quite fair to me, you know."
Her next remark brought a blush of confusion to my cheek. A silly notion had induced me to don my full evening regalia, spike-tail coat and all. Nothing could have been more ludicrously incongruous than my appearance, I am sure, and I never felt more uncomfortable in my life.
"How very nice you look in your new suit," she said, and I was aware of a muffled quality in her ordinarily clear, musical voice. She was laughing at me. "Are you giving a dinner party?"
"I usually dress for dinner," I lied with some haughtiness. "And so does Poopendyke," I added as an afterthought. My blush deepened as I recalled the attenuated blazer in which my secretary breakfasted, lunched and dined without discrimination.
"For Gretel's benefit, I presume."
"Aha! You do know Gretel, then?"
"Oh, I've known her for years. Isn't she a quaint old dear?"
"I shall discharge her in the morning," said I severely. "She is a liar and her husband is a poltroon. They positively deny your existence in any shape or form."
"They won't pay any attention to you," said she, with a laugh. "They are fixtures, quite as much so as the walls themselves. You'll not be able to discharge them. My grandfather tried it fifty years ago and failed. After that he made it a point to dismiss Conrad every day in the year and Gretel every other day. As well try to remove the mountain, Mr. Smart. They know you can't get on without them."
"I have discharged her as a cook," I said, triumphantly. "A new one will be here by the end of the week."
"Oh," she sighed plaintively, "how glad I am. She is an atrocious cook. I don't like to complain, Mr. Smart, but really it is getting so that I can't eat anything she sends up. It is jolly of you to get in a new one. Now we shall be very happy."
"By Jove!" said I, completely staggered by these revelations. Unable to find suitable words to express my sustained astonishment, I repeated: "By Jove!" but in a subdued tone.
"I have thought it over, Mr. Smart," she went on in a business-like manner, "and I believe we will get along much better together if we stay apart."
Ambiguous remarks ordinarily reach my intelligence, but I was so stunned by preceding admissions that I could only gasp:
"Do you mean to say you've been subsisting all this time on my food?"
"Oh, dear me, no! How can you think that of me? Gretel merely cooks the food I buy. She keeps a distinct and separate account of everything, poor thing. I am sure you will not find anything wrong with your bills, Mr. Smart. But did you hear what I said a moment ago?"
"I'm not quite sure that I did."
"I prefer to let matters stand just as they are. Why should we discommode each other? We are perfectly satisfied as we—"
"I will not have my new cook giving notice, madam. You surely can't expect her—or him—to prepare meals for two separate—"
"I hadn't thought of that," she interrupted ruefully. "Perhaps if I were to pay her—or him—extra wages it would be all right," she added, quickly. "We do not require much, you know."
I laughed rather shortly—meanly, I fear.
"This is most extraordinary, madam!"
"I—I quite agree with you. I'm awfully sorry it had to turn out as it has. Who would have dreamed of your buying the place and coming here to upset everything?"
I resolved to be firm with her. She seemed to be taking too much for granted. "Much as I regret it, madam, I am compelled to ask you to evacuate—to get out, in fact. This sort of thing can't go on."
She was silent for so long that I experienced a slow growth of compunction. Just as I was on the point of slightly receding from my position, she gave me another shock.
"Don't you think it would be awfully convenient if you had a telephone put in, Mr. Smart?" she said. "It is such a nuisance to send Max or Rudolph over to town every whip-stitch on errands when a telephone—in your name, of course—would be so much more satisfactory."
"A telephone!" I gasped.
"Circumstances make it quite unwise for me to have a telephone in my own name, but you could have one in yours without creating the least suspicion. You are—"
"Madam," I cried, and got no farther.
"—perfectly free to have a telephone if you want one," she continued. "The doctor came this evening and it really wasn't necessary. Don't you see you could have telephoned for me and saved him the trip?"
It was due to the most stupendous exertion of self-restraint on my part that I said: "Well, I'll be—jiggered," instead of something a little less unique. Her audacity staggered me. (I was not prepared at that time to speak of it as superciliousness.)
"Madam," I exploded, "will you be good enough to listen to me? I am not to be trifled with. To-morrow sometime I shall enter the east wing of this building if I have to knock down all the doors on the place. Do you understand, madam?"
"I do hope, Mr. Smart, you can arrange to break in about five o'clock. It will afford me a great deal of pleasure to give you some tea. May I expect you at five—or thereabouts?"
Her calmness exasperated me. I struck the stone balustrade an emphatic blow with my fist, sorely peeling the knuckles, and ground out:
"For two cents I'd do it to-night!"
"Oh, dear—oh, dear!" she cried mockingly.
"You must be a dreadful woman," I cried out. "First, you make yourself at home in my house; then you succeed in stopping my workmen, steal my cook and men-servants, keep us all awake with a barking dog, defying me to my very face—"
"How awfully stern you are!"
"I don't believe a word you say about a sick baby—or a doctor! It's all poppy-cock. To-morrow you will find yourself, bag and baggage, sitting at the bottom of this hill, waiting for—"
"Wait!" she cried. "Are you really, truly in earnest?"
"Most emphatically!"
"Then I—I shall surrender," she said, very slowly—and seriously, I was glad to observe.
"That's more like it," I cried, enthusiastically.
"On one condition," she said. "You must agree in advance to let me stay on here for a month or two. It—it is most imperative, Mr. Smart."
"I shall be the sole judge of that, madam," I retorted, with some dignity. "By the way," I went on, knitting my brows, "how am I to get into your side of the castle? Schmick says he's lost the keys."
A good deal depended on her answer.
"They shall be delivered to you to-morrow morning, Mr. Smart," she said, soberly. "Good night."
The little window closed with a snap and I was left alone in the smiling moonlight. I was vastly excited, even thrilled by the
