She looked so like a spiteful, green-eyed cat, that I seemed to hear the words hissed out; and as the man whose ear approached her lips was one of the famous gossips of London, I could imagine, too, how the story would spread and grow. Milly would certainly tell Prince and Princess Sanzanow, also, before she went home, what a dreadful thing they had done in asking "that notorious Captain March" to be their guest, and especially to meet Major and Lady Diana Vandyke. Sidney, too, if he could pile anything more on the injuries of the past, would be sure to do his best. As I thought these thoughts my cheeks began to burn even more hotly than Milly's. I had been questioning Eagle about his adventures, and he had been answering in the laconic way most brave men have when teased to talk of themselves; but for a minute, keen though I was, I lost the thread of narrative I had begun eagerly drawing out. This was when I met Milly's eyes and flung a challenge from mine to hers. "Dare to hurt him with your lying tongue, and somehow, surely as you live, I'll make you repent. Don't dream that my affection for Tony can stand between you and me," was the warning I sent. Silently we defied each other in the savage and primitive way which we female human things have merely modernized, not modified, since the days of Lilith up to the days of suffragettes. I was asking myself what punishment I could devise and inflict, if necessary, to fit Milly's crime, and how I--so small and powerless--could dig myself into a defensive trench between Eagle and Sidney Vandyke, when I realized that Eagle's eyes were studying my flushed face. They were sad eyes, yet there was a faint glint of laughter in them. "You little fighter!" he said. "You never throw down the cudgels you've taken up in my defence." "No, and never will!" I answered, defiance in my voice even for him, because my blood had been set on fire and the flame would not die down. "You're very young!" he said, with a faint sigh. "So young that you haven't learnt not to hurl yourself against stone walls. Learn the lesson from me, child. Public opinion is a stone wall, the thickest and highest in the world. The tiny bubble of my reputation was wafted against it by an evil wind, and burst forever. If I was fool enough once to hope that I could mend it, I know now that I was mistaken. Broken bubbles are like Humpty Dumpty: they can't be put together again; and I don't mean to break my head in the place where the bubble burst, or let you break yours."