"You don't know Francis, Mr. Lightnut!" Her jaw grounded with a snap, and what a look she gave me! "Wait till you do—you just wait!" And eyes and hands lifted to the ceiling.
I coughed again.
The cat! And this was my darling's friend!
But her claws raked on: "I tell you you just can't be familiar with grooms and hail-fellow-well-met with footmen without demoralizing them—and that's what Francis does." She jerked this out viciously, and while I gasped, went on: "You know very well, Mr. Lightnut, if you play cards and drink and carouse with your men-servants until two or three o'clock in the morning, you can't reasonably look for respect from them." She breathed heavily. "The trouble is, Francis has no self-respect—no pride!"
Her uplifted hands fumbled and jerked the hat from her tossing head. "Sometimes," she breathed through her teeth, "when I think of Francis, I feel like I'd like to—" The words died behind her teeth as she ground them—yes, ground them. She jabbed the pins into the hat savagely and at random and tossed it after the coat. And this time she put the ball—in a big Benares jar that stood against the wall.
But I was counting forty-four!
Ever try that when you were angry and wanted to insult somebody? Preacher told us about it once at the old Harvard Union, and I thought it a devilish good idea. Gives you time, you know, to think up the things to say that otherwise you would be turning over in your mind afterward as the scathing, clever things you might have said.
So, by the twenty-eighth count, I had her; and jamming my hands almost through my pockets, I faced her with a withering frown.
"By Jove, if I were you, Miss—er—" Dash me if I hadn't forgotten her name! "If you feel that way, I don't see why the de—H'm! I mean why do you stay on here and—er—sacrifice yourself?" I drawled this in the most devilish sarcastic way! "I'd pack my jolly trunk and get as far away as I could."
I added earnestly—coaxingly: "And stay away, you know!"