"Ha, ha, my beautiful boy," said the Marquis of Rivaulx, whom he found in his rooms in Piccadilly, "have you come with news for me, the devoted and despairing?" "Well, I don’t know, marquis," returned Bob, soberly. "I’ve been thinking about it, and I’m in a state of puzzle." "And I am in a state of the devil himself," replied Rivaulx. "I suspect every one. I am enraged. I suspect you, Bob, my boy." Bob shook his head. "I suspect you, too. I’ve never got over thinking that it may be you," he said, "for you are all just like each other, and it’s obvious some one is telling me lies." Rivaulx smiled, a deep and dark French smile, which was agonizing to behold. It puzzled Bob dreadfully. "There," he said, "you smile, and so does Pen, and you all smile. But I believe I’ve discovered something." "About who or which?" asked Rivaulx. "Is it about that Goby?" He might loathe Gordon, but he was jealous of Goby. He promenaded the room, and was already in a rage. "Yes," said Bob, boldly. "I believe she’s not married, and I believe she likes him best." "The hound, the vile one, the unmeasured beast," roared Rivaulx, "it cannot be. If she loves him (no, I can’t believe it), why does she not wed him? I shall slay him. Is she unhappy? Does she weep? I adore her, but if she loves him he shall marry her or I will stab him to the heart." "I dare say he’s not in earnest," said Bob. And the marquis ground his teeth and foamed at the mouth, and again tried to tear his close-cropped hair without the least success. "Not—oh, sacred dog of a man,—ha—let me kill him!" He tore around the room and knocked two ornaments off the mantelpiece and upset a table, which Bob laboriously restored to its place. After he had put it back three times, he gave it up and cowered under the storm. "I shouldn’t be surprised if this was put on," said Bob, rather gloomily. "I know he can act like blazes; Pen says he can. She said he was finer than Irving or Toole in a tragedy. I don’t think it has the true ring of sincerity." And making his escape from the cyclone, he went off to see Goby, who was hideously jealous of Carteret Williams. "I hope he won’t be as mad as the marquis," said Bob. "That table barked my shins horribly the last time it fell. I wish Frenchmen wouldn’t shout so when they’re angry; I’m nearly deaf." There was the devil to pay with Goby. He announced his intention of assaulting Williams at once. "Oh, I say, you mustn’t," cried Bob, in great alarm. "She’ll never forgive you." "That Williams!" said Goby. "I always did hate war correspondents. I don’t believe it." But it looked as if he did. "I dare say you are putting it on," cried Bob. "I don’t know where I am." Goby said he didn’t, either, but that if this turned out to be true he would wring Williams’s neck in the park the first fine Sunday in June.