She lifted her dark and very beautiful eyes to her stony parent, then they dropped, and she began tracing figures and arabesques on the polished floor with the point of her foil. "That is partly how," she repeated.
"What is the other part?"
"The other part was that, having unfortunately disobeyed you, and being already in the room, I thought I might as well stay and take a little peep around----"
Her father fairly bounced in his padded chair. The velvet-eyed descendant of Eve shot a fearful glance at him and continued, still casually tracing invisible arabesques with her foil's point.
"You see, don't you," she said, "that being actually in, I thought I might as well do something before I came out again, which would make my disobedience worth the punishment. So I first picked up my mask, then I took a scared peep around. There were only jars and bottles and things.... I was dreadfully disappointed. The certainty of being punished and then, after all, seeing nothing but bottles, did seem rather unfair.... So I--walked around to--to see if I could find something to look at which would repay me for the punishment.... There is a proverb, isn't there Pa-pah?--something about being executed for a lamb----"
"Go on!" he said sharply.
"Well, all I could find that looked as though I had no business to touch it was a little jeweled machine----"
"That was it! Did you touch it?"
"Yes, several times. Was it a wireless?"
"Never mind! Yes, it's one kind of a wireless instrument. Go on!"