Mary laughed, then suddenly her voice rose fiercely, ignoring his question.  “You say, Hamilton, it is to be war.  I shall start the war—­now.  Jefferson, please find Len Haswell’s telephone number.  I’m going to give him warning.”

With an exclamation of incoherent fury Hamilton Burton leaped for the telephone and tore it loose from its wires.  He hurled the broken instrument clattering to the floor and the directory into the flames.  Then he stood above the wreckage with his feet apart and his hands clenching and unclenching in a panting picture of demoniac rage.

Mary laughed as one might laugh at the passion of a child.  “After all there are other telephones,” she said, then added quietly:  “You will find in my rooms all the gifts you have loaded upon me.  Unfortunately I should have to go out of your house naked if I left behind me everything that has come from you.  Will you ring for my maid?”

For a moment the financier stood glaring and silent; then with a powerful struggle for self-mastery he went over and touched a bell.  “I can’t use physical force against my sister,” he said.  “You are of age, and your own mistress, but if you make common cause with my enemies, you become my enemy yourself.”

When Harrow responded to the call, only the broken telephone bore evidence of the violence of the past few minutes.

“Please ask Julie,” instructed the girl quietly, “to pack a bag for me and one for herself.  I shall only need enough things for a day or two.  Ask her to hurry.”

For several minutes the three stood without further speech, and when the brother broke the silence it was in an altered tone.

“Mary,” he said seriously, “your happiness is very dear to me.  For nothing else would I let any differences between us amount to an issue.  For God’s sake, forego this mad idea.  You are disrupting a family for whose upbuilding I have fought with a very fierce singleness of purpose.”

“And to what end?” she demanded, with blazing eyes.  “Of my father you have made an artificial gentleman—­and once he was a real man.  To my mother you have given luxuries instead of life.  Paul you have turned into a society lap-dog, and now by adding your strength to his weakness you are trying to make him a beast of prey.”

“Those are very bitter accusations,” he answered gravely.  His face was set, but shame for his recent outburst safeguarded him for the moment against a second.

Harrow appeared after a short time to announce that the maid was ready, and Mary rose from her seat.  “Good-by, Hamilton,” she said.

“Will you at least go to my mother’s house?” he questioned.

“Mother’s house is as much your house as this one.  No, I shall go where Jefferson Edwardes chooses to take me.”

“Then, by God Almighty, you will not go at all!”

Hamilton Burton took his place at the door, and stood barring their way while a dangerous gleam came into Edwardes’ eyes.  Mary spoke very coldly.