Monsieur Bagasse was caught, and shrugged his humpy shoulders with an odd grimace. A feeling of honor withheld him from saying how he came by his information, since that would involve the exposure of the blabbing Witherlee. Witherlee, meanwhile, fully conscious of the ridiculous impropriety he had been guilty of, in tattling about his friends’ affairs to any person, much less the old fencing-master, and momently expecting to be subjected to the rage of Wentworth, and the rebuke of Harrington, stood nervously dreading the reply of Bagasse, and looking pale in spite of himself. Wentworth, for his part, taking a true-lover’s stand-point, was considerably amazed to see Harrington, whom he thought the secret lover of Miss Ames, so coolly bestowing her nosegay on the old Frenchman. As for Harrington, he was divided between wonder at Wentworth, for having not only given to the old Frenchman the flowers he had received from Miss Eastman—whom he in turn thought Wentworth secretly loved—but having also, as he naturally supposed, made the old Frenchman his confidant, at least to the extent of telling him of the two ladies and of their gifts. Fisk and Palmer were at it, quarte and tierce, with the foils. Meanwhile, there was a game of quarte and tierce of another sort begun between four, all against each other, and Monsieur Bagasse had just been buttoned. Harrington smiled good-naturedly, and silently gave the violets to the fencing-master, who took them and bowed without a word. Just then Wentworth approached with a composed air, which was so evidently assumed that Harrington began to laugh. Wentworth’s florid color had paled a little, but he answered Harrington’s laugh with a constrained smile, looking meanwhile in his face. “Well, Harrington,” he said, with an unsuccessful attempt at carelessness, “what the deuce is there in my giving Bagasse the violets, to make you show your maxillary muscles and the teeth under, your beard so delightedly? Hanged if I see anything to laugh at.” The maxillary muscles, which were unusually developed in Harrington’s cheeks, and always wrinkled them when he laughed, relaxed at this, but his white, regular teeth still showed in a curious, half-sad, half-absent smile, as he fixed his clear, broad gaze wistfully on the face of his friend. Wentworth, nettled at the mystery of a look he could not fathom, became peevish, and began to twirl his moustache, half smiling, half irritated. “Don’t be vexed, Wentworth,” said Harrington, throwing his long arm affectionately around the latter’s shoulder, and moving away up the room with him, while Bagasse shuffled off to his pupils. “I laughed thoughtlessly—but, frankly, I was somewhat surprised to see that you had given away the violets. That was all.” “All!” exclaimed Wentworth. “And why shouldn’t I give them away? They were mine, weren’t they? Why, you gave yours away too, didn’t you?”