Claire laughed, a sharp, cutting little laugh that was like a keen knife turned on herself.

"O, it would have to be for poorer--'all right, all right,' as Martha says," she cried scornfully. "But it has been too hard--to-day. I can't endure any more."

"You won't have to. Radcliffe is conquered, so far as you are concerned.

'Twill be plain sailing, after this."

"I'd rather do something else. I'd like something different."

"I did not think you were a quitter."

"I'm not."

"O, yes, you are, if you give up before the game is done. No good sport does that."

"I've no ambition to be a good sport."

"Perhaps not. But you _are_ a good sport. A thorough good sport. _And you won't give up till you've seen this thing through_."

"Is that a prediction, or a--command? It sounds like a command."

"It is whatever will hold you to the business you've undertaken. I want you to conquer the rest, as you've conquered Radcliffe."

"The rest?"

"Yes."

"What do you mean by the rest?"

"I mean circ.u.mstances. I mean obstacles. I mean, my mother--my sister."

"I don't--understand."

"Perhaps not."

"And suppose (forgive me if I seem rude), suppose I don't consider _the rest_ worth conquering? Why should I? What one has to strive so for--"

"Is worth the most. One has to strive for everything in this world, everything that is really worth while. One has to strive to get it, one has to strive to keep it."

"Well, I don't think I care very much to-night, if I never get anything ever again in all my life to come."

"Poor little tired girl!"

Claire's chin went up with a jerk. "I don't need your pity, I won't have it. I am a stranger to you and to your friends. I am--" The defiant chin began to quiver.

"If you were not so tired," Francis Ronald said gravely, "I'd have this thing out with you, here and now. I'd _make_ you tell me why you so wilfully misunderstand. Why you seem to take pleasure in saying things that are meant to hurt me, and must hurt you. As it is--"

Claire turned on him impetuously. "I don't ask you to make allowances for me. If I do what displeases you, I give you perfect liberty to find fault. I'm not too tired to listen. But as to your _making_ me do or say anything I don't choose, why--"

He shook his head. "I'm afraid you are a hopeless proposition, at least for the present. Perhaps, some time I may be able to make you understand--Forgive me! I should say, perhaps, some time you may be willing to understand."

Their chauffeur drew up beside the curbstone in front of Martha's door, then sprang down from his seat to prove to his lordly-looking "fare"

that he knew his business, and was deserving of as large a tip as a correct estimate of his merit might suggest.

Francis Ronald took Claire's key from her, fitted it into the lock of the outer door, and opened it for her.

"And you will stand by Radcliffe? You won't desert him?" he asked, as she was about to pa.s.s into the house.

"I'll show you that, at least, I'm not a quitter, even if I _am_ a hopeless proposition, as you say."

A faint shadow of a smile flitted across his face as, with head held proudly erect, she turned and left him.

"No, you're not a quitter," he muttered to himself, "but--neither am I!"

The determined set of his jaw would have rekindled that inner rebellious fire in Claire, if she had seen it. But she was seeing nothing just at that moment, save Martha, who, to her amazement, stood ready to receive her in the inner hall.

"Ain't it just grand?" inquired Mrs. Slawson. "They told me yesterday, 'all things bein' equal,' they'd maybe leave us back soon, but I didn't put no stock in it, knowin' they never _is_ equal. So I just held me tongue an' waited, an' this mornin', like a bolster outer a blue sky, come the word that at noon we could go. Believe _me_, I didn't wait for no old shoes or rice to be threw after me. I got into their old amberlance-carriage, as happy as a blushin' bride bein' led to the halter, an' Francie an' me come away reji'cin'. Say, but what ails _you?_ You look sorter--sorter like a--strained relation or somethin'.

What you been doin' to yourself to get so white an' holler-eyed? What kep' you so late?"

"I had a tussle with Radcliffe."

"Who won out?"

"I did, but it took me all day."

"Never mind. It'd been cheap at the price, if it had 'a' took you all week. How come the madam to give you a free hand?"

"She was away."

"Anybody else know what was goin' on? Any of the fam'ly?"

"Yes, Mr. Ronald. He brought me home. I didn't want him to, but he did.

He just _made_ me let him, and--O, Martha--I can't bear--I can't bear--"

"You mean you can't bear _him?"_

Claire nodded, choking back her tears.

"Now, what do you think o' that!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Slawson pensively.

"An' he so _pop'lar_ with the ladies! Why, you'd oughter hear them stylish lady-friends o' Mrs. Sherman praisin' 'm to her face. It'd make you blush for their modesty, which they don't seem to have none, an'

that's a fac'. You can take it from me, you're the only one he ever come in contract with, has such a hate on'm. I wouldn't 'a' believed it, unless I'd 'a' had it from off of your own lips. But there's no use tryin' to argue such things. Taste is different. What pleases one, pizens another. In the mean time--an' it _is_ a mean time for you, you poor, wore-out child--I've some things here, hot an' tasty, that'll encourage your stummick, no matter how it's turned on some other things.

As I says to Sammy, it's a poor stummick won't warm its own bit, but all the same, there's times when somethin' steamin' does your heart as much good as it does your stummick, which, the two o' them bein' such near neighbors, no wonder we get 'em mixed up sometimes, an' think the one is starved when it's only the other."

CHAPTER XII