The little figure stiffened, and her gaze was steady, though her fingers trembled as she nervously twisted the tiny handkerchief she held.
"You've been playing me for a fool for the past two months. Your eyes have been laughing into mine with all sorts of little daring suggestions when you had an axe to grind at my expense. And then you had a habit of disappearing until you needed something else. You were off billing and cooing with our hero and smiling at my stupidity behind my back."
"I've spoken to him to-day," Barbara answered solemnly, "the first words of love that ever passed my lips."
"You did pretty well for an amateur, if that was the first kiss you ever gave him."
"It was the first!" she said, defiantly.
"It will be the last for him."
"Perhaps," she answered, with a curl to her lips.
"You think I don't mean it?" Wolf demanded, stepping close and thrusting his massive head forward while his big fists closed.
"I don't doubt it," she answered, firmly. "But I'm not afraid of you, Herman."
"You doubt my power?" he asked.