"Come back, Letitia," I cried. "You are really intolerable. I apologize. I apologize. You're a martyr, and I--I--" "You're a respectable coal-heaver, dear," she said with malice and a kiss. CHAPTER XVIII "And they lived happily ever after!" If the advent of Madame de Lyrolle had only been the cue for that sweet, old-fashioned culmination--that dulcet, though generally inartistic surcease from trouble! But, of course, it was not. My readers will probably say that sheer dramatic justice cries out for our speedy chastisement. Alas! Sheer dramatic justice did not have to cry long. It pursued us relentlessly, raveningly. We were innocent as Pompeii confidingly couched beside the dread Vesuvius. This is not the place to say that we deserved it. Surely, if Letitia and I have made one solitary friend during the progress of this "sad, eventful history," he, or she, will refrain from the luxurious "I told you so!" I am not comparing Madame de Lyrolle to Vesuvius. No. I have never been vicious, and I should scorn to do so rank an injustice to--Vesuvius! There are methods of confounding, more subtile than that of a swift and merciful eruption, methods that--er--"get there just the same." Alas! Also, _misericordia_! Thanks to Letitia's iridescent mendacity, our household effects were no longer bones of contention. Madame gracefully condescended to live with us and be our cook, and Leonie, equally gracefully, deigned to support the culinary star. They both persisted in regarding Letitia as a darling of fortune, marred. And I was the marrer. Leonie, who waited upon us, paid me but scant attention and looked upon me as of no consequence. If I addressed her, she replied as to one of her own kind; in fact, it occurred to me that I was considered as a wickedly lucky mortal, who, by some freak of fate, had been plucked from a butler's life to desecrate that of the husband of an American heiress. Madame asked for half her salary in advance. "We do not know you," Letitia had said to her. The inference was that she, on the other hand, did not know Letitia. She was not taking any risks. Although our gold dishes were at Tarrytown, Madame cautiously decided to assure herself that some of the metal of which the dishes were made remained in New York. "Leonie is to do the marketing for Madame," said Letitia, on the morning of the first day; "and I think that arrangement very satisfactory. I have supplied her with money--more than she could possibly need, for I did not want to seem 'close'--and at the end of the week we can go over the accounts. It all seems delightful, doesn't it, dear?"