"Four pounds for the frame," remarked Mildred. "Those Dresden parrots are at least a hundred. It is only right you should know. Be violent, by all means, if it gives you any satisfaction. I want some new things. But would it not be better to explain first and smash afterwards?" She had never seen Jack like this--she had never even dreamed he was capable of it--but she found it, though alarming, rather attractive. "It is always said of women that they like brutality," she thought to herself; "and perhaps it is true." Jack rose from the fireplace a little flushed. "They are talking about Marie at the clubs," he said. "The Snowflake has melted, apparently. Jim Spencer is the melter." "Do you mean you heard that said?" asked Mildred. "Yes, by Silly Billy." "Which hospital is he at?" asked she. Jack sat down. "Give me a whisky-and-soda," he said; "I'm as dry as dust. May I ring? Thanks. You mean I should have stamped on him? I did not. I talked about it quite quietly with him. He pointed out that I, as a defendant in an action for assault, would not be amused at cross-examination. He adduced reasons." Mildred looked at him for a moment with a sort of quiet wonder. "Do you mean he adduced me as a reason?" she asked. "Not by name." "How very forbearing of him! You let that pass, too?" "Yes." She reflected. "You did right," she said at length. "I was at first so much surprised at your having behaved like that, that I could hardly believe it. But you did right. It was, however, quite unnecessary to smash Marie's photograph--or is that a dramatic climax to show your inalienable fidelity to me?" She laughed. "There, drink your whisky," she said. "How extraordinary men are! Whenever they have had some powerful and exhausting emotion, a little alcohol always puts them square again. One ought to measure everything by that. A wife talked about--large whisky-and-soda; a friend talked about--small whisky-and-soda; one's self talked about--well, that is a stimulus in itself: say a Lithia Varalette, something lowering, by way of adjustment." Jack, angry as he was, answered to her voice, as a fretful horse answers to a hand it knows, perhaps from habit, perhaps from the sense of a master astride it. "You take it like this?" he said. "You can have no idea what it means to me." Mildred stood silent a moment, then laughed.