“You’re angry with Sybil, and I don’t think she has been very nice to you. I’ve noticed it, especially the last three days and this afternoon when we were sitting out there on the rock I tried to make her tell me why.” He raised his head; the profile sharply defined against the window showed a working muscle in the cheek: “And did she tell you?” “No, she didn’t seem to want to talk about it. She changed the subject.” “How considerate!” “There’s no sense getting annoyed about it because I don’t think she has any reason. You have to make excuses for her. She’s gone through this awful experience and her nerves are all wracked to pieces. You have to be patient and take her as a sort of afflicted person--” He dashed the cane down and jumped to his feet in a volcanic explosion of rage: “I don’t take her that way. I take her for what she is, a damned lying hypocrite.” “Joe!” She was amazed, not so much at the words, as at the suddenness of the outburst and the contorted passion of his face. “She thinks she can treat me any way she wants and get away with it. Well, she’ll find her mistake, she’s taken the wrong turning this time. She takes me for a yellow dog she can kick whenever she feels like it. But I got teeth, I can bite. Patient--be patient--God, I’d like to wring her neck, the damned----.” He used an epithet that brought Anne to her feet, breathing battle: “Don’t dare to say that of my friend, Joe Tracy.” He stood in front of her, hump-shouldered, with outthrust jaw, brows drawn low over eyes gleaming like a cat’s. She had never seen him look like that; he seemed a stranger, a horrible stranger, and she drew away, aghast at the revelation of a being so sinisterly unfamiliar. Her look brought him back to self-control. He jerked his head up, ran a hand over his hair, and turned away to the window. Standing there he said: “Well, I take that back. I didn’t mean to say it. But she’s made me mad; I think she’d make anybody.” The tone, surly still, had a placating quality; it was as near an apology as Joe could ever come. She felt immeasurably relieved for he had frightened her. To see the family cat, whose vagaries of temperament she knew by heart, suddenly transformed into a tiger, had given her a shock. She accepted his amends without comment, but she could not resist a sisterly admonition: “If you’d only stop getting mad over small things you’d find life so much easier.” He laughed: “Good advice from little sister! It doesn’t cost anything and it’s the correct _ingenue_ pose.” He turned from the window smiling, Joe at his most amiable. If he had met her this way she would have poured out her secret. But her high mood had fallen and besides he wanted her to go--he said he had a letter to write yet. Lounging toward her he put his hands on her shoulders, gave her a light kiss on the cheek and pushed her toward the door.