“Three dollars!” she snapped.  “And my car fare.”

He searched his pockets and held out a palm filled with silver for her inspection.  “I’ve just got two forty,” he announced, apologetically.  “You see, we usually have Mrs. Finn.  She knows us and I felt sure she’d wait until next time.  If you give me your address I can send you the difference to-morrow.”

She tossed back her head.  “Nothing doing!” she retorted.  “I don’t give a damn what you thought.  I want my money now or, by Gawd, I’ll start something!”

Her voice had risen sharply.  Starratt was sure that everybody could hear.

“I haven’t got three dollars,” he insisted, in a low voice.  “Can’t you see that I haven’t?”

“Ask your wife, then.”

“She hasn’t a cent...  I should have cashed a check to-day, but I forgot...  You forget things sometimes, don’t you?”

He was conscious that his voice had drawn out in a snuffling appeal, but he simply had to placate this female ogress in some way.

“Ask your swell friends, then.”

“Why, I can’t do that...  I don’t know them well enough.  This is the first time—­”

She cut him short with a snap of her ringers.  “You don’t know me, either ... and I don’t know you.  That’s the gist of the whole thing.  If you can ask a strange woman who’s done an honest night’s work to wait for her money, you can ask a strange man to lend you sixty cents...  And, what’s more, I’ll wait right here until you do!”

“Well, wait then!” he flung out, suddenly, as he pocketed the silver.

He kicked open the swinging door and gained the dining room.  She followed close upon his heels.

“Oh, I know your kind!” he heard her spitting out at him.  “You’re a cheap skate trying to put up a front!  But you won’t get by with me, not if I know it!...  You come through with three dollars or I’ll wreck this joint!”

A crash followed her harangue.  Starratt turned.  A tray of Haviland cups and saucers lay in a shattered heap upon the floor.

He raised a threatening finger at her.  “Will you be good enough to leave this house!” he commanded.

She thrust a red-knuckled fist into his face.  “Not much I won’t!” she defied him, swinging her head back and forth.

He fell back sharply.  What was he to do?  He couldn’t kick her out...  He heard a chair scraped back noisily upon the hardwood floor of the living room.  Presently Hilmer stood at his side.

“Let me handle her!” Hilmer said, quietly.

Starratt gave a gesture of assent.

His guest took one stride toward the obstreperous female.  “Get out! 
Understand?”

She stopped the defiant seesawing of her head.

“Wot in hell...” she was beginning, but her voice suddenly broke into tearful blubbering.  “I’m a poor, lone widder woman—­”

He took her arm and gave her a significant shove.