Imogene snickered, and the astral man showered lilacs over her chair, while a handful of thistles were viciously flung from nowhere--into the blazing countenance of the enraged husband.
"Faithless woman! black magician!" shrieked Bill Vanderhook; and gathering up a large, bright carving knife, he sent it spinning into the heart of his rival. That is to say, the point of the knife clove the back of Alonzo Leffingwell's chair, while the handle protruded from that gentleman's left vest pocket.
But the gay Gnani of Gingalee still sat in his chair, erect, tranquil, smiling.
Imogene was so tickled she stuffed a napkin into her mouth. She did not intend to betray herself before the dining room girl.
Whereupon, the Mayor of Kankakee flung himself out of his mansion in a frenzy.
At dinner he did not exchange a word with his wife. He scowled through five courses. Imogene was radiant. And their guest who seated himself at the table, [merely to keep Imogene company,] amused himself by inciting the knives, forks and spoons to cut unseemly capers on the cloth.
A few days later Bill Vanderhook returned from his office an hour earlier than usual. He came with the deep, deadly purpose of seeing what was to be seen, and he saw it.
Gently turning his latch-key, softly treading the deserted hall, stealthily crossing the costly Wilton of the drawing-room, and still on, still creeping through and around and up and back, on through my lady's boudoir, still on, to the draped portals of his own private den--the one corner of his castle which thus far had been left to its master. Up to this time he had not dreamed that even an astral man could become wholly lost to the amenities of polite society.
But here and now he came upon the guilty pair, trespassers, invaders of man's most sacred corner, his elysium in hours of peace, his refuge in times of woe,--his "Den."
Outside, and screened by the heavy portieres, Bill Vanderhook sized up the situation. He saw what made his blood first warm and then to simmer and boil. It was not simply that they sat side by side. This he expected. But this--that they had the nerve to sit in his den; and more, to sit upon his couch; and worse still, to sit upon that gay and picturesque Bagdad which, of all his possessions, should have been left to him and him alone.