"Orright. I can't go home and I don't want to be alone anywhere. I'd go out of my senses. Anything might happen to her, and I shan't call in the police until the last minute. Filthy scandal." "Police? Certainly not. And as Janet is cold sober, be sure she'll come to no harm." A few moments later they were in the lift ascending to Clavering's rooms. "Hullo!" he said, as he opened the door of his little hall. "The fool maid has left the light on," and, as they entered the living-room, "what the devil--" Cigarette smoke hung in the air. [Illustration: It took a lot of self possession and grit for Zattiany (Corinne Griffith) and Clavering (Conway Tearle) to hide their feelings when she alighted to go to the ship which was to return her to Europe. (_Screen version of "The Black Oxen."_)] There was a wild shriek from a corner of the room, a slim girl leapt across the intervening space like a panther, and flinging herself upon Oglethorpe, beat his chest with her fists. "You damned old plumber, you old dumb-duck!" shrieked his little daughter. "What did you come here and spoil everything for? He'd have had to marry me tomorrow if you'd minded your own business. I'll claw your eyes out." But her hands were imprisoned in her father's hard fists, and she turned and spat at the petrified Clavering. "I hate you! I hate you! But I'm going to marry you all the same. One way or another I'll get you. I meant to wait awhile; for I hadn't had fun enough yet, and I'd have precious little with you, you old flat tyre. But when I heard that old Zattiany woman'd got hold of you--and then locked up and not able to do a thing--I thought I'd go mad. I dropped my diamond bracelet out of the window and one of the servants let me out--I won't tell which. You've been seen coming out of her house at all hours, but she's a thousand years old and nobody cares what she does, but I intended to rouse this whole house and I'd have been so compromised you'd have had to marry me. You're a gentleman if you are a damned old left-over, and you're a friend of granny's and dad's. I'd have had you tied up so tight you'd have toddled straight down to the City Hall." Clavering stared at her, wondering how women felt when they were going to have hysterics. What a night! And this girl's resemblance to her grandmother was uncanny. He could see the Jane Oglethorpe of the portrait in just such a tantrum. And he had thought he knew both of them. He wanted to burst into wild laughter, but the girl was tragic in spite of her silly plot and he merely continued to regard her stonily. "How did you get in?" he asked. "That's not easy in this house." "I just got in the lift and told the boy I was your sister just arrived from the South and he let me in with the pass key. He took me for sixteen and said that as you weren't one for chickens he'd chance it." "He'll get the sack in the morning."