n it comes! I was aware that both the young women were
looking at me, and that both were quietly laughing. And I must have cut
a ridiculous figure indeed, though I have since been informed on good
authority that this was not so. Much I cared then what happened. Then
came Miss Trevor's reply, and it seemed to shake the very foundations of
my wits.

"But, Marian," said she, "you can't have him. He is engaged to me. And
if it's quite the same to you, I want him myself. It isn't often, you
know, that one has the opportunity to marry a Celebrity."

The Celebrity turned around: an expression of extraordinary intelligence
shot across his face, and I knew then that the hole in the well-nigh
invulnerable armor of his conceit had been found at last. And Miss
Thorn, of all people, had discovered it.

"Engaged to you?" she cried, "I can't believe it. He would be untrue
to everything he has written."

"My word should be sufficient," said Miss Trevor, stiffly. (May I be
hung if they hadn't acted it all out before.) "If you should wish proofs,
however, I have several notes from him which are at your service, and an
inscribed photograph. No, Marian," she added, shaking her head, "I
really cannot give him up."

Miss Thorn rose and confronted him, and her dignity was inspiring.
"Is this so?" she demanded; "is it true that you are engaged to marry
Miss Trevor?"

The Bone of Contention was badly troubled. He had undoubtedly known what
it was to have two women quarrelling over his hand at the same time, but
I am willing to bet that the sensation of having them come together in
his presence was new to him.

"I did not think--" he began. "I was not aware that Miss Trevor looked
upon the matter in that light, and you know--"

"What disgusting equivocation," Miss Trevor interrupted. "He asked me
point blank to marry him, and of course I consented. He has never
mentioned to me that he wished to break the engagement, and I wouldn't
have broken it."

I felt like a newsboy in a gallery,--I wanted to cheer. And the
Celebrity kicked the stones and things.

"Who would have thought," she persisted, "that the author of The
Sybarites, the man who chose Desmond for a hero, could play thus idly
with the heart of woman? The man who wrote these beautiful lines:
'Inconstancy in a woman, because of the present social conditions, is
sometimes pardonable. In a man, nothing is more despicable.' And how
poetic a justice it is that he has to marry me,