ce as she is."

"But we can't go without Anthony, my dear."

Clarke came to the door a little later to say that he had received
Mrs. Rice's invitation, but that he did not care to feed the curiosity
of such people. "You would better plead a previous engagement," he
added to Viola.

"I'll do nothing of the sort," she indignantly answered. "Indeed, I've
already accepted. You needn't look black--I'm going," she added, in
pouting defiance.

Something in her look as well as in her tone convinced him that wisdom
lay in not attempting to restrain her, therefore he gave assent,
gloomily and with a sense of loss. "I don't know how Pratt will feel
about it. He don't like those people, and, besides, he has invited
some friends in to see you this evening."

"He said nothing to me about it," Viola responded, curtly, "and,
besides, how can he expect me to be always at his command? He is not
my jailer. I'm tired of his demands, they are so unreasonable."

Mrs. Lambert, as usual, entered to soothe and heal. "Viola's been very
good about meeting Mr. Pratt's friends, Tony. We've hardly been out to
dinner since we came here, and it really seems to me as if we had the
right to go out to-night."

"We ought to have Thursdays, anyway," the girl scornfully added. "We
have less liberty than our maids. The whole situation is becoming
intolerable."

Clarke acknowledged that Pratt demanded a good deal, and was gracious
enough to say: "It won't be necessary much longer. I'll go down and
try to arrange the matter, and report what he says."

"I don't care what he says, I'm going," Viola repeated. "I'm going if
he locks us out. I wish he would."

Pratt was resentful at once. "I don't want her to go to-night. I have
some people coming in to see her. I don't want them disappointed; she
must remain."

"She feels aggrieved because she has been kept so close here, and I
must say--"

"I don't see why she feels that way, she has every luxury. She goes
for a drive every afternoon, and there is hardly a night that I don't
bring home somebody to dinner. It seems to me she's seeing all the
people she ought to see. I don't believe in having her mix with those
sceptics too freely."

He went up-stairs sulkily, quite in the mood to bully, but Mrs.
Lambert turned away his wrath with a smile and several soft words, and
Viola did not see him till she was on her way to the carriage. He was
lurking in the hall below, waiting for her surly and sour and