ing.

It was an awful moment. Elizabeth had the grace to look ashamed of
herself for once, and drifted back to her sink without a word. As for
William, he appeared thoroughly unnerved. He tottered towards me.
'Let me explain,' he began.

'William!' I said in stern tones. Then again, '_William!_' He wilted
under my gaze. 'I should never have thought such a thing of you,' I
continued.

He pointed with a finger that trembled in the direction of the kitchen.
'That girl has no respect for any one or anything in the world.
Traditions, class distinctions are as nothing to her. She would put
out her tongue at Homer.'

'Or pull the beard of William,' I added sarcastically.

'Until I met her,' he went on fiercely, 'I was entirely a democrat.
But now I see that once power gets into the hands of the common people
we are damned!'

'But what has all this to do with your flirting with Elizabeth?' I
demanded.

He seemed so overcome at this very natural comment on my part that for
a moment I thought he was going to have a seizure of some sort.
'I--I--_flirt_, and with Elizabeth?' he repeated when he had slightly
recovered himself. 'Madame, what do you mean to insinuate?'

He drew himself up to his full height of six feet three, and, looking
at him as he towered above me with his mane of disordered hair and
flowing beard, I could not help thinking he rather resembled Samson in
one of his peevish moods. The indignation that possessed him seemed
sincere enough, but the circumstances of the case utterly bewildered
me. I was gazing at him in perplexity when Henry came out of the study.

'What's all this parleying in the hall, noise without, voices heard
"off," and so forth?' he demanded.

William gave me such an agonized look of entreaty I decided I would say
nothing about what had just occurred. 'It is only I endeavouring to
get our friend William to rub his feet on the mat,' I retorted
cheerfully. 'But let us go into the consulting chamber.'

[Illustration: Henry, being a Scotsman, likes argument.]

William followed me into the study and took his usual seat at the
fireside in a dejected manner. Then went through a strange gymnastic.

He had just started to swing his feet up to the mantelpiece when he
paused with them in mid-air and brought them down again. The arrested
action had a droll effect.

'Have a smoke,' said Henry, pretending not to notice this peculiar
conduct and pushing the tobacco jar towards hi