his face. "What's the matter with it?"

She mopped her eyes. Sobs shook her. "You f-f-flapped it."

"F-f-f----" The bewilderment in Orville Platt's face gave way
to anger. "Do you mean to tell me that you screeched like that
because my--because I moved my elbow?"

"Yes."

His anger deepened and reddened to fury. He choked. He had
started from his chair with his napkin in his hand. He still
clutched it. Now he crumpled it into a wad and hurled it to the
center of the table, where it struck a sugar bowl, dropped back,
and uncrumpled slowly, reprovingly. "You--you----" Then
bewilderment closed down again like a fog over his countenance.
"But why? I can't see----"

"Because it--because I can't stand it any longer. Flapping.
This is what you do. Like this."

And she did it. Did it with insulting fidelity, being a clever
mimic.

"Well, all I can say is you're crazy, yelling like that, for
nothing."

"It isn't nothing."

"Isn't, huh? If that isn't nothing, what is?" They were