"It's about the Society of Flies," hesitated the girl. "My dear," said Dan, patiently, and coaxing a loose leaf around his cigar, "I don't want to be disagreeable, but I am really tired of the Society of Flies."
"Only a few questions," said Lillian, nestling to his side, "and then we can forget all about the matter."
"That won't be easy for me to do," replied Mr. Halliday, rather grimly. "I can never forget what I suffered when I was expecting to be tortured by that fiend."
"Queen Beelzebub?"
"She could not have chosen a better name, my dear. I sometimes doubt if she was a human being at all."
"Poor, misguided woman," murmured Lillian, resting her head on Dan's shoulder. "Don't pity her, dear. She does not deserve your pity. Now, Mrs. Jarsell--I have always been sorry for her."
"So have I," said the girl, promptly; "she was very good to you, dear."
"Good is a weak way of expressing what I owe her," retorted Halliday; "think of what she saved me from."
"Perhaps Queen Beelzebub would not have tortured you, after all." Dan laughed incredulously. "I shouldn't have cared to have trusted to her mercy. I tell you, Lillian, as I have told you before, that already the implements of torture were being made ready. They would have crowned me with a red-hot circlet of steel, and pinched my flesh with red-hot pincers, and----"
"Don't, oh, don't." Lillian turned pale. "It is really too dreadful. And to think that I was with Bolly at Mrs. Pelgrin's, quite ignorant of the peril you were in. I wish I had been with you."