“I am a man if I am not a brute. You are the most fascinating woman on earth, and you have deliberately tried to entice me from the path of rectitude I have trod all my life----” “What’s that?” Ida sat up straight, her brows drawn in an ominous frown. “I have resisted you until today, but I yield----” “What the devil are you talking about?” “I expected to be tormented to the utmost limit. But I have stood all of it that I purpose to stand.” His voice by this time was a subdued roar. “I don’t care whether you love me or not. I don’t think you could love anybody. I have read that sirens never do. But you are an enchantress, and you have shown plainly enough----” Ida’s frown had relaxed, but her eyes blazed. He misunderstood their expression, as well as the sudden forward thrust of her head. He sprang forward, caught her by the shoulders and kissed her. “Aw!” Ida’s voice was almost a roar. She leaped to her feet, twirled him about, caught him by the back of his collar and the seat of his trousers, and threw him out of the window as if he had been an offensive dog. She flung his hat and stick after him and slammed the window down. Then she stamped her feet in inarticulate rage, and rubbed and bit her mouth. It was one thing to play with a man’s passions and quite another to be defiled by them. Ida seethed with the fierce virtue of a young inexperienced and temperamentally cold woman. For a few moments she used very bad language indeed, and struggled with an impulse to ran after the “little puppy” and whip him in the street. But, remembering that she was making a heroic attempt to be a grande dame, she finally went into her bedroom and washed her face. XVII There was a knock on the front door. Ida, smoothing her hair, hastened to open it, glad of diversion. Ora stood there. For a moment the girls looked hard at each other, then burst into laughter. “What’s up?” asked Ida. “You look----” “My dear, it is I who should ask? Your face is crimson; you look as if you had just given someone a beating, and I met poor little Whalen, dusty, dishevelled, growling like a mad dog--he didn’t know me.” “Well, I guess he won’t know himself for a while,” said Ida drily, leading the way into the parlour. “When he comes to he’ll have his work cut out to climb back to his little two-cent pedestal and fit on his battered halo.” She related the incident. “What do you know about that?” she demanded in conclusion. “Wouldn’t it come and get you?” “I am afraid you have made an enemy. It is always best to let them down gently, save their pride--and--ah!--it isn’t customary to throw gentlemen out of the window!” “Gentlemen!” snorted Ida. “He’s no gentleman. He not only kissed me with his horrid front teeth, but he insinuated that I was just languishing for him, the----” Once more Ida’s feelings overflowed in language not intended for print. “It made me so mad I’d have lammed him with the umbrella if we’d been in the hall.”