the severer measures of corporeal punishment, she remarked in a spirit
of meekness and a very faint voice:

"Jerome, let me go, please; you are hurting me."

"But how much more you are hurting me," said Jerome, harshly.

He released her, however, and felt ashamed. No man with real manliness
in him, but does feel ashamed after he has hurt a woman. She may have
deserved it, and yet he feels ashamed.

One would think that now after this ungentlemanly conduct on Jerome's
part, Mell the high spirited will not only be full of a tremendous
indignation, but be willing, and more than willing, to give him up for
good and all.

How little you know a woman, you who think that! A harmless man never
does anywhere so little harm as in a woman's affections. The rod of
empire sways the world and a woman's mind--all women, to a great or
less degree; all women are sisters.

In other words, it is very necessary for a man to be capable of
shaking up a woman for past offences, and present naughtiness, when
she needs it, or else he must make up his mind to take a back seat and
give up the supremacy. Some of the fair sex never come to terms
without a shaking--there may be one or two, here and there among them,
who never come to terms, even with a shaking!

Mell did not belong to this small minority; she was completely
subdued. Contrite, and submissive, she now approached her audacious
antagonist; approached him timidly, where he stood a little apart, and
with his back turned to her, feeling, as we have said, quite ashamed
of himself, and said gently:

"Jerome, I will break with Rube if you will break with Clara."

"An honorable man cannot leave a woman in the lurch," answered he, in
a manner indicative of a strong protest under the existing law.

"And how about an honorable woman?" interrogated Mell.

"She can lie, and lie, and still be honorable," he informed her with
fierce irony.

"Then you expect me to----"

"I do! I confidently expect you to do it, and at once. Break with him,
and have a little patience with me, until Clara gets the Honorable
Archibald taut on the line, and awakens to the fact that she loves me
still--but only as a brother! It is coming--it is sure to come, and
before long."

"In the meantime," remarked Mell, with a peculiar expression, "what's
the use of hurting Rube's feelings?"

"Gods and angels, listen!" exclaimed her companion, in overwhelming
indignation. "The question then has narrowed down to t