that Jack could say had the least
effect on her. Having arrived at a determination, she was mistress of
herself again. "Not yet," she resolved; "there may be consequences that I
haven't calculated on. I'll take the night to think of it." Jack tried a
last entreaty as she put her hand into her pocket, searching for the
cupboard key, and tried it in vain. "No," she said; "I will keep it for
you. Come to me when you are really ill, and want it."

Her pocket proved to be entangled for the moment in the skirt of her
dress. In irritably trying to disengage it, she threw out the key on the
floor. Jack picked the key up and noticed the inscription on the handle.
"Pink-Room Cupboard," he read. "Why do they call it by that name?"

In her over-wrought state of mind, she had even felt the small irritating
influence of an entangled pocket. She was in no temper to endure simple
questions patiently. "Look at the pink curtains, you fool!" she said--and
snatched the key out of his hand.

Jack instantly resented the language and the action. "I didn't come here
to be insulted," he declared in his loftiest manner.

Madame Fontaine secured the poison in the cupboard without noticing him,
and made him more angry than ever.

"Take back your new gloves," he cried, "I don't want them!" He rolled up
his gloves, and threw them at her. "I wish I could throw all the cake
I've eaten after them!" he burst out fervently.

He delivered this aspiration with an emphatic stamp of his foot. The
hysterical excitement in Madame Fontaine forced its way outwards under a
new form. She burst into a frantic fit of laughter. "You curious little
creature," she said; "I didn't mean to offend you. Don't you know that
women will lose their patience sometimes? There! Shake hands and make it
up. And take away the rest of the cake, if you like it." Jack looked at
her in speechless surprise. "Leave me to myself!" she cried, relapsing
into irritability. "Do you hear? Go! go! go!"

Jack left the room without a word of protest. The rapid changes in her,
the bewildering diversity of looks and tones that accompanied them,
completely cowed him. It was only when he was safe outside in the
corridor, that he sufficiently recovered himself to put his own
interpretation on what had happened. He looked back at the door of Madame
Fontaine's room, and shook his little gray head solemnly.

"Now I understand it," he thought to himself "Mrs. Housekeeper is mad.
Oh, dear, dear me-