Imogene was so tickled she stuffed a napkin into her mouth. She did not intend to betray herself before the dining room girl. Whereupon, the Mayor of Kankakee flung himself out of his mansion in a frenzy. He did not come home to lunch. At dinner he did not exchange a word with his wife. He scowled through five courses. Imogene was radiant. And their guest who seated himself at the table, [merely to keep Imogene company,] amused himself by inciting the knives, forks and spoons to cut unseemly capers on the cloth. A few days later Bill Vanderhook returned from his office an hour earlier than usual. He came with the deep, deadly purpose of seeing what was to be seen, and he saw it. Gently turning his latch-key, softly treading the deserted hall, stealthily crossing the costly Wilton of the drawing-room, and still on, still creeping through and around and up and back, on through my lady’s boudoir, still on, to the draped portals of his own private den--the one corner of his castle which thus far had been left to its master. Up to this time he had not dreamed that even an astral man could become wholly lost to the amenities of polite society. But here and now he came upon the guilty pair, trespassers, invaders of man’s most sacred corner, his elysium in hours of peace, his refuge in times of woe,--his “Den.” Outside, and screened by the heavy portieres, Bill Vanderhook sized up the situation. He saw what made his blood first warm and then to simmer and boil. It was not simply that they sat side by side. This he expected. But this--that they had the nerve to sit in his den; and more, to sit upon his couch; and worse still, to sit upon that gay and picturesque Bagdad which, of all his possessions, should have been left to him and him alone. For this artistic creation had been Imogene’s gift to him upon that fatal anniversary wedding. That she had bought this Bagdad on bargain day and that Bill thought she had made it herself did not alter the sentiment. True, she bought the Bagdad to please herself; and true, that he cared no more for the dizzy thing than he would for a door-mat; yet, all the same, she had given it to him, and the giving was what he cared for. Was it to be expected that this would ever have been made the background of his rival’s wiles and fascinations? “This is too much, too much. Where am I at?”--and Bill Vanderhook clenched his fists and glared ferociously. But, hist!--what is it these two are doing? What new conspiracy is hatching against the master of the house? Why do they sit so close, with heads bent in such juxtaposition? Why are they so silent, so absorbed? “Aha! aha! a book!” It is a book they are poring over; a great leather book. A hand of each is under it. The other two are slowly turning leaves. Aha! they search for something. This is no ordinary book. They search,--and for what? So intent are these two, this gay Gnani and his giddy Mate, that they have neither heard nor sensed the intrusion.