“How do you do, Mr. Very-Best-Fellow-in-the-World?”
Those near enough to hear roared with laughter, for the young queen’s manner made the whole thing so absurdly funny; and perhaps there is nothing a crowd so much enjoys as the taking down of a person whom they regard in the light of one much needing to be taken down.
“His name is Devonhough,” Rube hastened to explain, not relishing the laugh against his friend at this particular time by his particular fault. “Mr. Devonhough, Miss Creecy. He is my very best friend, Mell. Shake hands with him.”
Mell did so; but without the faintest glimmering of a smile, and with such glacial dignity as fairly charged the atmosphere with iciness. Not content with this, she met all his subsequent efforts to cultivate her acquaintance with the briefest and chilliest repulses.
Rube was much concerned. He saw dimly that his best friend had not, somehow, made a favorable impression upon his future wife; but he could not tell the why or wherefore. While he wondered within him what he could do to put things on a pleasanter footing between them, someone else demanded his attention.
“See here,” said Jerome, as soon as Rube’s back was turned. “I hope you now consider me sufficiently punished. I hope you feel even. I hope you won’t treat me to any more state airs. I am tired of them. Your Majesty, let me tell you something. Mark well my words. It is to me, not Rube, you owe your present exaltation.”
“To you!”
The unsmiling countenance now broke into a ripple of scorn.
“What a ridiculous thing for you to say!”
“The whole thing has been ridiculous,” said Jerome. “I never in my whole life ever enjoyed anything so much. ’Tis the one grain of truth which gives point to the ridiculous. Think of Rube, dear fellow, so anxious to crown you, knowing nothing, suspecting nothing, begging me not to run fast, and I, so ten thousand times more anxious than he could possibly be, to have you crowned.”