It was a flushed, but a self–complacent, beaming, happy Zozo who stopped Richard Brant on the street an hour later. “If you please, Mr. Brant, sir,” he said; “I’d like a few minutes of your time.” “Certainly,” said Mr. Brant, wondering if Zozo wanted to borrow any more money. “You’ve been a great good friend to me, Mr. Brant,” Zozo began, “and I hope you b’lieve, sir, that me and Mommer and Ma Simmons and Mamie are jist as grateful as—well, as anything.” “Oh, that’s all right, Simmons—“ “Yes, sir. Well, now you’ll pardon me for seeming to interfere, like, in your business. But knowin’ as I done how your affairs with the blonde lady was hangin’ fire, so to speak—“ [Illustration] “‘The blonde lady!’” broke in Brant. “Madam dee Rennet,” explained Zozo. “The devil!” said Brant. “Well, sir, knowin’ that, as I done, and knowin’ that there couldn’t be nothin’ _to_ it—no lady would chuck you over her shoulder, Mr. Brant, sir—but only jist that her mind wasn’t at ease with regard to the dark lady—whereas the stars show clear as ever they showed _any thin’_ that the dark lady was only temporary and threatened, and nothin’ reel serious—why, I made so free as jist to go right straight to Madam dee Rennet and ease her mind on that point—and I did.” “Great heavens!” Brant yelled. “You infernal meddler! what have you done? I don’t know a dark woman in the world! What have you said?—oh, curse it!” he cried, as he realized, from the pain of its extinction, that hope had been alive in his heart, “what _have_ you done?—you devil!” He turned on his heel and rushed off toward Madame de Renette’s house. “This _does_ settle it,” he thought. “There’s no getting an idea like that out of a woman’s head.” * * * * * “I understand,” he said, as he hurriedly presented himself to the lady of his love, “that a madman has been here—“ “Yes,” said Mme. de Renette, severely. “You didn’t pay any attention to his nonsense?” “About the dark woman?” inquired Mme. de Renette. “Why, there’s no other woman dark or light—“ “I don’t know whether there is or not, Richard,” said Mme. de Renette, with icy distinctness; “but I know that there won’t be, after—well, sir, could you break your June engagement for—me?” And Zozo was justified. [Illustration] AN OLD, OLD STORY. [Illustration: “‘_Sophronia—’tain’t you!_’”] AN OLD, OLD STORY. [Illustration] I suppose the Tullingworth–Gordons were good Americans at heart; but the Tullingworth–Gordons were of English extraction, and, as somebody once said, the extraction had not been completely successful—a great deal of the English soil clung to the roots of the family tree. They lived on Long Island, in a very English way, in a manor–house which was as English as they could make it, among surroundings quite respectably English for Americans of the third or fourth generation.