“Sir,” said Lorison, trembling, “say what you please of me.  Doubt it as you must, I will yet prove my gratitude to you, and my devotion to her.  But let me speak to her once now, let me kneel for just one moment at her feet, and—­”

“Tut, tut!” said the priest.  “How many acts of a love drama do you think an old bookworm like me capable of witnessing?  Besides, what kind of figures do we cut, spying upon the mysteries of midnight millinery!  Go to meet your wife to-morrow, as she ordered you, and obey her thereafter, and maybe some time I shall get forgiveness for the part I have played in this night’s work.  Off wid yez down the shtairs, now!  ‘Tis late, and an ould man like me should be takin’ his rest.”

XXIV

MADAME BO-PEEP, OF THE RANCHES

“Aunt Ellen,” said Octavia, cheerfully, as she threw her black kid gloves carefully at the dignified Persian cat on the window-seat, “I’m a pauper.”

“You are so extreme in your statements, Octavia, dear,” said Aunt Ellen, mildly, looking up from her paper.  “If you find yourself temporarily in need of some small change for bonbons, you will find my purse in the drawer of the writing desk.”

Octavia Beaupree removed her hat and seated herself on a footstool near her aunt’s chair, clasping her hands about her knees.  Her slim and flexible figure, clad in a modish mourning costume, accommodated itself easily and gracefully to the trying position.  Her bright and youthful face, with its pair of sparkling, life-enamoured eyes, tried to compose itself to the seriousness that the occasion seemed to demand.

“You good auntie, it isn’t a case of bonbons; it is abject, staring, unpicturesque poverty, with ready-made clothes, gasolined gloves, and probably one o’clock dinners all waiting with the traditional wolf at the door.  I’ve just come from my lawyer, auntie, and, ’Please, ma’am, I ain’t got nothink ’t all.  Flowers, lady?  Buttonhole, gentleman?  Pencils, sir, three for five, to help a poor widow?’ Do I do it nicely, auntie, or, as a bread-winner accomplishment, were my lessons in elocution entirely wasted?”

“Do be serious, my dear,” said Aunt Ellen, letting her paper fall to the floor, “long enough to tell me what you mean.  Colonel Beaupree’s estate—­”

“Colonel Beaupree’s estate,” interrupted Octavia, emphasizing her words with appropriate dramatic gestures, “is of Spanish castellar architecture.  Colonel Beaupree’s resources are—­wind.  Colonel Beaupree’s stocks are—­water.  Colonel Beaupree’s income is—­all in.  The statement lacks the legal technicalities to which I have been listening for an hour, but that is what it means when translated.”

“Octavia!” Aunt Ellen was now visibly possessed by consternation.  “I can hardly believe it.  And it was the impression that he was worth a million.  And the De Peysters themselves introduced him!”