movie scene. She was
humiliated all over, enraged with Alan, enraged with herself for
stooping to care for a man like that. She waited until they were
absolutely alone again and then said what she had to say. She turned to
face Alan directly.

"You may take me nowhere," she said. "I don't want to see you again as
long as I live."

For an instant Alan stared at her, dazed, unable to grasp the force of
what she was saying, the significance of her tone. As a matter of fact
the artist in him had leaped to the surface, banished all other
considerations. He had never seen Tony Holiday really angry before. She
was magnificent with those flashing eyes and scarlet cheeks--a glorious
little Fury--a Valkyrie. He would paint her like that. She was
stupendous, the most vividly alive thing he had ever seen, like flame
itself, in her flaming anger. Then it came over him what she had said.

"But, Tony," he pleaded, "my belovedest--"

He put out both hands in supplication, but Tony whirled away from them.
She snatched the great bunch of red roses from the table, ran to the
window, flung up the sash, hurled them out into the night. Then she
turned back to Alan.

"Now go," she commanded, pointing with a small, inexorable hand to the
door.

Alan Massey went.

Tony dropped in a chair, spent and trembling, all but in tears. The
disagreeable scene, the piled up complex of emotions coming on top of the
stress and strain of the play were almost too much for her. She was a
quivering bundle of nerves and misery at the moment.

Dick came to her.

"Forgive me, Tony. I shouldn't have forced the issue maybe. But I
couldn't stand any more from that cad."

"I am glad you did exactly what you did do, Dick, and I am more grateful
than I can ever tell you for not letting Alan get you into a fight here
in this place with all these people coming and going. I would never have
gotten over it if anything like that had happened. It would have been
terrible. I couldn't ever have looked any of them in the face again."
She shivered and put her two hands over her eyes ashamed to the quick at
the thought.

Dick sat down on the arm of her chair, one hand resting gently on the
girl's shoulder.

"Don't cry, Tony," he begged. "I can't stand it. You needn't have
worried. There wasn't any danger of anything like that happening. I care
too much to let you in for anything of that sort. So does he for that
matter. He saw it in a minute. He really wouldn't wa