Having hurled his thunderbolt, Mr. Pantin stood above his wife regarding her imperturbably as she lay with her face buried in a sofa pillow. Unmoved, he even felt a certain interest in the rise and fall of her shoulder blades as she sobbed. Actually, she seemed to breathe with them--"like the gills of a fish," he thought heartlessly--and wondered how long she could keep it up. "It's no use having this tantrum, Prissy," he said inexorably. Tantrum! The final insult. Mrs. Pantin squealed with rage and gnawed the corner of the leather pillow. "You might as well come out of it," he admonished further. "You'll only make your eyes red and give yourself a headache." "You're a brute, Abram Pantin, and I wish I'd never seen you!" Mr. Pantin suppressed the reply that the wish was mutual. Instead, he picked up the leather button which flew on the floor when Mrs. Pantin doubled her fist and smote the davenport. "I doubt very much if she'd come, even if you ask her," said Pantin. It was a stroke of genius. "Not come!" The eye which Mrs. Pantin exposed regarded Mr. Pantin scornfully. "Not come? Why, she'd be tickled to pieces." But of that Mr. Pantin continued to have his own opinion. Mrs. Pantin sat up and winked rapidly in her indignation. "She's made if I take her up, and the woman isn't so stupid as not to know it, is she?" "She may not see it from that angle," dryly. "At any rate, you'll be pleasing me greatly by asking her." Mrs. Pantin looked at her husband fixedly: "Why this deep interest, Abram?" Flattered by the implied accusation, Mr. Pantin, however, resisted the temptation to make Mrs. Pantin jealous, and answered truthfully: "I admire her greatly. She deserves recognition and will get it. If you are a wise woman you'll swallow your prejudices and be the first to admit it." Mrs. Pantin raised both eyebrows--her own and the one she put on mornings--incredulously. "She's the kind that would win out anywhere," he added, with conviction. Mrs. Pantin stared at him absently, while the tears on her lashes dried to smudges. She murmured finally: "I could have pineapple with mayonnaise dressing." To conceal a smile, Mr. Pantin stooped for his paper. "Or would you have lettuce with roquefort cheese dressing, Abram?" "You know much more about such things than I do--your luncheons are always perfect, Prissy. Who do you think of inviting to meet her?" Mrs. Pantin considered. Then her eyes sparkled with malice, "I'll begin with Mrs. Toomey." * * * * * In the office of the _Grit_, Hiram Butefish was reading the proof of his editorial that pointed out the many advantages Prouty enjoyed over its rival in the next county.