"Oh, I see!" he said, nodding with amused playfulness. "I see. You were watching--from the window, perhaps, eh?" and he shook his arm playfully. "And like a great many other spectators, took jest for earnest! Impetuous boy!" Frank looked at the pale, smiling face, and at Stella's downcast one. "Is it true?" he asked Stella, bluntly. "Oh, come!" said Jasper, reproachfully. "Isn't that rather rude? But I must forgive you, and I do it easily, my dear Frank, when I remember that your sudden onslaught was prompted by a desire to champion Miss Stella! Now come, you owe me a rose, go and cut me one, and we will be friends--great friends, will we not?" Frank slid from his grasp, but stood eying him suspiciously. "You will not?" said Jasper. "Still uncertain lest it should have been sober earnest? Then I will cut one for myself. May I?" and he smiled at Stella. Stella did not speak, but she inclined her head. Jasper went to one of the standards and cut a red rose deliberately and carefully, and placed it in his coat, then he cut another, and with a smile held it to Stella. "Will that do instead of the one the stupid boy has spoiled?" he said, laughing. Stella would have liked to refuse it, but Frank's eyes were upon her. Slowly she held out her hand and took the rose. A smile of triumph glittered for a moment in Jasper's eyes, then he put his hand on Frank's shoulder. "My dear Frank," he said, in a soft voice, "you must be careful; you must repress that impulsive temper of yours, must he not?" and he turned to Stella and held out his hand. "Good-bye! It is so dangerous, you know," he murmured, holding Stella's hand, but keeping his smiling eyes fixed on the boy's face. "Why, some of these days you will be doing someone an injury and find yourself in prison, doing as they call it, six months' hard labor, like a common thief--or forger!" and he laughed, as if it were the best joke in the world. Not so Frank. As the bantering words left the thin, smiling lips, Frank recoiled suddenly, and his face went white. Jasper looked at him. "And now you are sorry?" he said. "Tell me it was only your fun! Why, my dear boy, you wear your heart on your sleeve! Well, if you would really like to beg my pardon, you may do it." The boy turned his white face toward him. "I--beg--your--pardon," he said, as if every word cost him an agony, and then, with a sudden twitch of the face, he turned and went slowly with bent head toward the house. Jasper looked after him with a steely, cruel glitter in his eyes, and he laughed softly. "Dear boy!" he murmured; "I have taken so fond a liking for him, and this only deepens it! He did it for your sake. You did not think I meant to keep the rose! No; I should have given it to you! But I may keep this! I will! to remind me of your promise that we may still be friends!" And he let her hand go, and walked away. CHAPTER XXIII.