What could any woman say in such circuit stances? I said nothing, but slid down on Nicholas Jelnik’s divan and howled.

“Didn’t I tell you she’d had a bad time and wasn’t herself?  Now I hope you’re satisfied!” raged Mr. Jelnik.

“It’s as much your fault as mine!” snarled The Author.  “Miss Smith, for heaven’s sake don’t cry like that!  My dear girl, stop it.  You run me distracted, Miss Smith!—­Give her some vinegar or something, Jelnik!  Confound you, Jelnik!—­why don’t you do something?  Burn a feather under her nose!  Make her stop it, Jelnik!  She’ll kill herself, if she keeps on crying like that!  Here!” cried The Author, desperately; and tried to push back my hair and all but scalped me.

“Get away!” said Mr. Jelnik.  “I’ll try to quiet her.  Miss Smith, if you don’t stop crying, I shall slap you!  Do you understand me, Miss Smith?  Stop it this minute, or I shall slap you!” He thrust an arm around my shoulders and pulled me erect, none too gently.

“I—­I—­I ca-ca-ca—­n’t!”

“You can!” he snapped.  “Stop it!  Sophy, shut up!”

I was so astonished that in the middle of a howl I blinked, and gasped, and gulped, and stopped!

“Ring the bell, by the door,” Mr. Jelnik told The Author, curtly.  And when Daoud appeared, he ordered:  “Cordial—­top shelf; and some ice-water.”

Five minutes later a forlorn and red-eyed wreck was sitting up looking at two wretched, embarrassed men.  Thank Heaven, they looked just as miserable as they should have felt!  Daoud brought me scented water, and I bathed my face.  Then I patted into shape the hair that The Author had pulled awry, and said in the cold, accusing, I-die-a-martyr-to-your-stupidity voice that women punish men with: 

“I think I shall go home.”

With a chastened, hang-dog air The Author rose to accompany me, casting a withering look upon Mr. Nicholas Jelnik, who despised The Author for a bungling and intrusive idiot, and let his glance convey the fact.  He was sorry for me, with a compassionate understanding of what I had been through.  But I wanted neither his sorrow nor his compassion.  He had punished The Author, but he hadn’t saved me from a ridiculous and painful situation.  I gave him a limp hand, and had the satisfaction of leaving him thoroughly uncomfortable.

When we reached our gate The Author, who had trudged beside me in gloomy silence, laid his hand upon my arm.

“I shall not ask you to answer me at once.  But I do ask you to consider carefully what I have said, and to realize that I mean every word of it.  And—­and—­I’m sorry it came about in this wise, Sophy,” he finished, with a touch of compunction.

“So am I.”  And then I went up-stairs, and crept into bed.  My head ached frightfully, my heart throbbed and fluttered.  I was so unnerved that it seemed a burden to be alive.  And then, mercifully, I fell asleep, and didn’t wake until Alicia brought me a breakfast-tray the next morning.