For a week or two we none of us let on that we had observed the
remarkable change that had come o'er the spirit of our dreams. Harry has
always been remarkable for his ability to conceal his feelings, and in
that respect I am a good second, and except for the fact that we spent
more time at the club playing pool nobody would have suspected that we
cared whether Araminta or Fiametta still loved us or not. Besides, we
each had a feeling that two could play at this Wilkins game, and I had
made up my mind that if Araminta could so easily find a substitute for
me I, with my twinkle, could as speedily replace her. That is to say, I
felt that I could create that impression in Araminta's mind, and that
was all I was after. I didn't really intend, however easy it would be
to do so, to create a flutter of a permanent nature in any other woman's
heart--that is, not until I was sure that Araminta was lost to me
forever. After a decent period of mourning I might have used my twinkle
for permanent effect, but at that moment my only idea was to show
Araminta that if one could be fickle, two could be twice as fickle.
Harry had the same course of treatment in store for Fiametta, and we
both made a strong bid for the company of Mary Brown, who, it must be
confessed, was a charming girl, and stood second in the affections of
every man in Dumfries Corners.

It was the opportunity of Mary Brown's life, for even as Harry and I had
decided, so had all the other jilted swains, but that curious girl
either could not or would not grasp it. She, too, had become a
Wilkinsite, and would have nothing to do with any of us. She declined to
attend the Beldens's musicale with me, and went bicycling with the
iceberg. She told Robinson she hated lectures, and went to a
stereopticon show with the train-wrecker. All the other men met with a
similar rebuff, and at the last meeting of the Chafing Dish Club she
capped the climax by refusing my lobster a la Newburg and Harry's
oysters poulet, to have a second helping to the sole-leather welsh
rarebit which Wilkins had constructed; Wilkins, a rank outsider, who had
been asked to come to the meeting by every blessed girl in the club,
although heretofore he had not been considered as a possible member, and
in fact had been black-balled by the girls themselves! And when it came
time for the girls to go home, instead of each one being escorted by a
single male member, Wilkins corralled the whole lot of them in a h