Disputes were rife when he first assumed command, and she wondered much if he would succeed in establishing order, for he possessed none of his brother’s winning charm of manner and but a very limited popularity.  But Nap showed himself from the outset fully equal to his undertaking.  He grappled with one difficulty after another with a lightning alertness, a prompt decision, which soon earned for him the respect of his unruly subordinates.  He never quarrelled, neither did he consider the feelings of any.  A cynical comment was the utmost he ever permitted himself in the way of retaliation, but he held his own unerringly, evolving order from confusion with a masterly disregard of opposition that carried all before it.

Dot, who was not without a very decided prejudice in favour of her own way, literally gasped in astonishment at his methods.  She would have liked to defy him openly a dozen times in a day, but Nap simply would not be defied.  He looked over her head with disconcerting arrogance, and Dot found herself defeated and impotent.  Dot had been selected for an important part, and it was not very long before she came bitterly to regret the fact.  He did not bully her, but he gave her no peace.  Over and over again he sent her back to the same place; and over and over again he found some fresh fault, till there came at length a day when Dot, weary and exasperated, subsided suddenly in the midst of rehearsal into indignant tears.

Nap merely raised his eyebrows and turned his attention elsewhere, while Anne drew the sobbing girl away, and tried to soothe her back to composure in privacy.

But it was some time before Dot would be comforted.  Her grievance against Nap was very deeply rooted, and it needed but this additional provocation to break its bounds.  It was not long before, clinging very tightly to Anne, the whole story came out; how she and Bertie loved each other “better than best,” how no one was to know of it and they scarcely dared to exchange a glance in public in consequence, how there could never, never be any engagement, all because that horrid, horrid Nap had dared to hint that she was pursuing Bertie for his money.

“I hate him!” sobbed Dot.  “I do hate him!  He’s cruel and malicious and vindictive.  I know he means to prevent our ever being happy together.  And—­and I know Bertie’s afraid of him—­and so am I!”

To all of which Anne listened with grave sympathy and such words of comfort as seemed most likely to induce in Dot a calmer and more reasonable state of mind.

But Dot was not to be reassured quickly.  It was very seldom that her equanimity was disturbed, only in fact when her deepest feelings were concerned, and this made her breakdown the more complete.  She apologised tearfully for her foolishness at rehearsal, which she set down to bodily fatigue.  She had been to see poor Squinny that morning, and she thought he really was dying at last.  He had cried so, and she hadn’t known how to comfort him, and then when she had got home there had been no time for luncheon, so she had just changed and come away without it.  And oh,—­this with her arms tightly about Anne’s neck—­she did wish she had a mother to help her.  Poor Dad was very sweet, but he didn’t understand a bit.