ent; and the solution was hard to find.
She knew that even a brighter remark from herself would not have so much
as caused them to interrupt their service; but she was imperfectly
acquainted with the psychology of rulership, and did not understand that
when once, by fair means or foul, a certain member of a party has by her
own unaided efforts elevated herself to the position of its queen,
everything ostensibly witty that proceeds from her mouth is greeted with
obsequious laughter by her devoted subjects.

Indeed, in order not to appear a spoilsport, Cleopatra was at last
reduced to the humiliating resort of joining in the courtly merriment
which appeared to her so extravagantly to result from her sister's
mildest jests.

To say that by this time she was feeling a slight sinking sensation in
the region of her heart, would be to express with scrupulous moderation
what was actually taking place. For Cleopatra, theretofore, had held her
own against the best. A good rider, a splendid shot, with almost a
professional form in tennis and golf, and a good swimmer and dancer
besides, she possessed none of those shortcomings, so handsomely
acknowledged when they are present, which would even have justified her
in taking up an unassuming position. Besides she was quite rightly aware
of owning certain sterling qualities which promised to afford a very
much more solid support to the everyday life of this world, than the
constant carnival brilliance of her sister; and she found it oppressive
to have to appear perpetually in carnival spirits, when she craved for
those more sober moods in which her less volatile virtues could make a
good display.

She was beginning to find her sister's hard, unrelenting rivalry
difficult to forgive, and the steady shaping of a dreaded feeling of
loathing for the cause of her partial eclipse began to cause her some
alarm.

Thus each day ended with a tacit, concealed, but very real victory for
Leonetta, without her sister deriving any further satisfaction from the
unavowed contest, than an aching weariness both of body and spirit.

Meanwhile Vanessa, more piqued by her whilom "sweetheart's" increasing
neglect of her than by that young lady's inordinate success with the
men, would come on the scene in the evening with all the advantage of
being less jaded than Cleopatra by the day's incessant duel, and then
would frequently score point after point against her schoolmate, without
ever revealing a sig