“I would rather,” she said quite distinctly, “that you did not speak to me of New York in that way.”

“What!” said Anstruthers, staring at her with contempt which was derision.

“It is my home,” she answered.  “It is not proper that I should hear it spoken of slightingly.”

“Your home!  It has not taken the slightest notice of you for twelve years.  Your people dropped you as if you were a hot potato.”

“They have taken me up again.”  Still in amazement at her own boldness, but somehow learning something as she went on.

He walked over to her side, and stood before her.

“Look here, Rosalie,” he said.  “You have been taking lessons from your sister.  She is a beauty and young and you are not.  People will stand things from her they will not take from you.  I would stand some things myself, because it rather amuses a man to see a fine girl peacocking.  It’s merely ridiculous in you, and I won’t stand it—­not a bit of it.”

It was not specially fortunate for him that the door opened as he was speaking, and Betty came in with her own invitation in her hand.  He was quick enough, however, to turn to greet her with a shrug of his shoulders.

“I am being favoured with a little scene by my wife,” he explained.  “She is capable of getting up excellent little scenes, but I daresay she does not show you that side of her temper.”

Betty took a comfortable chintz-covered, easy chair.  Her expression was evasively speculative.

“Was it a scene I interrupted?” she said.  “Then I must not go away and leave you to finish it.  You were saying that you would not ‘stand’ something.  What does a man do when he will not ‘stand’ a thing?  It always sounds so final and appalling—­as if he were threatening horrible things such as, perhaps, were a resource in feudal times.  What is the resource in these dull days of law and order—­and policemen?”

“Is this American chaff?” he was disagreeably conscious that he was not wholly successful in his effort to be lofty.

The frankness of Betty’s smile was quite without prejudice.

“Dear me, no,” she said.  “It is only the unpicturesque result of an unfeminine knowledge of the law.  And I was thinking how one is limited—­and yet how things are simplified after all.”

“Simplified!” disgustedly.

“Yes, really.  You see, if Rosy were violent she could not beat you—­even if she were strong enough—­because you could ring the bell and give her into custody.  And you could not beat her because the same unpleasant thing would happen to you.  Policemen do rob things of colour, don’t they?  And besides, when one remembers that mere vulgar law insists that no one can be forced to live with another person who is brutal or loathsome, that’s simple, isn’t it?  You could go away from Rosy,” with sweet clearness, “at any moment you wished—­as far away as you liked.”