good-hearted, horsey gentleman did, he did thoroughly well.  The crisp notes, more than Jaune ever had seen together in all his life before—­save once, when he took a dealer’s check for ten dollars to a bank and looked through the wire screen while the bank man haughtily cashed it—­lay on the table where Mr. Badger Brush had left them; and their blissful presence proved that his happiness was not a dream, but real.

From the corner into which, loathingly, he had kicked it, he drew forth the bundle containing “The Marquis Suit.”  With a certain solemnity he resumed these garments of price in which he had suffered so much torture, and, being clad, boldly presented himself to Madame Carthame with a formal demand for her daughter’s hand.  And in view of the sudden and prodigious change that had come over M. d’Antimoine’s fortunes, almost was Madame Carthame persuaded that the matrimonial plans which she had laid out for her daughter might be changed.  Yet did she hesitate before announcing that their Median and Persian quality might be questioned:  for the hope that Rose might be a countess lay very close to Madarne Carthame’s heart.  However, her determination was shaken, which was a great point gained.

And presently—­for Jaune’s star was triumphantly in the ascendant—­it was completely destroyed.  The instrument of its destruction was Mr. Badger Brush’s groom, Stumps.

Stumps was a talkative creature, and whenever he came down to Jaune’s studio, as he very often did while the portrait of Celeripes was in progress, he had a good deal to say over and above the message that he brought, as to when the horse would be free for the next “sitting” in the paddock at Mr. Brush’s country place, where Jaune was painting him.  And Jaune, who was one of the best-natured of mortals, usually suffered Stumps to talk away until he was tired.

“You might knock me down with a wisp of hay, you might, indeed, sir,” said the groom one morning a fortnight after the picture had been begun—­the day but one, in fact, before that set for Vandyke Brown’s wedding.  “Yes, sir,” he continued, “with a wisp of hay, or even with a single straw!  Here I’ve been face to face with my own father’s brother’s son, and I’ve put out my hand to him, and he’s turned away short and pretended as he didn’t know me and went off!  And they tells me at his lodgin’, for I follered him a-purpose to find him out, that he calls hisself a Frenchman, and says as how his name—­which it is Stumps, and always has been—­is Count Sikativ de Cortray!”

Jaune’s palette and brushes fell to the floor with a crash.  “Is it posseeble that you do tell me of the Comte Siccatif de Courtray?  Are you then sure that you do not make one grand meestake?  Is it ’im truly that you ’ave seen?”

“Him, sir?  Why, in course it’s him.  Haven’t I knowed him ever since he wasn’t higher’n a hoss’s fetlock?  Don’t I tell you as me and him’s fust cousins?  Him?  In course it’s him—­the gump!”