her. But it was rather pleasant not to be able to have any feelings, if a little monotonous. The only thing at all on her mind was the question as to how much cheese a party of four needed for a rarebit, and whether Logan would or could eat rarebits at night. And even that was to a certain degree a matter of indifference.

She finally decided that scallops à la King might be more what he would eat. She bought them on her way home, together with all the rest of the things she needed. Lucille had produced a fourth person with her usual lack of effort, and it promised to be—if anything in life could have been anything but flavorless—rather a good party.

In fact, it was. It was a dear little apartment that the girls shared, with a living-room chosen especially for having nice times in. It was lighted by tall candles, and had a gas grate that was almost human. There was a grand piano which took up more than its share of room, there was the davenport aforesaid, there were companionable chairs and taborets acquired by Lucille and kept by Marjorie in the exact places where they looked best; there were soft draperies, also hemmed and put up by Marjorie. The first thing visitors always said about it was that it made them feel comfortable and at home. They generally attributed the homelikeness to Lucille, who was dangerously near looking matronly, rather than to Marjorie, who would be more like a firefly than a matron even when she became a grandmother.

Marjorie, with cooking to do, tied up in a long orange colored apron, almost forgot things. She loved to make things to eat. Lucille, meanwhile, sat on the piano-stool and played snatches of "The Long, Long Trail," and the men, Lucille's negligible one and Marjorie's Mr. Logan, made themselves very useful in the way of getting plates and arranging piles of crackers. The small black kitten which had been a present to Lucille from the janitor, who therefore was a mother to it while the girls were out, sat expectantly on the edge of all the places where he shouldn't be, purring loudly and having to be put down at five-minute intervals.

"I suppose this is a sort of celebration of your having your husband back," said the Lucille man presently to Marjorie. He had been told so, indeed, by Lucille, who was under that impression herself, Logan looked faintly surprised. He, to be frank, had forgotten all about Marjorie's having a husband who had to be celebrated.

Marjorie nearly spilled the scallops she was serving at that moment, and the kitten, losing its self-control entirely, climbed on the table with a cry of entreaty for the excellent fish-smelling dishful of things to eat. It was lucky for Marjorie that he did, because while she was struggling with him Lucille answered innocently for her.

"Yes, more or less. But he's late. Where's your perfectly good husband, Marge?"

"Late, I'm afraid," Marjorie answered, smiling, and wondering at herself for being able to smile. "We aren't to wait for him."

"Sensible child," Lucille answered. "I'm certainly very hungry."

She drew her chair up to the low table the men had pushed into the center of the room, sent one of them to open the window, rather than turn out the cheerful light of the gas grate, and the real business of the party began.

It was going on very prosperously, that meal; even Mr. Logan was heroically eating the same things the rest did, and not taking up more than his fair share of the conversation, when there was a quick step on the stairs. Nobody heard it but Marjorie, who stood, frozen, just as she had risen to get a fork for somebody. She knew Francis's step, and when he clicked the little knocker she forced herself to go over and let him in.

He came in exactly as if he belonged there; but after one quick glance at the visitors he drew Marjorie aside into the little inner room.

"Marjorie, I've come to say I was unkind and unfair over the telephone. I've made up my mind that you are fonder of me than you know. I think it will be all right—it was foolish of me to be too proud to take you unless you were absolutely willing. Let me take back what I said, and forgive me. I know it will be all right—Marjorie!"

She gave him a furious push away from her. Her eyes blazed.

"It never will be all right! It isn't going to have a chance to be!" she told him, as angry as he had been when she called him up. "You had your chance and you wouldn't take it. I don't want to be your wife, and I never will be. That's all there is to say."

She took a step in the direction of the outer room. He put out a hand to detain her.

"Marjorie! Marjorie! Don't!"

"I'm going out there, and going to keep on having the nice time I had before you came. If you try to do anything I'll probably make a scene."

"You're going to give me one more chance," he said. "That's settled."

She looked at him defiantly.

"Try to make me," was all she said, wrenching her wrist out of his hand.

"I will," said Francis grimly.

She smiled at him brilliantly as he followed her into the room where the others were.

"I'm afraid there isn't any way," she said sweetly.

Lucille, who had not seen Francis before, flew at him now with a welcome which was affectionate enough to end effectually any further ardors or defiances.

"And you're in time for your own party after all," she ended, smiling sunnily at him and pushing him into a chair. She gave him a plate of scallops and a fork, and the party went on as it had before. Only Marjorie eyed him with nervous surprise. "What will he do next?" she wondered.

CHAPTER III

What he did was to eat his scallops à la King with appetite, fraternize cheerfully with Lucille's friend, whose name was Tommy Burke, and who was an old acquaintance of his, speak to Marjorie occasionally in the most natural way in the world, and altogether behave entirely as if it really was his party, and he was very glad that there was a party. It is to be said that he ignored Logan rather more than politeness demanded. But Logan was so used to being petted that he never knew it. Marjorie did, and lavished more attention on him defiantly to try to make up for it. She thought that the evening never would end.

After the food was finished it was to be expected that Lucille would go to the piano, and play some more, and that the men would sit about smoking on the davenport and the taborets, and that every one would be pleasantly quiet. But Lucille did not. Instead, she and Francis retired to the back room, leaving Marjorie and the others to amuse each other, and talk for what seemed to Marjorie's strained nerves an eternity of time. It was Francis who had called Lucille, moreover, and not Lucille who had summoned Francis, as could have been expected.

Finally the other men rose to go. Francis came out of the inner room and went with them. Before he went he stopped to say to Marjorie:

"I told you I wanted to talk things over with you. I'll be back in a half-hour. You seem to be so popular that the only way to see you alone is to get you in a motor-car, so if you aren't too tired to drive around with me to-night, to a place where I have to go, I'll bring you home safely. . . . I didn't mean to speak so sharply to you, Marjorie, over the telephone. Please forgive me."

"Certainly," said Marjorie coldly and tremulously. It could be seen that she did not forgive him in the least.

He went downstairs with the others, laughing with Burke, who had a dozen army reminiscences to