mind makes in high-strung
moments, I saw myself and Coralie, close enfolded, pacing the world
together, o'er hill and plain, through storied cities, past rows of
applauding relations,--I in my Sunday knickerbockers, she in her pink
and spangles.

Summers sicken, flowers fail and die, all beauty but rides round the
ring and out at the portal; even so Coralie passed in her turn, poised
sideways, panting, on her steed; lightly swayed as a tulip-bloom, bowing
on this side and on that as she disappeared; and with her went my heart
and my soul, and all the light and the glory and the entrancement of the
scene.

Harold woke up with a gasp. "Wasn't she beautiful?" he said, in quite
a subdued way for him. I felt a momentary pang. We had been friendly
rivals before, in many an exploit; but here was altogether a more
serious affair. Was this, then, to be the beginning of strife and
coldness, of civil war on the hearthstone and the sundering of old ties?
Then I recollected the true position of things, and felt very sorry for
Harold; for it was inexorably written that he would have to give way
to me, since I was the elder. Rules were not made for nothing, in a
sensibly constructed universe.

There was little more to wait for, now Coralie had gone; yet I lingered
still, on the chance of her appearing again. Next moment the clown
tripped up and fell flat, with magnificent artifice, and at once fresh
emotions began to stir. Love had endured its little hour, and stern
ambition now asserted itself. Oh, to be a splendid fellow like this,
self-contained, ready of speech, agile beyond conception, braving the
forces of society, his hand against everyone, yet always getting the
best of it! What freshness of humour, what courtesy to dames, what
triumphant ability to discomfit rivals, frock-coated and moustached
though they might be! And what a grand, self-confident straddle of
the legs! Who could desire a finer career than to go through life thus
gorgeously equipped! Success was his key-note, adroitness his panoply,
and the mellow music of laughter his instant reward. Even Coralie's
image wavered and receded. I would come back to her in the evening, of
course; but I would be a clown all the working hours of the day.

The short interval was ended: the band, with long-drawn chords, sounded
a prelude touched with significance; and the programme, in letters
overtopping their fellows, proclaimed Zephyrine, the Bride of the
Desert, in her unequ