the Esmeralda with a sudden, tender concern. "Why, I'd have stopped it at once. But it seemed just a joke to me. I'll stop it to-morrow."
"There! I've done it now! And I did so mean to say nothing!" cried the Esmeralda in the liveliest dismay. "It isn't really anything. It's just my silliness. He doesn't really bother me at all. You mustn't take any notice of him. He doesn't matter at all."
"I'll bring you his yellow head on a charger for breakfast—no, for lunch to-morrow," said the Honorable John Ruffin calmly. "It will make a pretty table decoration; and it will go admirably with one of those yellow, or perhaps orange, dresses which you alone of all women in this drab world can properly wear."
He spoke gently enough, but there was an undertone of resolve in his tone which promised ill to Señor Perez.
"No! No! I won't have it! I won't have you interfere at all! It isn't myself at all! It's his doing something horrid to you I'm afraid of!" cried the Esmeralda in a panic.
"Oh, come; we're in London—in the Twentieth
