ense the fact that she was looking at him, and, with quick, instant
intuition, he smiled and reached out his hand toward her.

Unconsciously, involuntarily, she drew back--then, recovering herself
the next instant, she took his hand. Now, why had she done that? What
was the matter with her? Again she felt that sudden impulse to scream,
or laugh, or shout, or make some noise--it seemed as though she were
penned in, smothered somehow, imprisoned. What _was_ the matter? Nerves?
She had never known what nerves were in all her life! Couldn't she play
the game and act her part without making a fool of herself? She had
played a part all her life, hadn't she? Maybe it was quite a shock to
her system to take a place amongst really good and simple folk!

She laughed a little shortly--then rose abruptly from her chair, and
began to walk up and down the room. The trouble was that the soft pedal
was getting unbearable. That air of awed hush and solemnity, morning,
noon and night, without anything to relieve it, was just a trifle too
drastic and sudden a change in life for her to accept calmly and swallow
in one dose without feeling any effects from it! If she could be
transported now for an hour, say, to the Roost, or Heligman's and the
turkey trot, or the Rivoli, or any old place--except Needley, Maine!

"Gee!" said Helena to herself. "If I don't break loose and kick the
traces over for a minute or two, I'll be clawing the bars of a dippy
asylum before I'm through--and just listen to the sweet, girlish
language I'm using--I'd like to bite something!"

She turned impulsively to the door, stepped out into the hall, and
called the Flopper from his room.

"Flopper, you go in there and stay with the Patriarch for awhile," she
ordered curtly. "I'm going down on the beach to yell."

"Yell?" inquired the Flopper, blinking helplessly.

"I'm going outside to yell--_yell._ You know what 'yell' means, don't
you?" she snapped.

"Swipe me!" observed the Flopper, gazing at her anxiously. "Skirts is
all de same--youse never know wot dey'll do next. Wot you wanter yell
fer?"

"You mind your own business and do as you're told!" said Helena tartly.
"Go in there and stay with the Patriarch."

"Sure," said the Flopper, grinning a little now. "Sure t'ing--but youse
needn't get on yer ear about it. Cheer up, mabbe de Doc'll be out
to-night, an' if he don't hear youse yellin' himself will I tell him
youse are out on de beach t'rowin' a fit?"