happy without a tyrant to obey."

"And you--are you of those?" asked Richard, half mocking Bess.

"No; I prefer the role of despot. It is the reason why I shall marry Mr.
Fopling."

"And yet Mr. Fopling might turn out a perfect Caligula," said Richard,
with a vast pretense of warning. Mr. Fopling was not there to hear
himself ill-used.

"Mr. Fopling," observed Bess, in tones of lofty conviction, "has no
ambitions, no energies, no thoughts; and he has money. In brief, he is
beset by none of those causes that excite and drive men into politics or
literature or trade. He will have nothing to consider in his life but
me."

"But," said Richard, "Mr. Fopling might turn out in the end a veritable
Vesuvius. Mr. Fopling has often struck me as volcanic; who shall say
that he will not some day erupt?"

Bess was not to be frightened.

"Mr. Fopling will do and say and think as I direct; and we shall be
very, very happy."

Richard gave Dorothy a comical look of simulated dismay; and shook his
head as though counseling against such heresies.

"Of course," Bess continued, "what I propose for Mr. Fopling would not
do for you. Were you and I to marry"--Dorothy started--"it would result
in civil war. I've no doubt that you will be given a wife worthy your
tyrannical deserts. She will find her happiness in sitting at your feet,
while her love will make you its trellis to climb and clamber on."

The conversation was not so foolishly serious as it sounds, and for the
most part Bess and Richard were indulging in just no more than so much
verbal sparring. Dorothy took no side; those questions of marriages and
wives and husbands would ever find her tongue-tied if Richard were
around.

"Will you have some tea?" asked Bess, when Richard, in response to the
rapped window, made his way into her presence.

No, Richard would not have tea.

"Then you may smoke," said Bess. "That proves me your friend, doesn't
it?" as Richard started a grateful cloud. "Now, to repay my friendship,
I want to ask a question and a favor."

"You shall!" cried Richard magniloquently. Bess and he were on amiable
terms, and he was secretly assured that the blonde pythoness approved
him. "What am I to answer? What am I to do? Has the cherished Fopling
gone astray? Say but the word, and I shall hale him to your feet."

"Mr. Fopling is in the library," replied Bess. "He and Ajax could not
get along without quarreling, and I separated them. The question and the