Peter, aged three, was playing with Glory. With the clumsiness of childhood he knocked her down. She commenced to scream loudly--so loudly that she might have been seriously hurt. Jehane rushed into the nursery, caught her baby to her breast and, in her anguish, smacked Peter. Peter in all his young life had never been smacked; he watched her goggle-eyed and then set up a terrified howl. When Nan arrived on the scene, he was sobbing and explaining that he had only meant to _softy_ Glory, which was his word for loving her by rubbing her with his face and hands. A quarrel ensued between the mothers in which bitter things were said. How did Jehane dare to touch Peter, her little Peterkins baby, who was always so sensitive and gentle! Nan was fiercely angry that her child had been unjustly punished; Jehane was no less angry because her child had been knocked down. When it was all over, the babies were told to kiss one another; Peter, when Jehane approached him, hid his face in his mother's skirt. Strained relations followed, which made light words impossible. Barrington, when he heard of it, was extraordinarily annoyed. Waffles, because she was in the minority, sided with Jehane. That her quiet, madonna-like adoration of Glory should have turned into tigerish protective passion attracted him strangely. That evening Barrington had some friends to dine with him--men and women of his world, whose good opinion he valued. During dinner and afterwards in the drawingroom, Waffles had been ousted from the conversation; their talk was all of books and travel--things he did not understand. He felt cold-shouldered--crowded out. He resented it, and was determined to show them that he also could be clever. He waited for an opening-. A pause in the conversation occurred. He sprang into the gap. That he was irrelevant did not matter. “Heard a good riddle the other day. Wonder if any of you can answer it.” All eyes turned in his direction. He cleared his throat and fumbled at his collar. “If a cat ate a haddock and a dog chased the cat, and the cat jumped over the wall, what relation would the dog bear to the haddock?” There was embarrassed silence. Every face wore a puzzled expression. Barrington pulled his cigar from his mouth and gazed sternly at the glowing ash. At last a lady, who wrote poetry, took compassion on him. She tapped him on the arm. “I can't think of any answer. Put me out of my suspense. I'm so anxious to learn.” Waffles beamed his acknowledgments. “That's the answer,” he said eagerly; “there isn't any answer.” Barrington ceased to be vexed with his cigar and laughed coldly. “You mustn't mind my cousin. He's a genial ass. Sometimes it takes him like that.--Let's see, what were we discussing when we were interrupted?” So there were two people with wounded feelings in that company. Ocky saw Jehane slip out of the room, and he followed. On the stairs she halted. “Why are you following?” “I'm not wanted. Confound their stupidity.”