Unconsciously, involuntarily, she drew back—­then, recovering herself the next instant, she took his hand.  Now, why had she done that?  What was the matter with her?  Again she felt that sudden impulse to scream, or laugh, or shout, or make some noise—­it seemed as though she were penned in, smothered somehow, imprisoned.  What was the matter?  Nerves?  She had never known what nerves were in all her life!  Couldn’t she play the game and act her part without making a fool of herself?  She had played a part all her life, hadn’t she?  Maybe it was quite a shock to her system to take a place amongst really good and simple folk!

She laughed a little shortly—­then rose abruptly from her chair, and began to walk up and down the room.  The trouble was that the soft pedal was getting unbearable.  That air of awed hush and solemnity, morning, noon and night, without anything to relieve it, was just a trifle too drastic and sudden a change in life for her to accept calmly and swallow in one dose without feeling any effects from it!  If she could be transported now for an hour, say, to the Roost, or Heligman’s and the turkey trot, or the Rivoli, or any old place—­except Needley, Maine!

“Gee!” said Helena to herself.  “If I don’t break loose and kick the traces over for a minute or two, I’ll be clawing the bars of a dippy asylum before I’m through—­and just listen to the sweet, girlish language I’m using—­I’d like to bite something!”

She turned impulsively to the door, stepped out into the hall, and called the Flopper from his room.

“Flopper, you go in there and stay with the Patriarch for awhile,” she ordered curtly.  “I’m going down on the beach to yell.”

“Yell?” inquired the Flopper, blinking helplessly.

“I’m going outside to yell—­yell. You know what ‘yell’ means, don’t you?” she snapped.

“Swipe me!” observed the Flopper, gazing at her anxiously.  “Skirts is all de same—­youse never know wot dey’ll do next.  Wot you wanter yell fer?”

“You mind your own business and do as you’re told!” said Helena tartly.  “Go in there and stay with the Patriarch.”

“Sure,” said the Flopper, grinning a little now.  “Sure t’ing—­but youse needn’t get on yer ear about it.  Cheer up, mabbe de Doc’ll be out to-night, an’ if he don’t hear youse yellin’ himself will I tell him youse are out on de beach t’rowin’ a fit?”

“No,” Helena answered sharply; “tell him nothing—­I’m out.”  Then, quite as quickly, changing her mind:  “Yes; tell him I’m down there—­or come and get me yourself”—­and she walked abruptly into her own room.

“Now wot do youse t’ink of dat?” demanded the Flopper of the universe.  He blinked at the door she had closed in his face.  “Say,” he asserted, with sublime inconsistency, “if Mamie Rodgers was like all de rest of dem, I’d t’row up me dukes before de gong rang.”  The Flopper went into the Patriarch’s room, and took the chair beside the other that Helena had vacated.  “Swipe me, if I wouldn’t!” he added fervently, by way of confirmation.