“Oh--I was getting--rattled! She had no right to work in a line like that.” “But what did you do?” “I told her.... You know I _am_ sorry, don’t you?” “Maybe you’d rather not tell me?” “You’d better know. I told her that when it came to doing the nasty stuff I had seen pupils from the dramatic schools that looked like headliners compared with her.” Baron stiffened. “Goodness! You couldn’t have said that!” “Yes, I did. And I didn’t have to wait to hear from any prompter, either. And she--you know she won’t take anything. The way she looked! She said she was glad to say she didn’t have any idea what I was talking about. Just a stall, you know. Oh, these good people! She called Flora and said I was to be taken into a corner, and that I was to sit there until we went home. And Flora led me into a corner and the others looked back as if they were afraid of me. They all sang after a while--a kind of ensemble affair. Flora held the music over and invited me to sing. I told her musical turns were not in my line. She just kept on holding the music for me--honestly, she’s the dearest thing!--and singing herself. It was a crime, the noise she made. Isn’t it awful when people try to sing and can’t? As if they had to. Why do they do it? I felt like screaming to her to stop. But she looked as if she might be dreaming, and I thought if anybody could dream in that terrible place it would be a crime to wake them, even if they did make a noise. They had an intermission, and then a man down in front delivered a monologue.... Oh, me! Talk about the moving-picture shows! Why, they’re _artistic_....” What, Baron wondered, was one to say to a child who talked in such a fashion? Nothing--nothing at all. He groaned. Then, to his great relief, Flora appeared. “Dinner is ready,” she said, standing in the doorway. There was a flush on her cheeks and an odd smile on her lips. Baron took Bonnie May by the hand--he could not quite understand the impulse which prompted him to do so--and led her into the dining-room. He saw that she bore her face aloft, with a painful effort at unconcern. He was glad that she was given a place next to him, with the elder Baron on her right, and Flora across the table from her. He was dismayed to note that his mother was quite beside herself. He had expected a certain amount of irritation, of chagrin, but not this ominous, pallid silence. She avoided her son’s eyes, and this meant, of course, that her wrath would sooner or later be visited upon his head. He sighed with discouragement. He realized sadly that his mother’s heaviest crosses had always come to her from such trivial causes! She was oddly childish--just as Bonnie May was strangely unchildlike. Still, she had all the traditions of propriety, of a rule-made demeanor, behind her. Strange that she could not have risen to the difficulty that had confronted her, and emerged from a petty predicament without so much of loss!