eat deal. My father told me I need
not stint. Don't use yours. Please don't use it. Marry me to-morrow,
and take mine.

[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]

Don't use it? Why, I _want_ to use it! You might as well ask a
new-crowned king to go and make a visit in central Africa, and pick up
all the gold he could carry. Be patient. I'll come to Africa by and by.
But just now I want to take mine ease in the opulence of my mind. I'm
having a new dress made of a queer dull green and blue, and I'll buy a
set of turquoises, God wot, and present them to myself from my dearest
friend. Uncle Obed lived and died in South America. I won't wear
mourning--I won't! I won't! Perhaps green and blue are mourning there.

[Sidenote: _Francis Hume to Zoe Montrose_]

Dearest lady,--Will you write me--just a word, only a word? You see I
could not get a whisper from you last night, and you were so brilliant
and sparkling, like a shining gem. Call me a baby, if you like. I don't
mind. Only say you love me. Just the three words, dear? And will you
take these little blue stones? I can see how they would look against
your skin; I held them near a pinkish rose, and then I saw you in my
mind and I threw the rose aside. Dear, the three words? I feel very
humble, very much of a beggar. Will you?

[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]

Now you are not sleeping, as I said when I saw the hollows coming under
your eyes, or you wouldn't fail in tact. It isn't like you. I want to
buy my turquoises myself. Don't you see how I am luxuriating in the
sense of unfamiliar power? It will pass, and then I'll take your gift.
Of course--the three words--_of course_; but I can't be always writing
them. They look so bathetic. Now I've seemed brutal and ill-tempered,
all in one letter. But why will you be faultless and appealing, and why
won't you see I am a child of the earth (the street-earth--paving-stones
ground up and mixed with champagne) and go home to your birds and trees?

[Sidenote: _Zoe Montrose to Francis Hume_]

You were not interesting last night, and Captain Morton was; therefore
I sat out with him. But you should not have turned white and frozen in
a corner. That sort of docile remonstrance in you rouses my aunt to a
height of righteousness which nature itself cannot endure. I mean my
nature. She says you are perfection, and that I don't deserve you. The
maxims are unimpeachable; I agree to both. Go, if you like, or stay and
be agree