up, shook her skirts free, and seated herself at the piano. To
Orde, who had also arisen, she made a quaint grimace over her
shoulder.

"Admire your handiwork!" she told him. "You are rapidly bringing me
to 'tell the truth and shame the devil.' Oh, he must be dying of
mortification this evening!" She struck a great crashing chord,
holding the keys while the strings reverberated and echoed down
slowly into silence again. "It isn't fair," she went on, "for you
big simple men to disarm us. I don't care! I have my private
opinion of such brute strength. JE ME MOQUE!"

She wrinkled her nose and narrowed her eyes. Then ruthlessly she
drowned his reply in a torrent of music. Like mad she played,
rocking her slender body back and forth along the key-board; holding
rigid her fingers, her hands, and the muscles of her arms. The bass
notes roared like the rumbling of thunder; the treble flashed like
the dart of lightnings. Abruptly she muted the instrument. Silence
fell as something that had been pent and suddenly released. She
arose from the piano stool quite naturally, both hands at her hair.

"Aren't Mr. and Mrs. Hubbard dear old people?" said she.

"What is your address in New York?" demanded Orde. She sank into a
chair nearby with a pretty uplifted gesture of despair.

"I surrender!" she cried, and then she laughed until the tears
started from her eyes and she had to brush them away with what
seemed to Orde an absurd affair to call a handkerchief. "Oh, you
are delicious!" she said at last. "Well, listen. I live at 12 West