Is it hauteur, or is it a maiden's coyness which causes you to turn away your head, love?”

George D'Orsey stood with his arm about the willowy form of Imogene O'Sullivan. The scene was the ancestral halls of the O'Sullivans in the fashionable north-west quarter of Harlem. George D'Orsey had asked Imogene O'Sullivan to be his bride. That was prior to the remark which opened our story. And the dear girl softly promised. The lovers stood there in the gloaming, drinking that sweet intoxication which never comes but once.

“It isn't hauteur, George,” replied Imogene O'Sullivan, in tones like far-off church bells. “But, George!—don't spurn me—I have eaten of the common onion of commerce, and my breath, it is so freighted with that trenchant vegetable, it would take the nap from your collar like a lawn mower. It is to spare the man she loves, George, which causes your Imogene to hold her head aloof.”

“Look up, darling!” and George D'Orsey's tones held a glad note of sympathy, “I, too, have battened upon onions.”

The lovers clung to each other like bats in a steeple.

“But we'll have to put toe-weights on pa, George; he'll step high and lively when he hears of this!”

The lovers were seated on the sofa, now; the prudent Imogene was taking a look ahead.

“Doesn't your father love me, pet?”

“I don't think he does,” replied the fair girl tenderly. “I begged him to ask you to dinner, once, George; that was on your last trip. He said he would sooner dine with a wet dog, George, and refused. From that I infer his opposition to our union.”

“We'll make a monkey of him yet!” and George D'Orsey hissed the words through his set teeth.

“And my brother?”

“As for him,” said George D'Orsey (and at this he began pacing the room like a lion), “as for your brother! If he so much as looks slant-eyed at our happiness, he goes into the soup! From your father I would bear much; but when the balance of the family gets in on the game, they will pay for their chips in advance.”

“Can we not leave them, George; leave them, and fly together?”

“Your father is rich, Imogene; that is a sufficient answer.” There was a touch of sternness in George D'Orsey's tones, and the subject of flying was dropped.

George D'Orsey lived in the far-off hamlet of Hoboken. He returned to his home. In three months he was to wed Imogene O'Sullivan. Benton O'Sullivan had a fit when it was first mentioned to him. At last he gave his sullen consent.

“I had planned a title for you, Imogene.” That was all he said.

Three months have elapsed. It was dark when the ferryboat came to a panting pause in its slip. George D'Orsey picked his way through the crowd with quick, nervous steps. It was to be his wedding-night. He wondered if Imogene would meet him at the ferry. At that moment he beheld her dear form walking just ahead.

“To-night, dearest, you are mine forever!” whispered George D'Orsey tenderly, seizing the sweet young creature by her arm.

The shrieks which emanated from the young woman could have defied the best efforts of a steam siren.

It was not Imogene O'Sullivan!

The police bore away George D'Orsey. They turned a deaf ear to his explanations.

“You make me weary!” remarked the brutal turnkey, to whom George D'Orsey told his tale.

The cell door slammed; the lock clanked; the cruel key grated as it turned. George D'Orsey was a prisoner. The charge the blotter bore against him was: “Insulting women on the street.”

When George D'Orsey was once more alone, he cursed his fate as if his heart would break. At last he was calm.

“Oh, woman, in our hour of ease,

Uncertain, coy, and hard to please;

But, seen too oft, familiar with her face;

We first endure, then pity, then embrace!”

The Chateau O'Sullivan was a flare and a glare of lights. The rooms were jungles of palms and tropical plants. Flowers were everywhere, while the air tottered and fainted under the burden of their perfume. Imogene O'Sullivan never looked more beautiful.

But George D'Orsey did not come.

Hour followed hour into the past. The guests moved uneasily from room to room. The preacher notified Benton O'Sullivan that he was ready.

And still George D'Orsey came not.

“The villain has laid down on us, me child!” whispered Benton O'Sullivan to the weeping Imogene; “but may me hopes of heaven die of heart failure if I have not me revenge! No man shall insult the proud house of. O'Sullivan and get away with it; not without blood!”

The guests cheerfully dispersed, talking the most scandalous things in whispers.

Imogene O'Sullivan's dream was over.

It was the next night. George D'Orsey stood on the O'Sullivan porch, ringing the bell. His eye and his pocket and his stomach were alike wildly vacant.

“Sic him, Bull! Sic him!” said Benton O'Sullivan, bitterly.

Bull tore several specimens from the quivering frame of George D'Orsey, who vanished in the darkness with a hoarse cry.

Years afterward George D'Orsey and Imogene O'Sullivan met, but they gave each other a cold, meaningless stare.