he knew he would be beaten. They
belted themselves up, and Raoul Marcel, the choir tenor and Father
Duchesne's pet, and Jean Bordelau, held the string over which they
vaulted. All the French boys stood round, cheering and humping
themselves up when Emil or Amedee went over the wire, as if they
were helping in the lift. Emil stopped at five-feet-five, declaring
that he would spoil his appetite for supper if he jumped any more.

Angelique, Amedee's pretty bride, as blonde and fair as her name,
who had come out to watch the match, tossed her head at Emil and
said:--

"'Medee could jump much higher than you if he were as tall. And
anyhow, he is much more graceful. He goes over like a bird, and
you have to hump yourself all up."

"Oh, I do, do I?" Emil caught her and kissed her saucy mouth squarely,
while she laughed and struggled and called, "'Medee! 'Medee!"

"There, you see your 'Medee isn't even big enough to get you away
from me. I could run away with you right now and he could only
sit down and cry about it. I'll show you whether I have to hump
myself!" Laughing and panting, he picked Angelique up in his arms
and began running about the rectangle with her. Not until he saw
Marie Shabata's tiger eyes flashing from the gloom of the basement
doorway did he hand the disheveled bride over to her husband.
"There, go to your graceful; I haven't the heart to take you away
from him."

Angelique clung to her husband and made faces at Emil over the
white shoulder of Amedee's ball-shirt. Emil was greatly amused at
her air of proprietorship and at Amedee's shameless submission to
it. He was delighted with his friend's good fortune. He liked to
see and to think about Amedee's sunny, natural, happy love.

He and Amedee had ridden and wrestled and larked together since
they were lads of twelve. On Sundays and holidays they were always
arm in arm. It seemed strange that now he should have to hide the
thing that Amedee was so proud of, that the feeling which gave one
of them such happiness should bring the other such despair. It
was like that when Alexandra tested her seed-corn in the spring,
he mused. From two ears that had grown side by side, the grains
of one shot up joyfully into the light, projecting themselves into
the future, and the grains from the other lay still in the earth
and rotted; and nobody knew why.

X

While Emil and Carl were amusing themselves at the fair, Alexandra
was at home, busy with her accou