"What can I do?" said poor Bobo. "Fire him!" "So that's your game!" thought Jack. "It's foredoomed to failure, lady!" "Oh, I can't do that!" said Bobo horrified. "Why not? I guess you can manage your own affairs as well as other men, can't you? Get a lawyer to help you. Everybody would think more of you if you came right out and put Jack in his place. They talk about it, you know. It's unmanly to submit to the dictation of one who is really no more than your servant. Send him away, and see how much better you'll get along with people. He fixes it so that you always show to a disadvantage beside him. That hurts me, because I know what there is in you!" "Oh, you siren!" thought Jack. In a way, he could not but admire her cleverness. She went on: "Some day I suppose you'll want to marry." Jack could imagine how modestly she cast down the long lashes when she said this. "I say this for your own good. No woman, you know, would want to put herself in the position of being under the thumb of her husband's secretary." All Bobo could find to say was: "I'm sorry you don't like him." Jack had to confess to himself that a better man than Bobo might well have been stumped by such a situation. "Oh, it doesn't matter about me," she said, "but he is openly rude to me. You don't seem to care." "I do! I do!" cried poor Bobo. "I'll put a stop to that. I'll speak to him!" "Yes," she said with a kind of plaintive spitefulness, "tell him I told you, and then he'll act worse to me than ever. If you cared about me at all, you wouldn't keep him for another day." "You just leave it to me, I'll fix it," said Bobo desperately. "That's what you say every day, but I don't see any change." "So this is an everyday affair!" thought Jack. "Poor Bobo!" "It can't go on," she said gloomily. "I think too much of you as a friend to stand seeing another man run you. I'd rather give you up--as a friend. If I've got to put up with Jack Robinson, I don't want to see you any more." The softest creature, pushed to the wall, shows fight. "I won't fire Jack," said Bobo sullenly. "You're just trying to run me the same way you say he is. If I've got to go, I'll go!" "Good for Bobo!" thought Jack. She quickly performed the undignified maneuver known as climbing down. "No, Bobo," she said meltingly. "You are right. I shouldn't have spoken that way. It is none of my business. But I can't bear to see you imposed on. It made me forget myself!" "I can take care of myself," muttered Bobo. "Forgive me," she said angelically, "and let's change the subject. Come into the library, and I'll order tea." It was Jack's turn to be surprised. He judged from her voice that she had already risen, so he had about two seconds to make up his mind how to act. He relaxed completely in the big chair, let his head fall back, closed his eyes and breathed deeply. She came between the curtains. He heard the swish of her silk petticoat.