“No?” he answered with a blandly questioning inflection, “these are interesting facts in local manners and customs. I’m sure they’d be of value to some one who was making a special study of the subject. Personally I am not deeply interested in the California aborigines. Even the original and charming specimen now before me would oblige me greatly by withdrawing. It is now”--looking at the clock that stood on the side of the desk--“half-past two, and my time is valuable, my dear Mrs. Willers.” Mrs. Willers rose to her feet, burning with rage. “Put me off any way you like,” she said, “and be as fresh and smart as you know how. But I tell you, young man, this has got to stop. That girl’s got no one belonging to her here. But don’t imagine from that you can have the field to yourself and go on persecuting her. No--this is not France nor Spain, nor any other old monarchy, where a woman didn’t have any more to say about herself than a mule, or a pet parrot. No, sir. You’ve run up against the wrong proposition if you think you can scare a woman into marrying you in California in the nineteenth century.” Essex rose from his chair. He was pale. “Look here,” he said in a low voice, “I’ve had enough of this. By what right, I’d like to know, do you dare to dictate to me or interfere in my acquaintance with another lady?” “I’d dare more than that, Barry Essex,” said Mrs. Willers, with her rouge standing out red on her white face, “to save that girl from a man like you. I don’t know what I wouldn’t dare. But I’m a good fighter when my blood’s up, and I’ll fight you on this point till one or the other of us drops.” She saw Essex’s nostrils fan softly in and out. His cheek-bones looked prominent. “Will you kindly leave this room?” he said in a suppressed voice. “Yes,” she answered, “I’m going now. But understand that I’m making no idle threats. And if this persecution goes on I’ll tell Winslow Shackleton of the way you’re acting to a friend of his and a protégée of his mother’s.” She was at the door and had the handle in her hand. Essex turned on her a face of livid malignity. “Really, Mrs. Willers,” he said, “I had no idea you were entitled to speak for Winslow Shackleton. I congratulate you.” For a moment of blind rage Mrs. Willers neither spoke nor moved. Then she felt the door-handle turn under her hand and the door push inward. She mechanically stepped to one side, as it opened, and the office boy intruded his head. “I knocked here twict, and y’aint answered,” he said apologetically. “There’s a man to see you, Mr. Essex, what says he’s got something to say about a new kind of balloon.” “Show him in,” said Essex, “and--oh--ah--Jack, show Mrs. Willers out.” Jack gaped at this curious order. Mrs. Willers brushed past him and walked up the hall to her own cubby-hole. She was compassed in a lurid mist of fury, and through this she felt dimly that she had done no good.