She gave an angry laugh and shook her yellow hair back. Her eyes sparkled with tears, but she looked steadily at Cromartie. “Damn other people,” she repeated; “I care for nobody in the world but you, John, and if we are going to be put in a cage and persecuted, we must just bear it. I hate them all, and I’m going to be happy with you in spite of them. Nobody can make me feel ashamed now. I can’t help being myself and I will be myself.” “Darling,” said Cromartie, “you would be wretched here. It’s awful; you mustn’t think of it. I have a much more sensible plan. I can’t ask them to let me go. Anyhow I shan’t do that. But I am still so feeble that I can easily make myself really ill again, and then I think they will let me go and we can get married.” “That won’t do,” said Josephine. “We can’t wait any longer, and you would die if you tried that. There was nothing about your not being allowed to marry in the contract when you came here, was there?” she asked. “You have only got to tell them that you are going to get married to-day, and that your wife is ready to live in your cage.” During this conversation several people had come into the Ape-house, and after looking at Josephine in a highly scandalised manner had gone out again, but now Collins came in. He looked rather puzzled and awkward when he saw Josephine, but she turned to him at once and said: “Mr. Cromartie and I wish to see the curator; will you please find him and ask him to come here?” “Very good,” said Collins; then catching sight of Joe Tennison gazing at Cromartie and the lady from a distance of three feet, with his yellow eyeballs almost popping out of his sooty face, he sternly ordered him to go into the back room of his cage. “Oh, I can tell you something, I can tell you what you’ld never believe,” cried Joe, but Collins silently pointed his finger at him, and the nigger jumped up and slowly beat a retreat into his own quarters. Ten minutes later the curator came in. “Come round to the back where we can talk more conveniently, Miss Lackett,” he said. Then he unlocked the door of the inner cage or den and Josephine walked in. They sat down. “I have asked Miss Lackett to marry me, and have been accepted,” said Cromartie rather stiffly. “I was anxious to tell you at once, so as to make arrangements with regard to the ceremony, which of course we wish to be carried out as privately as possible, and at once. After our marriage my wife is prepared to live with me in this cage, unless of course you arrange for us to have other quarters.” The curator suddenly laughed, a loud, good-natured, hearty laugh. To Cromartie it seemed a piece of brutality, to Josephine a menace. They both frowned, and drew slightly together waiting for the worst. “I ought to explain to you,” the curator began, “that the committee has already considered what to do in the event of such a contingency as this occurring.