"Come in? No! You have given the hat to another man? A trifling mistake! He calls it a trifling mistake!"—addressing the heavens, obscured though they were by the thickness of several ceilings. "Oh, what shall I do?" She began to wring her hands, and when a woman does that what earthly hope is there for the man who looks on?

"Don't do that!" I implored. "I'll find the hat." At a word from her, for all she had trampled on me, I would gladly have gone to Honolulu in search of a hat-pin. "The gentleman left me his card. With your permission I will go at once in search of him."

"I have a cab outside. Give me the address."

"I refuse to permit you to go alone."

"You have absolutely nothing to say in regard to where I shall or shall not go."

"In this one instance. I shall withhold the address."

How her eyes blazed!

"Oh, it is easily to be seen that you do not trust me." I was utterly discouraged.

"I did not imply that," with the least bit of softening. "Certainly I would trust you. But...."

"Well?"—as laughingly as I could.