sted that it seemed a shame
not to be engaged, and how we fixed it to be engaged for a week, and it
made him furious! But as good a fellow as I've been, the way you took
our joke was shabby. You people may know some good excuse, but----"

Madame le Claire was not only a diplomat: she was a strategist. Now,
she saw, was the supreme moment in which to complete for Florian the
good work she had begun.

"Please excuse Mr. Brassfield," said sha. "He is wanted in the back
parlor; come, Mr. Brassfield, give me your arm!"

Through the portiere she swept, bearing Amidon as on wings. There sat
Elizabeth, her face bowed down upon her arms, on the back of a sofa.
She rose as they entered.

"Elizabeth!" cried Florian. "My darling!"

He stretched out his hands pleadingly, and walked toward her. She
shrank back; and Madame le Claire retreated, knowing that the struggle
of Amidon's life was before him.

Yet, gentle reader, why should not Amidon win? To us, a thousand
things might seem to need explanation; but to Elizabeth, all this
separation of Amidon from Brassfield was so new, so little realized,
that her love bridged the chasm, and nothing was required except the
clearing up of a week or two of curious happenings, most of which had
already been so glozed over by Madame le Claire's generous plea, that
what girl in love would require any greater price in humble wooing than
Florian yearned to pay? Why, mesmerism alone covers all sorts of odd
and suspicious doings. The case, for instance, of---- But that is
beside the point. The point is, that with half of Brassfield's skill,
Amidon will win handsomely. Some scenes ought not to be painted--in
this plain and flippant prose. Let us wait, therefore, until the
arrival of the voices of Florian and Elizabeth at the pitch of ordinary
conversation admonishes us that the prose writer's psychological moment
has arrived. Then we may take and transcribe some notes.

"Of course," Florian said, "he must have had some redeeming
traits--superficially, or you would never have cared for him----"

"Oh, don't say such things!" she protested. "Your real, real self came
uppermost, I am sure, in your behavior to me. You were perfectly
lovely, even if you didn't understand me as I wanted you to do--as you
do now."

"Dearest!" he whispered. "You never loved him as you do me, did you?"

That little laugh that first charmed him filled the pause.

"Don't say 'him!'" she commanded.