d himself in a sort of excess, or
what he would be if he were logically ultimated. He remembered all the
triviality of his behavior with Ellen at first, and rather sickened at
the thought of some of his early pleasantries. She was talking gayly
now with Trannel, and Breckon wondered whether she was falling under the
charm that he felt in him, in spite of himself.

If she was, her father was not. The judge sat on the other side of the
car, and unmistakably glowered at the fellow's attempts to make himself
amusing to Ellen. Trannel himself was not insensible to the judge's
mood. Now and then he said something to intensify it. He patronized the
judge and he made fun of the tourist character in which Boyne had got
himself up, with a field-glass slung by a strap under one arm and a
red Baedeker in his hand. He sputtered with malign laughter at a rather
gorgeous necktie which Boyne had put on for the day, and said it was not
a very good match for the Baedeker.

Boyne retorted rudely, and that amused Trannel still more. He became
personal to Breckon, and noted the unclerical cut of his clothes. He
said he ought to have put on his uniform for an expedition like that,
in case they got into any sort of trouble. To Ellen alone he was
inoffensive, unless he overdid his polite attentions to her in carrying
her parasol for her, and helping her out of the tram, when they arrived,
shouldering every one else away, and making haste to separate her from
the others and then to walk on with her a little in advance.

Suddenly he dropped her, and fell back to Boyne and his father, while
Breckon hastened forward to her side. Trannel put his arm across Boyne's
shoulders and asked him if he were mad, and then laughed at him. "You're
all right, Boyne, but you oughtn't to be so approachable. You ought to
put on more dignity, and repel familiarity!"

Boyne could only twitch away in silence that he made as haughty as he
could, but not so haughty that Trannel did not find it laughable, and he
laughed in a teasing way that made Breckon more and more serious. He
was aware of becoming even solemn with the question of his likeness to
Trannel. He was of Trannel's quality, and their difference was a matter
of quantity, and there was not enough difference. In his sense of their
likeness Breckon vowed himself to a gravity of behavior evermore
which he should not probably be able to observe, but the sample he now
displayed did not escape the keen vigilance