Nan flung open her door and went directly to the parlour. She stood in the doorway contemplating the scene. It was very cozy. The afternoon sun slanted through the high-narrow windows of the period, gilding the dust motes floating lazily to and fro. The tea table, set with a snowy doth, glittered invitingly, its silver and porcelain, its plates of dainty sandwiches and thin waferlike cookies--Wing Sam's specialty--enticingly displayed. Two easy chairs had been drawn close, and, before the unoccupied one a low footstool had been placed. Ben Sansome sat in the other. He was, as usual, exquisitely dressed. All his little appointments were not only correct but worn easily. The varicoloured waistcoat, the sparkling studs and cravat pins, the bright, soft silk tie, were all subdued from their ordinary too-vivid effect by the grace with which they were carried. Nan saw all this, and appreciated it dispassionately, appraising him anew through clarified vision. Especially she noticed the waxed ends of his small moustache. He had, at the sound of her entrance, lighted the tea kettle; and as she came in he smiled up at her brightly. "You see," he cried gayly, "I am doing your task for you! I have the lamp all lit!" She paid no attention to this, but advanced two steps into the room. "Which side are you on, anyway?" she asked abruptly and a little harshly. Sansome raised his eyebrows in faint and fastidious surprise. "Dear lady, what do you mean?" "The only thing I can mean in these times: are you with the Law and Order, or with the Committee of Vigilance?" Sansome shrugged his shoulders whimsically and sank back into his chair. "How can you ask that, dear lady?" he begged pathetically. "You would not class me with the rabble, I hope." But Nan did not in the slightest degree respond to the lightness of his tone. Her own was cold and detached. "I do not know how to class you," she said. "But I asked you a question." Sansome arose to his feet again. His manner now became sympathetic, but into it had crept the least hint of resentment. "I don't understand your mood" he told her. "You are overwrought." Nan's self-control slipped by ever so little. She did not actually stamp her foot, but her delivery of her next speech achieved that for her. "Will you answer me?" she demanded. "Which side, are you on?" "I am on the side every gentleman is on," replied Sansome, a trifle stung. "The side of the law." "Then," she cried, with a sudden intensity, "why weren't you there--on your side--defending the jail?' Why are you here?" Ben Sansome's knowledge of women was wide, and he therefore imagined it profound. Here he recognized the symptoms of hysteria; cause unknown. He adopted the lightly soothing. "I thought I was asked here!" he cried with quizzical mock pathos.