"Just one more!" he exclaimed, and took it, mightily, as his prehistoric ancestor might have done.... She straightened her hair, and brushed away the powder he had left upon her shoulder. "Really, Mr. Maynadier, you must not," she protested. "My gown will be in tatters with such handling. Where did you learn to kiss so--peremptorily?" "One does it, naturally, with you--and prays for more." "Prays!" she laughed. "A robber does not pray--he takes.--No, sir! you have had sufficient. You----...." She escaped from him, at last, and stood, rosy and panting, a little way off. "Now, I shall _have_ to go to my room--my gown and my hair are a sight--oh! you are wicked--wicked!" she ended--and fled, leaving behind her a vision of slender ankles and silk stockings. Maynadier looked after her with a dubious smile. "I do not know about my being wicked," he muttered, "but I _do_ know that I am a damn fool!... Bah! they are all alike! the most modest will frivol if she but get the man, and the place, and the inclination." ... Presently, he laughed. "I fancy I was unexpectedly strenuous. I warrant she had not had such a kissing, in many a day." He pushed his velvet-sheathed rapier back under his coat-skirt and brought the handle forward, brushed the powder from his shoulders, straightened his cravat, and, taking out his gold snuff-box, flourished a pinch to his nostrils. He would wait until she came down. Presently she came, descending slowly, her dress held with both hands. Her hair had been put to rights, her gown smoothed out. Maynadier stepped forward, and met her at the foot of the stairs. She paused, just out of reach. "Will you promise to be well-behaved?" she asked, tantalizingly. "If you will promise not to tempt too far," he replied. "Tempt!" she inflected. "I am no temptress, Mr. Maynadier." Gravely, he took her hand, and led her before the mirror, in the drawing room. "No temptress, think you?" he inquired. "No temptress!" "I cannot help what God has done," she said, and smiled in the glass, alluringly. "Careful!--careful!" he admonished--"or I have visions of another tousled head-dress." "Very pretty--very pretty, indeed!" said Herford's voice behind them. "May I come into the picture?" Instantly, Maynadier dropped her hand and stepped back; but she, womanlike, was the nimbler witted. "You may have a portrait of yourself, _alone_," she answered; "this one is finished." He laughed superciliously. "I hope so," he said; "finished for all time." "Why, finished for all time, Captain Herford?" she inquired, a chilly note in her tone. "If Mr. Maynadier is good enough to show me, before the glass, how becomingly I am gowned, what affair is it of yours, or of any one?" "I should never have guessed it!" he returned, with affected contrition. "Possibly not, you are very slow at times." "Because," he went on, "Mr. Maynadier's attention seemed to be directed entirely to your lips." "What do you mean, sir?" Maynadier demanded.