Regret swept his face. If this were acting, it was a good brand. A very kingly scoundrel, this! "You hurt me ver' deeply, Zetta." A faint irony tinged his words and his glance. Her quiet gaze was measuring him. "You want me to love you--that you have always said. You go about it wrongly, Graff." He was openly amused. "Do you think so? When I am succeeded--then you will be proud of me." His tone changed. "Oh, Zetta, you know that then I will do anything for you. Everything I have shall be yours." I could see her hesitate, part her lips to speak, then close them again. She was on the verge, here before all of us, of trying to bribe him with herself. A shudder must have swept her. But she said: "You are willing to please me--when you have had your way on earth--but not now." No fool, this frail little girl! Her own smile was ironical. "If I could trus' you, Graff, we might--" She checked herself. "What?" he demanded. "Nothing. I am finish." Abruptly he swung from her. His gaze roved me as I stood suddenly conscious of my clenched fists; Freddie beside me; Dan towering over us, yet shorter than Graff. Hulda, angry and half afraid, clinging to Dan. And Kean, a little apart--Graff fastened upon Kean, and his thin lips twisted with contempt. "Ah, there is my little criminal traitor!" I saw Kean stiffen; for an instant I thought he would hurl himself bodily upon his accuser. Graff evidently thought it, also. He added calmly: "You are quite safe here, Kean. If you attack me, you would be stopp'--I am guest here of Garla, as you know. And for the same reason, I cannot do as I would like with you." His lean fingers were working; he raised his large hand with a twisting gesture, and dropped it. "You are quite safe here. Some other time--" "Come," said father to us. "Enough of this. Come, Zetta." Again Graff's glance swept us. "So these are some more of my little earth enemies? Look well upon me! I am Graff, future Emperor of the Earth!" He said it in a way hardly to be described. An amused, an utter contempt. My hot anger boiled. Why, this fellow, for all his insolence, his giant stature, was a flimsy thing of forty or fifty pounds! I became aware that I had launched myself at him, and Freddie was holding me. "Easy, Peter! Stop it! You'll have us all in jail!" Graff had not moved, his expressions unchanged save that perhaps his amused contempt was greater. "Your littlest fellow seems to have the mos' sense. Zetta, perhaps I will see you again." He turned slowly, and with a lazy bound vanished down the cross-street. CHAPTER XIV BRAVE, FOOLISH LITTLE ZETTA!