something had happened."

"No, nothing has happened," said Gregory, with a sort of violence; which
was heightened by a sense of the rings and tendrils of loose hair
springing from the mass that defined her pretty head. "Don't you know
that you oughtn't to say 'No'm' and 'Yes'm?"' he demanded, bitterly, and
then he expected to see the water come into her eyes, or the fire into
her cheeks.

Clementina merely looked interested. "Did I say that? I meant to say Yes,
ma'am and No, ma'am; but I keep forgetting."

"You oughtn't to say anything!" Gregory answered savagely, "Just say Yes,
and No, and let your voice do the rest."

"Oh!" said the girl, with the gentlest abeyance, as if charmed with the
novelty of the idea. "I should be afraid it wasn't polite."

Gregory took an even brutal tone. It seemed to him as if he were forced
to hurt her feelings. But his words, in spite of his tone, were not
brutal; they might have even been thought flattering. "The politeness is
in the manner, and you don't need anything but your manner."

"Do you think so, truly?" asked the girl joyously. "I should like to try
it once!"

He frowned again. "I've no business to criticise your way of speaking."

"Oh yes'm--yes, ma'am; sir, I mean; I mean, Oh, yes, indeed! The'a! It
does sound just as well, don't it?" Clementina laughed in triumph at the
outcome of her efforts, so that a reluctant visional smile came upon
Gregory's face, too. "I'm very mach obliged to you, Mr. Gregory--I shall
always want to do it, if it's the right way."

"It's the right way," said Gregory coldly.

"And don't they," she urged, "don't they really say Sir and Ma'am,
whe'e--whe'e you came from?"

He said gloomily, "Not ladies and gentlemen. Servants do. Waiters--like
me." He inflicted this stab to his pride with savage fortitude and he
bore with self-scorn the pursuit of her innocent curiosity.

"But I thought--I thought you was a college student."

"Were," Gregory corrected her, involuntarily, and she said, "Were, I
mean."

"I'm a student at college, and here I'm a servant! It's all right!" he
said with a suppressed gritting of the teeth; and he added, "My Master
was the servant of the meanest, and I must--I beg your pardon for
meddling with your manner of speaking--"

"Oh, I'm very much obliged to you; indeed I am. And I shall not care if
you tell me of anything that's out of the way in my talking," said
Clementina, generously.

"Thank you; I think I won'