Mrs. Bahrr paused to giggle and to give Jerry time to parry her thrust, meanwhile pinning her through with the sharp points of her eyes that fairly gleamed in the shadow-checkered moonlight of the porch. Jerry was not accustomed to being accountable to anybody for what she chose to do, nor did she know that every man in New Eden, except York Macpherson and Junius Brutus Ponk--and every woman, without exception--really feared Stella Bahrr, knowing that she would hesitate at no kind of warfare to accomplish her purpose. It is generally easier to be decent than to be courageous, and peace at any price may be more desired than nasty word battles. Not knowing Stella for the woman she was, Jerry had no mind to consider her at all, so she waited for her caller to proceed or to leave her. "You must excuse me if I seem to be interfering in your affairs. You are a stranger here except to York and that man Ponk--" Stella began, thrusting her hooks more viciously into her catch. "Oh, you didn't interfere," Jerry interrupted her indifferently, and then paused. Mrs. Bahrr caught her breath. The girl was sinfully pretty and attractive, her beauty and grace in themselves alone railing out at the older woman's ugly spirit of envy. And she should be tender, with feeling to be lacerated for these gifts of nature. Instead, she was firm and hard, with no vulnerable spot for a poisoned shaft. "I'm sure you had a right to go into a man's private office. It's everybody's right, of course," she began, with that faint sneering tone of hers that carried a threat of what might follow. "Yes, but a little discourteous in me to drive you out. That was Mr. Macpherson's fault, not mine," Jerry broke in, easily. "Maybe that's her grievance. I'll be decent about it," the girl was thinking. "I'm awfully bored right now." The wind shifted quickly. "I run up to see Laury a minute. Just slipped in the side-stoop way to save troublin' you an' York out here. I knowed Laury wouldn't be here, an', would you believe it? I clar forgot they was gone out, an' I seen you all leavin', too--I mean them, of course." The threatening tone could not be reproduced. It carried, however, a most uncomfortable force like a cruel undertow beneath the seemingly safe crest of a wave. "It's a joke on me bein' so stupid, but you won't give me away to 'em, will you?" "I'm awfully bored, too," Jerry thought. "You say you won't tell 'em at all that I come?" Mrs. Bahrr insisted. "Not if you say so," Jerry replied, with a smile.