and pretend not to care--" "Now, my dear, you're tired out," Jane broke in, in gentle solicitude. "You've had a tiring day." She laid an entreating hand on Pat's arm. "Better go to bed." But once an idea was planted in Pat's brain, she clung to it tenaciously. Disregarding Jane, and still addressing Henry, she continued: "But I wouldn't get used to it, and I shall always care--always!" "Care about what?" snapped Henry. "Oh, just feeling I'm better than other people--poor, common people, and not caring what happens to them. No! I'll be darned if I will!" "Patricia!" Jane chided. "Oh, what's the good of pretending we are better than other people, just because we have everything," Pat retorted boldly. "If this reporter was in my own set, some young, rotten cad, and had driven up in a big motor car, and sent in his card, Uncle Henry would have received him with open arms. Because he is common and poor--" "Will you be quiet?" Henry interrupted, resentfully. "You talk like a scullery maid, fed up on bolshevism. I don't feel a bit better than anybody else, although I am a Royce." "Very well," murmured Pat, shrugging with hopeless resignation. Then she turned to Prince Matani, who all this time had stood by rigidly, like a soldier at attention, and who now clicked his heels together and said, brightly: "Now, my dear Miss Patricia, you'll hear from me. Consider yourself under arrest for behaving so rudely to your uncle. And while this irrepressible reporter is being dried out, you shall be court-martialled for conduct unbecoming a--" Pat stopped him. "Don't talk silly!" she said. Then she smiled thinly. "Perhaps I have been acting the little fool, but, please, don't rub it in." She walked away. The Prince followed her, impetuously. "Where are you going?" he asked. "Straight upstairs and to bed," she replied, wearily. "Why do you ask?" "Because," said the Prince, raising his voice so that Henry might hear, "I'm afraid, on account of the storm, I shall have to spend the night here.""So you shall, Your Highness," Henry responded, readily. Until this moment, Olinski had contributed nothing to the controversial dialogue. With complete reconciliation in progress, he moved forward, and spoke. "I am sure none of us have anything personally against this audacious reporter," he said. "Why should we? It's his profession, nosing into other people's business, that we object to. Anyway, no one wants a reporter running over the premises like a mouse looking for cheese. And now that our dear Patricia appears to have thought the matter over, and decided that she's made a mistake, I shall prepare to make my departure." "No; I forbid you leaving the
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