put things on a pleasanter footing between them,
someone else demanded his attention.

"See here," said Jerome, as soon as Rube's back was turned. "I hope
you now consider me sufficiently punished. I hope you feel even. I
hope you won't treat me to any more state airs. I am tired of them.
Your Majesty, let me tell you something. Mark well my words. It is to
me, not Rube, you owe your present exaltation."

"_To you!_"

The unsmiling countenance now broke into a ripple of scorn.

"What a ridiculous thing for you to say!"

"The whole thing has been ridiculous," said Jerome. "I never in my
whole life ever enjoyed anything so much. 'Tis the one grain of truth
which gives point to the ridiculous. Think of Rube, dear fellow, so
anxious to crown you, knowing nothing, suspecting nothing, begging me
not to run fast, and I, so ten thousand times more anxious than he
could possibly be, to have you crowned."

"_You?_"

"Yes. _Me!_ Don't you know, in your heart, Mellville, that I wanted
you crowned?"

"No, I know nothing of the kind! When a man wants a thing done, he
does it with his own hand; when he does not want it done, or cares
not much about it, he does it with another man's hand. Had you been
anxious you would not have left it to Rube."

"But with that wreath in my own hand, Mell, I was morally bound to put
it upon another head."

"Ah, indeed! Why?"

Jerome did not answer immediately. When he did, it was with averted
eyes, and with some impatience, and not in reply to her first question
at all, but her quick repetition of his own words, "Morally bound,
eh?"

"Yes, Mellville. You forget I am a guest in her mother's house."

"I do not forget it! I remember it every hour in the whole twenty-four;
but does that make it incumbent upon you to ignore me? Jerome, look me
in the face. What is Clara Rutland to you?"

"Nothing!" exclaimed he, savagely, between compressed lips. "Less than
nothing! A hundred times to-day I have wished her at the bottom of--"

"There! No use to send her there _now_. It's too late!"

The knowledge of what she had done, the wretchedness she saw it was
destined to entail upon her, all this while couchant like a wild beast
within her, now uprose into her expressive features. Jerome was struck
with it.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"You will know soon enough," she responded.

He stooped to pick up the handkerchief she had dropped, and in
restoring it, his hand, so cool and steady, cam