She spoke with intentional malice, but she scarcely expected to strike home. Mary was not, in her estimation, over-endowed with brains, and she never seemed to mind a barbed thrust or two. But on this occasion Mrs. Ralston upset her calculations. She arose in genuine wrath. "Netta!" she said. "I think you are the most heartless, callous woman I have ever met!" And with that she went straight from the room, shutting the door firmly behind her. "Good gracious!" commented Netta. "Mary in a tantrum! What an exciting spectacle!" She stretched her slim body like a cat as she lay with the warm sunshine pouring over her, and presently she laughed. "How funny! How very funny! Netta, my dear, they'll be calling you wicked next." She pursed her lips over the adjective as if she rather enjoyed it, then stretched herself again luxuriously, with sensuous enjoyment. She had riden with the Rajah in the early morning, and was pleasantly tired. The sudden approach of Tessa, scampering along the verandah in the wake of Scooter, sent a quick frown to her face, which deepened swiftly as Scooter, dodging nimbly, ran into the room and went to earth behind a bamboo screen. Tessa sprang in after him, but pulled up sharply at sight of her mother. The frown upon Netta's face was instantly reflected upon her own. She stood expectant of rebuke. "What a noisy child you are!" said Netta. "Are you never quiet, I wonder? And why did you let that horrid little beast come in here? You know I detest him." "He isn't horrid!" said Tessa, instantly on the defensive. "And I couldn't help him coming in. I didn't know you were here, but it isn't your bungalow anyway, and Aunt Mary doesn't mind him." "Oh, go away!" said Netta with irritation. "You get more insufferable every day. Take the little brute with you and shut him up--or drown him!" Tessa came forward with an insolent shrug. There was more than a spice of defiance in her bearing. "I don't suppose I can catch him," she said. "But I'll try." The chase of the elusive Scooter that followed would have been an affair of pure pleasure to the child, had it not been for the presence of her mother and the growing exasperation with which she regarded it. It was all sheer fun to Scooter who wormed in and out of the furniture with mirth in his gleaming eyes, and darted past the window a dozen times without availing himself of that means of escape. Netta's small stock of patience was very speedily exhausted. She sat up on the sofa and sternly commanded Tessa to desist. "Go and tell the _khit_ to catch him!" she said. Tessa, however, by this time had also warmed to the game. She paid no more attention to her mother's order than she would have paid to the buzzing of a mosquito. And when Scooter dived under the sofa on which Netta had been reclining, she burrowed after him with a squeal of merriment.