lmost affectionate, smile that expressed,
as plainly as a smile could express, her sorrow for his misery and her
readiness to comfort him. In a word, Rose Carthame's conduct simply was
outrageous!

The jealous anger which had inflamed Jattne's breast the night before
swelled and expanded into a raging passion. He longed to engage in
mortal combat this stranger who was alienating the affection that
should be his. The element of absurdity in the situation no longer was
apparent to him. In truth, as he reasoned, the situation was not
absurd. To all intents and purposes he was two people and it was the
other one of him, not himself at all, who was winning Rose's interest,
perhaps her love. For a moment the thought crossed his mind that he
would adjust the difficulty in his own favor by remaining this other
person always. But the hard truth confronted him that every time he
washed his face he would cease to be the elderly Marquis, with the
harder truth that the fabulous wealth with which, as the Marquis, the
newspapers had endowed him was too entirely fabulous to serve as a
basis for substantial life. And being thus cut off from hope, he fell
back upon jealous hatred of himself.

That night the evening paper in which the first mention of the
mysterious French nobleman had been made contained an article cleverly
contrived to give point to the mystery in its commercial aspect. The
fact had been observed, the article declared, that the nobleman's
promenade began and ended at a prominent clothing establishment on
Broadway; and then followed, in the guise of a contribution toward the
clearing up of the mystery, an interview with the proprietor of the
establishment in question. However, the interview left the mystery just
where it found it, for all that the tailor told was that the Marquis
had bought several suits of clothes from him; that he had shown himself
to be an exceptionally critical person in the matter of his wearing
apparel; that he had expressed repeatedly his entire satisfaction with
his purchases. In another portion of the paper was a glaring
advertisement, in which the clothing man set forth, in an animated
fashion, the cheapness and desirability of "The Marquis Suit"--a suit
that "might be seen to advantage on the person of the afflicted French
nobleman now in our midst who had honored it with his approval, and in
whose honor it had been named." Upon reading the newspaper narrative
and its advertisement pendant,