person involved.

Then came an instant's silence, a man's ringing laugh of triumph; next,
in a girl's voice, a little breathless but of a quality to make the
listener prick up ears already alert, these most unexpected words:

"'O, it is _excellent_
To have a giant's strength; but it is _tyrannous_
To use it like a giant!'"

"Is it, indeed, Miss Arrogance?" mocked the deeper voice. "Well, if you
had given it back at once, as all laws of justice, not to mention
propriety, demanded, I should not have had to force it away from you.
Oh, I say, did I really hurt that wrist, or are you shamming?"

"Shamming! You big boys have no idea how brutally violent you are when
you want some little thing you ought not to have. It aches like
anything," retorted the other voice, its very complaints uttered in such
melodious tones of contralto music that the listener found himself
wishing with all his might to know if the face of its owner could by any
possibility match the loveliness of her voice. Dark, he fancied she must
be, and young, and strong--of education, of a gay wit, yet of a
temper--all this the listener thought he could read in the voice.

"Poor little wilful girl! Did she get hurt, then, trying to have her own
way? Come in here, jade, and I'll fix it up for you," the deeper tones
declared.

Footsteps again; a door closed. Silence succeeded for a minute; then the
Schumann music began again, a violin accompanying. And suddenly,