"Lord! What a face!" she attested. "Nothing but granite! Hack him with a
knife and he wouldn't bleed but just chip off into pebbles!" With
exaggerated contempt she shrugged her supple shoulders. "Bah! How I hate
a man like that! There's no fun in him!" A little abruptly she turned
and thrust the photograph into Rae Malgregor's hand. "You can have it if
you want to," she said. "I'll trade it to you for that lace corset-cover
of yours!"

Like water dripping through a sieve the photograph slid through Rae
Malgregor's frightened fingers. With nervous apology she stooped and
picked it up again and held it gingerly by one remotest corner. Her eyes
were quite wide with horror.

"Oh, of course I'd like the--picture, well enough," she stammered. "But
it wouldn't seem--exactly respectful to--to trade it for a
corset-cover."

"Oh, very well," drawled Zillah Forsyth. "Tear it up then!"

Expeditiously with frank, non-sentimental fingers Rae Malgregor tore the
tough cardboard across, and again across, and once again across, and
threw the conglomerate fragments into the waste-basket. And her
expression all the time was no more, no less, than the expression of a
person who would infinitely rather execute his own pet dog or cat than
risk the possible bungling of an outsider. Then like a small child
trotting with infinite relief to its own doll-house she trotted over to
her bureau, extracted the lace corset-cover, and came back with it in
her hand to lean across Zillah Forsyth's shoulder again and watch the
men's faces go slipping off into oblivion. Once again, abruptly without