This undercurrent of concealed hatred made itself so plainly felt that no one was sorry when the little party broke up. Mr. Bulkley, after using a heavy gold-handled pocket knife in cutting some cord from his parcels, had left it on the piano. As he was leaving he remembered it and thought to secure a few moments alone with Dorothy, so he paused at the porch-step and with amazing ill-breeding called familiarly to Dorothy to bring his knife to him. But Leslie Galt, black-browed, took the knife from her a moment, and, going to Mr. Bulkley, said, as he extended it to him: "Permit me to be your servant, sir, for this occasion!" For a moment they glared at each other, then Bulkley went his way, saying to himself: "The impudent young upstart!" while Galt turned back, muttering, with curling lip: "Gross old animal!" And when Mrs. Lawton had moaned several times that she "did not know--no, she was sure she did not know--what was the matter with dear Mr. Bulkley that day," Sybil, on mischief bent, whispered to Galt: "Do you know what is the matter with him, by any chance?" And the young man's eyes were very hard and bright as he replied, slowly: "Yes, I know what is the matter with him," and then, with a grim smile, he added, "just as well as he knows what is the matter with me!" CHAPTER XII THE PROMISED CROWN The Globe Theatre had closed for the summer and the season had ended in the triumphant manner desired by the manager. He had waved his flags and beaten his tin pans lustily up to the very last moment, and had successfully hived the public's swarm of bees in his theatre, as the honey in the box-office amply proved. Nothing that made for this success had been too small to receive personal attention, so even that city directory-like quarter column of "among those present were" had been cleverly made to serve him through his careful and judicious introduction of the names of two or three of the great nouveau riche, among the fashionably holy ones of the Vandergrifts, the Asteroids, the revolutionary Byrds, the colonial Fishers, the Carmichaels, and the Vinelanders, etc.--not, mind you, as of them, but as notedly close students of Shakspere. Oh, what a court-jester was lost in Thrall! These very new rich men, who, had they owned a folio of earliest edition, would eagerly have swapped it for an édition de luxe of to-day and given fifty dollars to boot--so much they knew of Shakspere--were nevertheless filled with joy to see their names in that dear list, "among those present were." And their gratitude to the man who had worked the miracle for them would take the form of steady attendance in the future, of many box parties, of loud public praise.