n of
honor among the young and enthusiastic of the Quarter.

Rantoul began to appear in society, besieged with the invitations that
his Southern aristocracy and the romance of his success procured him.

"You go out too much," said Herkimer to him, with a fearful growl. "What
the deuce do you want with society, anyhow? Keep away from it. You've
nothing to do with it."

"What do I do? I go out once a week," said Rantoul, whistling
pleasantly.

"Once is too often. What do you want to become, a parlor celebrity?
Society _c'est l'ennemie_. You ought to hate it."

"I do."

"Humph!" said Herkimer, eying him across his sputtering clay pipe. "Get
this idea of people out of your head. Shut yourself up in a hole, work.
What's society, anyhow? A lot of bored people who want you to amuse
them. I don't approve. Better marry that pretty girl in the creamery.
She'll worship you as a god, make you comfortable. That's all you need
from the world."

"Marry her yourself; she'll sew and cook for you," said Rantoul, with
perfect good humor.

"I'm in no danger," said Herkimer, curtly; "you are."

"What!"

"You'll see."

"Listen, you old grumbler," said Rantoul, seriously. "If I go into
society, it is to see the hollowness of it all--"

"Yes, yes."

"To know what I rebel against--"

"Of course."

"To appreciate the freedom of the life I have--"

"Faker!"

"To have the benefit of contrasts, light and shade. You think I am not a
rebel. My dear boy, I am ten times as big a rebel as I was. Do you know
what I'd do with society?"

He began a tirade in the famous muscular Rantoul style, overturning
creeds and castes, reorganizing republics and empires, while Herkimer,
grumbling to himself, began to scold the model, who sleepily received
the brunt of his ill humor.

In the second year of his success Rantoul, quite by accident, met a girl
in her teens named Tina Glover, only daughter of Cyrus Glover, a man of
millions, self-made. The first time their eyes met and lingered, by the
mysterious chemistry of the passions Rantoul fell desperately in love
with this little slip of a girl, who scarcely reached to his shoulder;
who, on her part, instantly made up her mind that she had found the
husband she intended to have. Two weeks later they were engaged.

She was seventeen, scarcely more than a child, with clear, blue eyes
that seemed too large for her body, very timid and appealing. It is true
she seldom expressed an opinion, bu