The fast-and-loose game displeased Miss Barbara greatly.  She was at first surprised, then piqued, then resentful.  Monty gradually awoke to the distressing fact that she was going to be intractable, as he put it, and forthwith undertook to smooth the troubled sea.  To his amazement and concern she was not to be appeased.

“Does it occur to you, Monty,” she said, with a gentle coldness that was infinitely worse than heat, “that you have been carrying things with a pretty high hand?  Where did you acquire the right to interfere with my privileges?  You seem to think that I am not to speak to any man but you.”

“O, come now, Babs,” retorted Monty, “I’ve not been quite as unreasonable as that.  And you know yourself that Grimes is the worst kind of a bounder.”

“I know nothing of the sort,” replied the lady, with growing irritation.  “You say that about every man who gives me a smile or a flower.  Does it indicate such atrocious taste?”

“Don’t be silly, Barbara.  You know perfectly well that you have talked to Gardner and that idiot Valentine by the hour, and I’ve not said a word.  But there are some things I can’t stand, and the impertinence of Grimes is one of them.  Jove! he looked at you, out of those fishy eyes, sometimes as though he owned you.  If you knew how many times I’ve fairly ached to knock him down!”

Inwardly Barbara was weakening a little before his masterfulness.  But she gave no sign.

“And it never occurred to you,” she said, with that exasperating coldness of the voice, “that I was equal to the situation.  I suppose you thought Mr. Grimes had only to beckon and I would joyfully answer.  I’ll have you know, Monty Brewster, right now, that I am quite able to choose my friends, and to handle them.  Mr. Grimes has character and I like him.  He has seen more of life in a year of his strenuous career than you ever dreamed of in all your pampered existence.  His life has been real, Monty Brewster, and yours is only an imitation.”

It struck him hard, but it left him gentle.

“Babs,” he said, softly, “I can’t take that from you.  You don’t really mean it, do you?  Am I as bad as that?”

It was a moment for dominance, and he missed it.  His gentleness left her cold.

“Monty,” she exclaimed irritably, “you are terribly exasperating.  Do make up your mind that you and your million are not the only things in the world.”

His blood was up now, but it flung him away from her.

“Some day, perhaps, you’ll find out that there is not much besides.  I am just a little too big, for one thing, to be played with and thrown aside.  I won’t stand it.”

He left the house with his head high in the air, angry red in his cheeks, and a feeling in his heart that she was the most unreasonable of women.  Barbara, in the meantime, cried herself to sleep, vowing she would never love Monty Brewster again as long as she lived.