"Just fancy Robinson Crusoe on it," says the Boodie, with a derisive smile. "I could fancy him very fat on it; I could also fancy him considering himself in great luck when he found it, or discovered it. They always discovered islands, didn't they? _I_ should like to live on just such an island for an indefinite number of years." "You are extremely silly," says Miss Beaufort, politely; "you know as well as I do that it wouldn't keep you up." "Well, not, perhaps, so strongly as a few other things," acknowledges Mr. Browne, gracefully; "but I think it _would_ support me for all that,--for a _time_, at least." "Not for one minute. Why, you couldn't stand on it." "A prolonged acquaintance with it _alone_ might make me totter, I confess," says Mr. Browne. "But yet, if I had enough of it, I think I _could_ stand on it very well." "You could _not_," says the Boodie, indignant at being so continuously contradicted on a point so clear. "If you had ten whole jellies--if you had one as big as this house--you couldn't manage it." "I really beg your pardon," protests Mr. Browne, with dignity. "It is my belief that I _could_ manage it in time. I'm very fond of jelly." "You would go right through it and come out at the other side," persists the Boodie, nothing daunted. "Like the Thames Tunnel. How nice!" says Dicky Browne, amiably. "Well, you can't live on it _now_, anyway," says the Boodie, putting the last bit of the jelly island into her small mouth. "No, no, indeed," says Dicky, shaking his head with all the appearance of one sunk in the very deepest dejection. CHAPTER XXIII. "I do perceive here a divided duty."--_Othello._ JEALOUSY is the keenest, the most selfish, the most poignant of all sufferings. "It is," says Milton, "the injured lover's hell." This monster having now seized upon Stephen, is holding him in a close embrace and is swiftly crushing within him all hope and peace and joy. To watch Dulce day after day in her cousin's society, to mark her great eyes grow brighter when he comes, is now more than he can endure. To find himself second where he had been first is intolerable to him, and a shrinking feeling that warns him he is being watched and commented upon by all the members of the Blount household, renders him at times half mad with rage and wounded pride. Not that Dulce slights him in any way, or is cold to him, or gives him to understand, even indirectly, that she would gladly know her engagement at an end. She is both kind and gentle--much more so than before--but any doubt he had ever entertained about her having a real affection for him has now become a certainty. He had won her unfairly. He had wrought upon her feelings in an evil hour, when her heart was torn with angry doubts and her self-love grievously hurt; when all her woman's soul was aflame with the thought that she was the unwelcome property of a man who would gladly be rid of her.