She just looked up when Dudley came in, gave him a glance and a little cool nod, and then, as he attempted to advance, uttered a shrill little scream.

“One step farther, and my wax cupids will be ruined!”

“Wax cupids!” repeated Dudley, feebly.

“Yes, for my Christmas tree.  It’s to be the greatest success ever known in these parts, or the greatest failure.  Nothing between.  That’s what I must always have—­something sensational—­something to make people howl at me, or to make them want to light bonfires in my honor.  That’s characteristic, isn’t it?”

And Doreen, who was dressed in a black skirt, with a scarlet velvet bodice which did justice to her brilliant complexion and soft, dark hair, paused in the act of turning out a number of glittering glass balls into her lap.

“Very,” said Dudley, as he made his way carefully to the nearest chair and sat down to look at her.

He was up to his knees in brown-paper parcels, over which barricade he stretched out his hand.

Doreen affected not to see it.  She began to tie bits of fancy string into the little rings in the glass balls, cutting off the ends with a pair of scissors.

“Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?” asked Dudley, impatiently.

Doreen answered without looking tip.

“No.  Not yet.”

“What’s the matter now?”

“Oh, I am offended.”

“What have I done now?”

Doreen threw up her head.

“What have you not done?  We have all of us—­I among the others—­had a good deal to put up with from you, lately, in the matter of what I will call general neglect.  And you put a climax to it the day before yesterday by rushing out of the house without a word of good-bye to anybody.”

“There was a reason for it,” interrupted Dudley, quickly.

“I suppose so.  But I’m not going to take the reason on trust, Mr. Horne.”

“Not if you’re satisfied that you will meet with no more neglect in the future?  That my conduct shall be in every respect what you—­and the others—­can desire?”

“Not even then,” replied Doreen decisively.

“But if your father is satisfied?”

“Then go and talk to my father.”

There was a pause and their eyes met.  Dudley, who had acknowledged to himself the patience with which Doreen had put up with his recent neglect, was astonished by the resolution which he saw in her eyes.

“What is it you want to know?” he asked, in a condescending and indulgent tone.

“A great deal more than you will tell me,” answered Doreen, promptly.

Whereat there was another pause.  Dudley took up one of the brown-paper parcels and turned it over in his hands.  Perhaps it was to hide the fact that an irrepressible tremor was running through his limbs.