a wireless telephone instrument
in there----"

"Why? Just because I happen to be president of the Amalgamated Wireless
Trust Company?"

"Yes. And we were dying to see a wireless telephone work.... I thought
I'd like to call up Central--just to be sure I could make the thing go--
_What_ is the matter, Pa-_pah?_"

He dropped into a wadded armchair and motioned Sybilla to a seat
opposite. Then with another frightful facial contortion he reimbedded the
monocle.

"So you deliberately opened that door and went in to rummage?"

"No," said the girl; "we were--skylarking a little, on our way to the
gymnasium; and I gave Brasilia a little shove toward the laboratory door,
and then Flavilla pushed me--very gently--and somehow I--the door flew
open and my mask fell off and rolled inside; and I went in after it. That
is how it happened--partly."

She lifted her dark and very beautiful eyes to her stony parent, then
they dropped, and she began tracing figures and arabesques on the
polished floor with the point of her foil. "That is partly how," she
repeated.

"What is the other part?"

"The other part was that, having unfortunately disobeyed you, and being
already in the room, I thought I might as well stay and take a little
peep around----"

Her father fairly bounced in his padded chair. The velvet-eyed descendant
of Eve shot a fearful glance at him and continued, still casually tracing
invisible arabesques with her foil's point.

"You see, don't you," she said, "that being actually _in_, I thought I
might as well do something before I came out again, which would make my
disobedience worth the punishment. So I first picked up my mask, then I
took a scared peep around. There were only jars and bottles and
things.... I was dreadfully disappointed. The certainty of being punished
and then, after all, seeing nothing but bottles, _did_ seem rather
unfair.... So I--walked around to--to see if I could find something to
look at which would repay me for the punishment.... There is a proverb,
isn't there Pa-_pah?_--something about being executed for a lamb----"

"Go on!" he said sharply.

"Well, all I