Marjorie.

"All right, I'll light it," said Lucille amiably. She was deflected by this, and trotted out into the tiny kitchen to light the gas under the hot water heater. She came back in an exquisite blue crêpe negligee, and curled herself back of Marjorie on the davenport while she waited for the water to heat, and for Marjorie to tell her about it all.

"I wish my hair curled naturally," she said idly, slipping her fingers up the back of Marjorie's neck, where little fly-away rings always curled.

"I wish it did," said Marjorie with absent impoliteness.

Lucille laughed again.

"Come back, dear! Remember, I haven't any happy reunion to weep over yet, and be sympathetic. And I have an engagement for dinner, and how will I ever keep it if you don't tell me everything Francis said? When did he see Billy last?"

"He didn't say."

"What did he say?"

"He said," said Marjorie, turning around with blazing eyes and pouring forth her words like a fountain, "that he'd wondered if I really loved him, and now he was sure I didn't. And that he'd come back some time to-morrow and discuss details. And he gave me his telephone number, and said he couldn't stay any longer, and it was pretty bad, and he had to curl up——"

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Stop! This is a bad dream you've had, or something out of Alice in Wonderland! Francis never said he had to curl up. Curl up what?"

"Curl up himself, I suppose," said Marjorie with something very like a sob. "I was perfectly rational and it made me feel dreadful to hear him say it, and I knew just what he meant. Curl up like a dog when it's hurt. Curl up!"

"Don't! I am!" said Lucille. "If you issue any more orders in that tone I'll look like a caterpillar. Now, what really did happen, Marjorie?" she ended in a gentler tone and more seriously.

She pulled Marjorie's head over on to her own plump shoulder, and put an arm round her.

"It was all my fault. I don't love him any more. I don't want to be married to him. I didn't mean to show it, I meant to be very good about it, but he knows so much more than he did when he went away. He knew it directly. And now he's dreadfully hurt."

"You poor little darling! What a horrid time you've been having all this time everybody's been thinking you were looking forward to his coming home. Why, you must have nearly gone crazy!"

"It's worse for him," said Marjorie in a subdued voice, nestling down on Lucille's shoulder.

"Oh, I don't know," said Lucille comfortably. "Men can generally take care of themselves. . . . But are you sure you don't love him the least little bit?"

"I'm afraid of him. He's like somebody strange. . . . It's so long ago."

"So long ago an' so far away, le's hope it ain' true!" quoted Lucille amiably. "Well, darling, if you don't want to marry him you needn't—I mean, if you don't want to stay married to him you needn't. I'm sure something can be done. Francis is perfectly sure to do anything you like, he adores you so."

But this didn't seem to give comfort, either. And as the boiler was moaning with excess of heat, Lucille dashed for the bathtub. She talked to Marjorie through the flimsy door as she splashed, to the effect that Marjorie had much better let her call up another man and go out on a nice little foursome, instead of staying at home. But there Marjorie was firm. She would have preferred anything to her own society, but she felt as if any sort of a party would have been like breaking through first mourning.

So she saw Lucille, an immaculate vision of satins and picture hats, go off gaily with her cavalier, and remained herself all alone in the little room, lying on the sofa, going over everything that had happened and ending it differently. She was very tired, and felt guiltier and guiltier as time went on. Finally she rose and went to the telephone and called the number Francis had left.

The voice that answered her was very curt and very quiet.

"Yes. . . . This is Captain Ellison. Yes, Marjorie? What is it?"

It seemed harder than ever to say what she had to say in the face of that distant, unemotional voice. But Marjorie had come to a resolve, and went steadily on.

"I called up to say, Francis, that I am ready to go with you anywhere you want to, at any time. I will try to be a good wife to you."

She clung to the telephone, her heart beating like a triphammer there in the dark, waiting for his answer. It seemed a long time in coming. When it did, it was furious.

"I don't want you to go with me anywhere, at any time. I don't want a wife who has to try to be a good wife to me."

He hung up with an effect of flinging the receiver in her face.

Marjorie almost ran back to the davenport—she was beginning to feel as if the davenport was the nearest she had to a mother—and flung herself on it in a storm of angry tears. He was unjust. He was violent. She didn't want a man like that—what on earth had she humiliated herself that way for, anyway? What was the use of trying to be honorable and good and fair and doing things for men, when they treated you like that? Francis had proposed and proposed and proposed—she hadn't been so awfully keen on marrying him. . . . It had just seemed like the sort of thing it would be thrilling to do. Well, thank goodness he did feel that way. She was better off without people like that, anyhow. She would go back home to Westchester, and live a patient, meek, virtuous life under Cousin Anna Stevenson's thumb, as she had before she got the position at the office or got married. She certainly couldn't go back to the office and explain it all to them. At least, she wouldn't. It would be better, even if Cousin Anna did treat everybody as if they were ten and very foolish. . . . And she had refused the offer of a nice foursome and one of Lucille's cheerful friends, to stay home and be treated this way!

She rose and went to the telephone again, with blazing cheeks.

She called up, on the chance, Logan's number; and amazingly got him. And she invited him on the spot to come over the next evening and have something in a chafing-dish with Lucille and herself. Lucille, she knew, had no engagement for that evening, and could produce men, always, out of thin air. Marjorie chose Logan because Francis had said he didn't like him. She had been a little too much afraid, before that, of Logan's literariness to dare call him up. But that night she would have dared the Grand Cham of Tartary, if that dignitary had had a phone number and been an annoyance to Francis Ellison.

Logan, to her surprise, accepted eagerly, and even forgot to be mannered. He did, it must be said, keep her at the telephone, which was a stand-up one, for an hour, while he talked brilliantly about the Italian renaissance in its ultimate influence on the arts and crafts movement of the present day. To listen to Logan was a liberal education at any moment, if a trifle too much like attending a lecture. But at least he didn't expect much answering.

She went to the office, next day, in more or less of a dream. She was very quiet, and worked very hard. Nobody said much to her; she took care not to let them. When stray congratulations came her way, as they were bound to, and when old Mr. Morrissey, the vice-head, said, "I suppose we can't hope to keep you long now," and beamed, she answered without any heartbeatings or difficulty. She was quite sure she would never feel gay again; she had had so much happen to