dropped into her chair and lighted a cigarette with
pensive deliberation. "I don't know that I can offer you a real row,
my idea was to hand you a few straight-from-the-shoulder remarks and
then a couple of ultimatums. As for the brutal badinage in which you
delight, I'm in no mood for it this evening."

"Let's have your remarks. I guess I can stand 'em."

"First, then--I suppose you know that you have played the cat-and-banjo
with Lucy's happiness for the last twenty-odd years?"

"Don't assume I know anything. Just tell me!"

"Consider yourself told that, to start with. I was literally shocked
when I came back and saw the change in Lucy. She's the shadow of her
old self, nothing more. It is you who are responsible for that."

"Humph!"

"Now you have started on Copley--made a good start, too, if the boy's
manner is any criterion. Possibly I may be doing him an injustice. It
might have been consideration for his mother rather than fear of you
that has restrained him until now. Anyway, I'm glad he has summoned
the courage to defy you at last."

"Indeed. May I ask you one question? How long has it been considered
good form for a woman to enter a man's house and interfere with his
domestic relations. Eh?"

"It was my father's house first, then Lucy's. I am more at home here
this minute than you could ever be."

"Try and prove it in a law-court!"

"Perhaps I shall--some day." She paused to scrutinize her polished
finger-nails, brushed a speck from one of them, raised her eyes to his
and added dryly, "After all, Simon, you know you only got in here by a
trick."

"A _trick_! Now--what do you mean by _that_?"

"Memory gone _phut_, Simon? Perhaps I can refresh it. While I was
watching the fire last night a man came up to me and called me by name.
It was--Leslie Sherwood."

"_Ah!_" The exclamation was wrung from him through stiff lips. The
color drained from his face as he leaned forward tensely, one hand
gripping an arm of his chair like a vise. "G-go on!"

"That shot went home, did it?" asked Miss Ocky coolly, watching the
effect of her words. "I've several more in the locker! We had quite a
long talk together and he told me many things I didn't know.
Interesting things--very!"

"_What?_" Simon's voice was hoarse. "He didn't tell you--he didn't
dare tell you--" He stopped, a deadly fear in his eyes.

"Yes. He told me why he quarreled with his father. Why he left home.
Why he has