silence that endured until Gregory had walked sedately from the room;
then she reminded Lee that he must never, absolutely never, correct his
children when he was in an ill temper.

"That's nonsense," he returned shortly; "you ought to see that because
it's impossible. Even theoretically I don't agree with you--a child can
understand a punishment in which there is some warmth. You are dealing
with a little animal and not a reasonable being." To this Fanny replied
that her children were not animals.

"Really, Fanny, you don't know what you are talking about," he
asserted; "we are all, men and women and children and giraffes,
animals. You might look that up in the dictionary."

"I haven't any need to," she observed, with a calmness that further
tried him. "If the dictionary says that it isn't a very good one. And
if you are trying to tell me that Helena and Gregory are no better than
giraffes you're sillier than usual."

"That isn't in the least what I said," Lee retorted, with widely
separated words. "I wasn't speaking of the comparative but of the
absolute. It is a fact that we are animals, more responsible and with
greater powers than the others, but animals, animals."

"Then what is an animal?" Fanny demanded.

"A mammal."

A marked expression of distaste invaded her. "It has a nasty sound,"
she admitted with her instinctive recoiling from life. "I don't see how