"Oh, from Elsie Gossamer!" she cried, and took her letter and sat, unobservant of him, for several moments, the little frown that his words had brought out still on her brow. Presently she looked up and saw that he had read his letter, and had put it in his pocket; he was tilted back against the crab-apple tree again, his forehead knit, his eyes brilliant, a peculiar fixity in their gaze. "Oh, here!" she cried protestingly, "you look as though you had just decided to become the President of the United States of America! Stop scowling and listen; Elsie is after me again to join her in Europe. She is fairly eloquent with the project----" He broke in upon her with a sudden intensity of interest: "Do it!" he cried. "It's the very thing. You go. You go and have a good time." "I don't want to go so awfully," she began hesitatingly. "I've been away from you a lot in the last two years. I don't care so much about it." "Yes, you do; you go." He was always keen for her pleasure, but in the present case he seemed especially earnest. "Want to get rid of me, huh?" "No; you know I'll half die without you. But I am going to be fearfully busy from now on,"--his mouth seemed hot and dry as he talked,--"it will suit better now than ever. You go." "Well, maybe," she said. She was accustomed to let her own fancy settle such questions for her. "Maybe I'll go. Maybe I shan't." There was a click at the front gate. "I expect that's Mr. Steering," she announced. Madeira got out of his chair quickly. "If it is, I don't want to see him," he said, "he--oh, he irritates me, that man,--always wanting to dictate. I'll go in. Don't want ever to see him again,--and say, Pet?" "Well, Dad?" "I'd be glad if you would never see him again. Just stop where you are, will you?" She drew a long sighing breath. "Just stop where I am? Well, I'll see," she said, laughing and flushing in the warm, rich fashion of her skin, but there was the faint far call of uneasiness in her laughter, like a wind-whisper of coming rain. "Tell Samson to bring Mr. Steering out here to me," she commanded, and Madeira went off toward the house and disappeared through the green-latticed porch. Inside the house he retired to the room that was known as his office, locked the door and came over to his desk. As he did it a peculiar consciousness of himself suffused him like the first fumes of a deadly narcotic. He began to see that he was lifting his feet stealthily, advancing them stealthily, stealthily setting them down, with the soundless fall of a cat's foot on velvet. Reaching his desk, he half fell into a chair there, a thin line of white froth between his lips, his big face purplish. "Eh, God?" he cried, "what's this? what's this?"