"He ought to be spanked, that boy—stealing away from school!"
"My dear, he's told me all about his life's ambitions."
"What's that?"
"It's something about a bathtub—some sort of an invention that's going to revolutionize the bathtub industry."
"Then it must be the outside of a bathtub," said Clara with a sisterly laugh. "Mimi, I just must hear his proposal."
"You'll laugh and spoil it all."
"On my honor!"
Ten minutes later, Miss Mimi Lafontaine put on her kindliest smile as ushered in by the maid Mr. John C. Bedelle came magnificently into the room, spick and span, cool as the cucumber is credited to be at any temperature; an immaculate purple tie blooming under an unsullied collar, with only a slight pollen on the carefully-divided hair. How was she to know that, in five minutes, under the sting of betrayed confidence and broken illusions, a complete moral transformation had made of the urchin a man in the embryo, fired by the burning impulses of the deadliest hatred?
He did not stumble or wind himself up in the curtain or upset the bowl of goldfish on the slight étagère by the sofa. He came in with a manner that was so completely nonchalant that Miss Mimi was manifestly impressed.
