Miss Trevor regarded me wickedly, and I knew what was coming.

"I hope you are convinced, now, Mr. Crocker, that our sex is not as black
as you painted it: that Miss Thorn knew what she was about, and that she
is not the inconsistent and variable creature you took her to be."

I felt the blood rush to my face, and Miss Thorn, too, became scarlet.
She went up to the mischievous Irene and grasping her arms from behind,
bent them until she cried for mercy.

"How strong you are, Marian! It is an outrage to hurt me so. I haven't
said anything." But she was incorrigible, and when she had twisted free
she began again:

"I took it upon myself to speak a few parables to Mr. Crocker the other
day. You know, Marian, that he is one of these level-headed old fogies
who think women ought to be kept in a menagerie, behind bars, to be
inspected on Saturday afternoons. Now, I appeal to you if it wouldn't be
disastrous to fall in love with a man of such ideas. And just to let you
know what a literal old law-brief he is, when I said he had had a hat-pin
sticking in him for several weeks, he nearly jumped overboard, and began
to feel himself all over. Did you know that he actually believed you
were doing your best to get married to the Celebrity?" (Here she dodged
Miss Thorn again.) "Oh, yes, he confided in me. He used to worry himself
ill over that. I'll tell you what he said to me only--"

But fortunately at this juncture Miss Trevor was captured again, and Miss
Thorn put her hand over her mouth. Heaven only knows what she would have
said!