chagrin, and hurried his steps in sheer distress. He
did not experience that dull, vacant acceptance of universal scorn which
an unresentful coward feels. His pangs were all the more poignant
because he knew his own courage.

In his home he went so straight up to the withered little old lady, in
the dingiest of flimsy black, who was his aunt, and kissed her so
passionately, that she asked at once what was the matter. He recounted
the facts, shedding tears of mortification. Her feeling, by the time
he had finished the account, was a more unmixed wrath than his, and,
harmless as she was, and wrapped up in her dear, pretty nephew as she
was, she yet demanded to know why such a man shouldn't be called out
upon the field of honor.

"Ah!" cried Narcisse, shrinkingly. She had touched the core of the
tumor. One gets a public tongue-lashing from a man concerning money
borrowed; well, how is one going to challenge him without first handing
back the borrowed money? It was a scalding thought! The rotten joists
beneath the bare scrubbed-to-death floor quaked under Narcisse's
to-and-fro stride.

"--And then, anyhow!"--he stopped and extended both hands, speaking, of
course, in French,--"anyhow, he is the favored friend of Dr. Sevier. If
I hurt him--I lose my situation! If he hurts me--I lose my situation!"

He dried his eyes. His aunt saw the insurmountability of the difficulty,
and they drowned feeling in an affectionate glass of green-orangeade.

"But never mind!" Narcisse set his glass down and drew out his tobacco.
He laughed spasmodically as he rolled his cigarette. "You shall see. The
game is not finished yet."

Yet Richling passed the next day and night without assassination, and
on the second morning afterward, as on the first, went out in quest of
employment. He and Mary had eaten bread, and it had gone into their life
without a remainder either in larder or purse. Richling was all aimless.

"I do wish I had the _art_ of finding work," said he. He smiled. "I'll
get it," he added, breaking their last crust in two. "I have the science
already. Why, look you, Mary, the quiet, amiable, imperturbable,
dignified, diurnal, inexorable haunting of men of influence will get you
whatever you want."

"Well, why don't you do it, dear? Is there any harm in it? I don't see
any harm in it. Why don't you do that very thing?"

"I'm telling you the truth," answered he, ignoring her question.
"Nothing else short of overtowering merit