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disappearing into the brown background. It was chiaroscuro of the best sort in his eyes, a nice sharp contrast of white and brown. Dandy. Rembrandt didn’t manage it quite so well. Had a way of blurring it all together.
    For forty-five minutes Dammler sat alone in the saloon, getting more worried and more angry as he sat. He went into the hall and asked the butler if he might please see Mrs. Mallow. She came, disturbed, embarrassed, but firm in her declaration that Prudence would not see him.
    “By God she will, if I have to rip down her door,” he said. “Would you please tell her so, ma am."
    The message was relayed. “Maybe you’d better just see him,” Mrs. Mallow suggested.
    “I wouldn’t see him if my life depended on it. The impertinence of giving such a message to you, my mother! Upon my word, he has been unconventional in the past, but this is the first time I have seen an outright display of bad breeding. Tell him to go away, and not come back.”
    Poor Mrs. Mallow returned below with this unhappy news. She was glad Prudence was firm in her resolve, but when she saw the lost look that came over Dammler’s face, she had second thoughts. Even as she stood watching, wavering in her own resolve, she saw a change come over his expression. The hurt look gave way to anger, and soon to resolution.
    “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, then arose quickly and strode into the hallway, dashed up the stairs two at a time. He didn’t hesitate a second. He had never been abovestairs before, but a flashing tail of skirt told him not only her room, but that she had been listening over the bannister as well. Entering not a minute before him, Prudence slammed the door; it was still rattling when he reached it. He pulled it open and entered without knocking.
    The long wait and the disappointment had worn his nerves thin. His voice was loud when he spoke. “If you have something of importance to say to me, Prudence, have the gumption to say it yourself, and don’t send your mother to do your dirty work.”
    She rounded on him, furious. “I said what I had to say to you yesterday. I thought my meaning must be perfectly clear. When a lady returns her engagement ring and tells a man she doesn’t want to marry him, anyone but an idiot must get the message. As I am clearly dealing with the exception, I will spell it out so that even you cannot misunderstand me. I don’t ever want to see you at this house again. We are through, completely, utterly done with each other forever.”
    “Not quite done! It has apparently slipped your mind that I was involved in the engagement as well, and I deserve a better excuse for dismissal than that I offered shelter for a night to a friend in trouble.”
    “Then I’ll give you nine or ten or a hundred other reasons! You are immoral, conceited, a liar, a libertine and damned impertinent, sir, to send me threats by my mother.”
    “I am not a libertine!” he jumped in at once, lighting instinctively on her real objection. “It is a reflection of your mind that you impute lechery to me when I was doing no more than housing the afflicted.”
    “You ought to have clothed the naked while you were about it.”
    “She wasn’t naked!”
    “Next to it. If I had arrived five minutes sooner..."
    “If you had arrived five minutes sooner, you would have discovered me on the sofa in the drawing room. I had to go into my bedroom to get my jacket.”
    “Odd you found it necessary to warn Hettie to get rid of me, if picking up a jacket was your only business in Cybele’s room. Odd, too, you were having a cup of coffee with her, now I come to think of it, with a breakfast tray for two by the bedside.”
    “That wasn’t my idea--the tray! I was in a hurry, and carried my coffee in with me. I only told Hettie to take you away for a minute because I knew what you’d think. I know the way your mind works.”
    “If you had the least conception how my mind works, you wouldn’t be wasting my time and