"I don't remember it," she said, too hurriedly to be convincing. "I'll say this one: 'Birds of a feather flock together, and so will pigs and swine; rats and mice will have their choice, and so will I have mine.'" "You have a choice collection, at any rate," he grinned. "Some verses," she explained, "were added to the very recent editions used in my childhood." His grin became broader. "I hoped you might come across on that before the evening was over. Has your very recent edition the one in it about: 'Jane was saucy, Jane was pert'?" "You're a bit shocking tonight," she said, turning to the Colonel, whose attention was still on Nancy. Brent waited a minute, then: "Maybe you don't remember this one in your very recent edition: 'A hard-hearted Queen from Flat Rock, Whose anger came as a great shock, Said: I will not speak, sir, To you for a week, sir, So he went out and--' but I haven't had time to make the last line fit. You ought to laugh now!" "I wish I could." "It's original!" "So I judge." "Is that open window too cool for you?" Silence. "Here's another out of your very recent edition," he began, when she desperately turned to him. "I wish you'd play fair!" "Have you played fair?" he asked. "I might have expected an evasion from you!" "Don't muddy the water, please. Let's whittle on one stick at a time. Have you played fair?" "Of course, I have!" "That's all I want to know." But this reply suggested a subtle accusation which she did not like, and she asked: "What do you mean?" "Only this," he leaned so that his words could not be overheard, and his voice was tense with a strange seriousness. "You knew perfectly well that I was hardly to blame--and, blamable as that defense may be, what I did was done reverently. You may not know, though I'll tell you now, that you were the most exquisite thing I have ever beheld!--absolutely the most adorable and exquisite! You literally balanced yourself before my eyes, you literally taunted me with words which were a challenge of unresisting sweetness, you literally drew me, and when I came, you flew into a rage. You call that fair? I call it grossly unfair! Take it from me, Jane, that a girl who willfully fires a man, as Almighty God fires the heavens in a tempest, and then springs behind her propriety to escape, has a serious form of pyromania that'll consume her some day, just as sure as I'm talking to you--but not before it drives a lot of decent fellows to eternal flames!" "You're talking like a madman!" she gasped. "Far from it. I'm talking the most rational stuff you ever heard in all your life! In fact, your very presence compels me to be rational." "An enigmatic compliment," she could not help smiling. "What kind of deliriant have you been taking tonight?"