she lifted them to the
determined face above her.

"You can. You _will_. Do you want me to stay away again?"

"No, no, no!"

"Then do what I ask you--just this once, and I'll not ask it again." She
saw the weakening in the other woman's face. "Come on," she urged.

Mrs. Symes rose mechanically with a doubting, dazed expression and Dr.
Harpe followed her inside.

Throughout the constraint of the dinner Dr. Harpe sat with a lurking
smile upon her face. The domestic storm she had raised had been prompted
solely by one of those impulses of deviltry which she seemed sometimes
unable to restrain. It was not the part of wisdom to antagonize Symes,
but her desire to convince him, and Augusta, and herself, that hers was
the stronger will when it came to a test, was greater than her
discretion. This was an occasion when she could not resist the
temptation to show her power, and Symes with his eyes shining ominously
found her illy-concealed smirk of amusement and triumph far harder to
bear than Augusta's tittering, half-hysterical defiance.

When she had gone and Symes had closed the door of their sleeping
apartment behind him he turned to Augusta.

"Well, what explanation have you to make?"

The cold interrogation brought her to herself like a dash of water.

"Oh, Phidias!" she whimpered, and sank down upon the edge of the bed,
rolling her handkerchief into a ball between her palms, like an abashed
and frightened child.

Her uncertain dignity, her veneer of breeding dropped from her like a
cloak and she was again the blacksmith's sister, self-conscious, awed
and tongue-tied in the imposing presence of Andy P. Symes. Her prominent
knees visible beneath her thin skirt, her flat feet sprawling at an
awkward angle, unconsciously added to Symes's anger. She looked, he
thought, like a terrified servant that has broken the cut-glass berry
bowl. Yet subconsciously he was aware that he was wounded deeper than
his vanity by her disregard of his wishes.

"I insist upon an answer."

"I--I haven't any answer except--that--that I'm sorry."

"Did you drink at Dr. Harpe's suggestion?" he demanded in growing wrath.

She wadded the handkerchief between her palms and swallowed hard before
she shook her head.

"No."

"She should never come here again if I thought you were not telling me
the truth."

Agitation leaped into her eyes beneath their lowered lids and she
blurted in a kind of desperation--

"But I am--it was my faul