m to-night."

She shook her head, eyeing him all the while.

"I won't do it, Jack. What do you want him for? He can't play with the
people who play here; he doesn't know the rudiments of play. He's only a
boy; his money is so tied up that he has to borrow if he loses very
much. There's no sport in playing with a boy like that--"

"So you've said before, I believe, but I'm better qualified to judge
than you are. Are you going to call him up?"

"No, I am not."

He turned paler. "Get up and go to that telephone!"

"You little whippet," she said slowly, "I was once a soldier's wife--the
only decent thing I ever have been. This bullying ends now--here, at
this instant! If you've any dirty work to do, do it yourself. I've done
my share and I've finished."

He was astonished; that was plain enough. But it was the sudden
overwhelming access of fury that weakened him and made him turn, hand
outstretched, blindly seeking for a chair. Rage, even real anger, were
emotions he seldom had to reckon with, for he was a very tired and bored
and burned-out gentleman, and vivid emotion was not good for his
arteries, the doctors told him.

He found his chair, stood a moment with his back toward his wife, then
very slowly let himself down into the chair and sat facing her. There
was moisture on his soft, pallid skin, a nervous twitching of the under
lip; he passed one heavily ringed hand across his closely shaven jaw,
still staring at her.

"I want to tell you something," he said. "You've got to stop your
interference with my affairs, and stop it now."

"I am not interested in your affairs," she said unsteadily, still shaken
by her own revolt, still under the shock of her own arousing to a
resistance that had been long, long overdue. "If you mean," she went on,
"that the ruin of this boy is your affair, then I'll make it mine from
this moment. I've told you that he shall not play; and he shall not. And
while I'm about it I'll admit what you are preparing to accuse me of; I
_did_ make Sandon Craig promise to keep away; I _did_ try to make that
little fool Scott Innis promise, too; and when he wouldn't I informed
his father. . . . And every time you try your dirty bucket-shop methods
on boys like that, I'll do the same."

He swore at her quite calmly; she smiled, shrugged, and, imprisoning her
knees in her clasped hands, leaned back and looked at him.

"What a ninny I have been," she said, "to be afraid of you so long!"

A glea