"What's the matter?" she repeated. "I insist on knowing!"
"Oh, well, things have gone a bit wrong. What do you care?"
She actually stamped her foot. "How dare you speak to me that way! You came in here like the Lord Hereditary Marshal of England. How was I to know?"
"Well, I didn't want to let on that I had balled things up," he said sheepishly.
"You idiot! Will you ever learn the first rudiments of sense? Sit down here!" She pulled him down beside her Pitman make-up and all. "Now tell me all about it!"
Jack looked at her a little dazed by this sudden change of front. "Why—I thought you were just having a little fun with me."
"Certainly I was. You asked for it. Whenever you take that 'my poor little woman' tone with me, you simply give me a pain. But if you are really up against it—Ah!"
Her voice caught on a deep low note of tenderness. Jack gave up all thoughts of mastery; he would have been quite content to kiss her hand.
"Well, I am up against it," he said quite humbly and naturally—and told her all about it.
She said nothing until he was through; then: "There's no occasion to be cast down that I can see. You and the old man are playing a close game, and he's turned a trick on you. But the game's not over yet."