At recess the others crowded about her, girls at the centre, within a straggling circumference of young males, who dissembled their gallantry under a pretence of being mere brutal marauders.

But I, solitary, moped and gloomed in a far grassy corner of the school yard.  I could not be of that crowd, and it was then I perceived for the first time that the world was too densely populated.  I saw how much better it would be if every one but she and I were dead.  Thereupon, in a breath, I dispeopled the earth of all but us two, and with the courage gained of this solitude, I saw myself approach her there at the corner of the old brick schoolhouse, greeting her with assurances that everything was all right,—­and then, after she understood what I had done, and how fine it was, we came into our own.  Alas, how bitter the crude truth!  Instead of this, those wondrous tassels now danced from her boot tops as she gave chase to Solon Denney, who had pulled one of the scarlet bows from its yellow braid.  Grimly I was aware that he should be the first to go out of the world, and I called upon a just heaven to slay him as he fled with his trophy.  But nothing sweet and fitting happened.  He went unblasted.

She came back to the group of girls, flushed and lovely beyond compare, holding up the ravished end of that golden braid with a comic dismay, while her despoiler laughed coarsely from a distance and pinned the trophy to his coat lapel.  I now saw that blasting was too merciful.  He should be removed by a slower process if the thing could as easily be arranged.

That was a bitter recess, even though I learned her wonderful name and the enchanted state “back East” from which she had come.  A still more bitter experience awaited me when we were again in the schoolroom.  Miss Berham, fastening a steely gaze upon Solon Denney, launched heaven upon him from tightly drawn lips, without in the least meaning to do so.

“Solon Denney, you may return that ribbon at once to its owner!”

With a conscious smirk, amid the titters of the room and the sharp raps of the ruler on Miss Berham’s desk, Solon swaggered offensively to the seat that enshrined my idol, and flung down the scarlet treasure before her.  She merely pushed the thing away, bending her head lower above her book—­pushed it away with a blind little hand, and with undiminished bravado her despoiler returned, scathless of heaven’s vengeance, to his seat.

“And you may remain half an hour after school.  The A-class, ready for geography!”

Thus, lightly did our ruler turn from tragedy to comedy.  For tragedy, there was the look my queen lavished upon Solon when she heard his sentence; a look of blushing merriment, with a maddening dash of pity in it,—­he was to suffer because of her.

“’Twas your beauty that made me do it,” he might have quoted, with the old result.  How I longed for the jaunty lightness that would have let me do a thing like that, tossing me fairly to the pinnacle of a public association with her!  But I, instead, moped alone, knowing well that the gifts of graceful brigandage were not mine.  Had I snatched that ribbon, there would have been tears and a mad outcry at my brutal roughness.