I had governed. Men, even the least assuming, do not forfeit all power,
all consideration, without a wrench; and I am but human. I relinquished
them, and without the help of a single kind word from you, by which the
sacrifice might at least have been mitigated. I wondered. Later, when
you heaped one small humiliation upon another, I concluded that I must
have had the misfortune to incur your personal dislike, and told
myself, after searching for the cause and finding none, that personal
dislikes are usually inexplicable. But now I see that I have been doing
you an injustice; that your affronts were not considered; that you have
all along, likely enough, been entirely unconscious of offence; that,
in short, you are as Heaven made you, and I cannot hold a quarrel with
any man's mere defects, whether congenital or of breeding. I shall not
waste time by inquiring to which of the two classes your obtuseness
should justly be assigned. It is enough that I recognise the mistake
and apologise for it. I see now that you are obtuse--that and nothing
more. But since your obtuseness wounds more than you can possibly
divine; and since in this instance it injures a lady, I shall ask you
to pay my poor quarters the last respect you owe them, and quit them
without further discussion."

He stepped to his writing-table and struck on a small hand-bell.
Promptly on the summons Sergeant Archelaus appeared in the doorway; so
promptly, indeed, that he might have found it hard, under
cross-examination, to rebut the charge of having stood listening
outside.

The Lord Proprietor, however, was in no condition to put a searching
question. He arose, gasping, his eyes rolling from the Commandant to
Archelaus and back. He felt for his hat like a man groping in the dark,
clutched it, and set it on his head with an experimental air, as though
it would not have entirely surprised him to find his feet in the place
of his head.

"I suppose," he stammered, "it has occurred to you that you may pay for
this?"

"It occurred to me," answered the Commandant, coolly and amiably, "that
you might threaten it."

"You shall, by God!"

The Commandant bowed.

"You shall certainly repent this, sir." The Lord Proprietor crammed his
hat on his head.

"May I ask you to observe that my servant is standing in the doorway?"

Sir Caesar turned, shot a glance at Archelaus, and for an instant
appeared to be on the point of including master and man in one
denunciatio