wn eyes met the gray ones, read the ugly glint,
dropped, raised again--and held the gray ones steadily.

Madison gave a short laugh--that was like a curse. His hands at his
sides knotted into lumps.

Then Madison spoke.

"Why don't you say, 'you!--_you_!'--and scream it out and clutch at your
bosom the way they do in story books!" he flung out raucously. "Why
don't you do your little stunt--go on, you're on for the turn--you can
put anything over me, I'm only a complacent, blind-eyed fool! Anything
goes! Why don't you start your act?"

"You don't know what you are saying," she said in a low voice. "If
there's anything you want to talk about, we'd better wait until you're
cooler."

"Oh, hell!" he roared, his passion full to the surface now. "Cut out the
bunk--cut it out! _Anything_! No, it isn't much of anything--for
you--out all night with Thornton. Do you think I'm going to stand for
it! Do you think I'm going to sit and suck my thumb and _share_ you,
and--"

"You lie!" She was away from the door now, close before him, her breath
coming fast, white to the lips, and in a frenzy her little fists
pummelled upon him. "It's a lie--a lie--a lie! It's a lie--and you know
it!"

He pushed her roughly from him.

"It is, eh?"--his words came in a sort of wild laugh. "And I know it--do
I? Why should I know it? What do you think you are? Say, you'd think you
were trying to kid yourself into believing you're the real thing--the
real, sweet, shy, modest Miss Vail. Cut it out! You're name's
Smith--maybe! And it's my money that's keeping you, and you belong to
me--do you understand?"

She stood swaying a little, her hands still tightly clenched, breathing
through half parted lips in short, quick, jerky inhalations like dry
sobs.

"It's true," she faltered suddenly--and suddenly buried her face in her
hands. And then she looked up again, and the brown eyes in their depths
held an anger and a shame. "It's true--I was--was--what you say. But
now"--her voice hurried on, an eagerness, a strange earnestness in
it--"you must believe me--you must. I'll make you--I must make you."

"Oh, don't hurt yourself trying to do it!" jeered Madison. "We're
talking plain now. I'm not taking into account how you feel about it
--don't you fool yourself for a minute. The sanctity of my home hasn't
been ruined--because it couldn't be! Get that? Thornton don't get
you--not for _keeps_! But you and he don't make a monkey of me again. Do
you unde