As he stepped back a ring fell from somewhere and bounded on the tiled floor.  Platt groped for it and found it.

“Now, take your useless diamond and go, Mr. Buyer,” she said.

“This was the other one—­the wedding ring,” said the Texan, holding the smooth gold band on the palm of his hand.

Miss Asher’s eyes blazed upon him in the half darkness.

“Was that what you meant?—­did you”—­

Somebody opened the door from inside the house.

“Good-night,” said Platt.  “I’ll see you at the store to-morrow.”

Miss Asher ran up to her room and shook the school teacher until she sat up in bed ready to scream “Fire!”

“Where is it?” she cried.

“That’s what I want to know,” said the model.  “You’ve studied geography, Emma, and you ought to know.  Where is a town called Cac—­Cac—­Carac—­Caracas City, I think, they called it?”

“How dare you wake me up for that?” said the school teacher.”  Caracas is in Venezuela, of course.”

“What’s it like?”

“Why, it’s principally earthquakes and negroes and monkeys and malarial fever and volcanoes.”

“I don’t care,” said Miss Asher, blithely; “I’m going there to-morrow.”

THE BADGE OF POLICEMAN O’ROON

It cannot be denied that men and women have looked upon one another for the first time and become instantly enamored.  It is a risky process, this love at first sight, before she has seen him in Bradstreet or he has seen her in curl papers.  But these things do happen; and one instance must form a theme for this story—­though not, thank Heaven, to the overshadowing of more vital and important subjects, such as drink, policemen, horses and earldoms.

During a certain war a troop calling itself the Gentle Riders rode into history and one or two ambuscades.  The Gentle Riders were recruited from the aristocracy of the wild men of the West and the wild men of the aristocracy of the East.  In khaki there is little telling them one from another, so they became good friends and comrades all around.

Ellsworth Remsen, whose old Knickerbocker descent atoned for his modest rating at only ten millions, ate his canned beef gayly by the campfires of the Gentle Riders.  The war was a great lark to him, so that he scarcely regretted polo and planked shad.

One of the troopers was a well set up, affable, cool young man, who called himself O’Roon.  To this young man Remsen took an especial liking.  The two rode side by side during the famous mooted up-hill charge that was disputed so hotly at the time by the Spaniards and afterward by the Democrats.

After the war Remsen came back to his polo and shad.  One day a well set up, affable, cool young man disturbed him at his club, and he and O’Roon were soon pounding each other and exchanging opprobrious epithets after the manner of long-lost friends.  O’Roon looked seedy and out of luck and perfectly contented.  But it seemed that his content was only apparent.