l you she'd had a bad time and wasn't herself? Now I
hope you're satisfied!" raged Mr. Jelnik.

"It's as much your fault as mine!" snarled The Author. "Miss Smith,
for heaven's sake don't cry like that! My dear girl, stop it. You
run me distracted, Miss Smith!--Give her some vinegar or something,
Jelnik! Confound you, Jelnik!--why don't you do something? Burn a
feather under her nose! Make her stop it, Jelnik! She'll kill
herself, if she keeps on crying like that! Here!" cried The Author,
desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me.

"Get away!" said Mr. Jelnik. "I'll try to quiet her. Miss Smith, if
you don't stop crying, I shall slap you! Do you understand me, Miss
Smith? Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!" He thrust an arm
around my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently.

"I--I--I ca-ca-ca--n't!"

"You can!" he snapped. "Stop it! Sophy, _shut up!_"

I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, and
gasped, and gulped, and stopped!

"Ring the bell, by the door," Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly.
And when Daoud appeared, he ordered: "Cordial--top shelf; and some
ice-water."

Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting up
looking at two wretched, embarrassed men. Thank Heaven, they looked
just as miserable as they should have felt! Daoud brought me scented
water, and I bathed my face. Then I patted into shape the hair that
The Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing,
I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with:

"I think I shall go home."

With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me,
casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The
Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey
the fact. He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of
what I had been through. But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his
compassion. He had punished The Author, but he hadn't saved _me_
from a ridiculous and painful situation. I gave him a limp hand, and
had the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable.

When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me in
gloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm.

"I shall not ask you to answer me at once. But I do ask you to
consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I mean
every word of it. And--and--I'm sorry it came about in this wise,
Sophy," he finished, with a touch of compu