When a young man suddenly goes mad in a cab, grapples the young woman who has intrusted herself to his protection, pins her arms to her sides, squeezes her torso till her bones crunch and she has no breath to squawk with, then kisses her deaf and dumb and blind, it is still a nice question which of the two is the helpless one and which has overpowered the other. Appearances are never more deceitful than in such attacks, and while eye-witnesses are infrequent, they are also untrustworthy. They cannot even tell which of the two is victim of the outrage. The motionless gazelle in the folds of the constrictor may be in full control of the situation. It undoubtedly has happened, oftener than it should have, in the history of the world that young men have made these onsets without just provocation and have been properly slapped, horsewhipped, or shot for their unwelcome violence. It has also happened that young men have failed to make these onsets when they would have been welcome. But the perfection of the womanly art of self-pretense is when she subtly wills the young man to overpower her and is so carried away by her own success that she forgets who started it. She droops, swoons, shivers before the fury of her own inspiration, and cries out, with absolute sincerity: “How dare you! How could you! What made you!” or simply moans, “Why, Oswald!” and resists invitingly. Kedzie had been hoping and praying that Jim Dyckman would kiss her, and mutely daring him to. Yet when he obeyed her tacit behest and asked her permission she was too frightened to refuse. He was stronger than she expected, and he held her longer. When at last she came out for air she was shattered with a pleasant horror. She barely had the strength to gasp, “Why, Mr. Dyckman, aren't you awful?” and time to straighten her jumbled hat and hair when her apartment-building drew up alongside the limousine and came to a halt. Dyckman pleaded, like a half-witted booby, “Let's take a little longer ride.” But she remembered her dignity and said, with imperial scorn, “I should hope not!” She permitted him to help her out. He said: “When may I see you again? Soon, please!” She smiled, with a hurt patience, and answered, “Not for a long while.” He chuckled: “To-morrow, eh? That's great!” She wished that he would not say, “That's great.” If he would only say, “Ripping!” or, “I say, that's ripping!” or, “Awfully good of you,” or, “No end”--anything swagger. But he would not swagger. He escorted her to the elevator, where she gave him a queenly hand and murmured, “Good night!” He watched her go up like _Medea in machina;_ then he turned away and stumbled back into his limousine. It was still fragrant from her presence. The perfume she was using then was a rather aggressive essence of a lingering tenacity upon the atmosphere. But Dyckman was so excited that he liked it. The limousine could hardly contain him.