"I do," he returned grimly. "If you hurt people enough you can stop them
from committing sin. That is the meaning of remedial punishment."

"I don't believe it!" she stormed at him. "You might hurt me till I
_died_ of hurting, but you couldn't make me good--not if I hated your
hurting me all the time! Because it isn't good to hate," she added out
of the depths of some instinctive wisdom.

"Then you'd better learn to like being punished--if that will make you
good," retorted Hugh.

Magda sped out into the woods. Hugh's hand had been none too light,
and she was feeling physically and spiritually sore. Her small soul was
aflame with fierce revolt.

Just to assure herself of the liberty of the individual and of the fact
that "hurting couldn't make her good," she executed a solitary little
dance on the green, mossy sward beneath the trees. It was rather a
painful process, since certain portions of her anatomy still tingled
from the retributive strokes of justice, but she set her teeth and
accomplished the dance with a consciousness of unholy glee that added
appreciably to the quality of the performance.

"Are you the Fairy Queen?"

The voice came suddenly out of the dim, enfolding silence of the woods,
and Magda paused in the midst of a final pirouette. A man was standing
leaning against the trunk of a tree, watching her with whimsical grey
eyes. Behind him, set up in the middle of a clearing amongst the trees,
an easel and stool evidenced his recent occupation.