"Now, you're talking sense, Mary-Clare," Larry spoke boyishly. "Just over-tired, I guess you were; seeing things in the dark. Men know the world better than women; that's why some things are _as_ they are. I'm not going to press you, Mary-Clare, I'm going to try and help you. You _are_ my wife, aren't you?" "Yes, oh! yes, Larry." "Well, I'm a man and you're a woman." "Yes, that's so, Larry." Step by step, ridiculous as it might seem, Mary-Clare meant, even now, to keep as close to Larry as she could. He misunderstood; he thought he was winning against her folly. "Marriage was meant for one thing between man and woman!" This came out triumphantly. Then Mary-Clare threw back her head and spiritually retreated to her vantage of safety. "No, it wasn't," she said, taking to her own hard-won trail desperately. "No, it wasn't! I cannot accept that Larry--why, I have seen where such reasoning would lead. I saw the night our last baby came--and went. I'd grow old and broken--you'd hate me; there would be children--many of them, poor, sad little things--looking at me with dreadful eyes, accusing me. If marriage means only one thing--it means that to me and you, and no woman has the right to--to become like that." "Wanting to defy the laws of God, eh?" Larry grew virtuous. "We all grow old, don't we? Men work for women; women do their share. Children are natural, ain't they? What's the institution of marriage for, anyway?" And now Larry's mouth was again hardening. "Larry, oh! Larry, please don't make me laugh! If I should laugh there would never be any hope of our getting together." For some reason this almost hysterical appeal roused the worst in Larry. The things Maclin had told him that day again took fire and spread where Maclin could never have dreamed of their spreading. The liquor was losing its sustaining effect--it was leaving Larry to flounder in his weak will, and he abandoned his futile tactics. "Who's that man at the inn?" he asked. The suddenness of the question, its irrelevancy, made Mary-Clare start. For a moment the words meant absolutely nothing to her and then because she was bared, nervously, to every attack, she flushed--recalling with absurd clearness Northrup's look and tone. "I don't know," she said. "That's a lie. How long has he been here, snooping around?" "I haven't the slightest idea, Larry." This was not true, and Larry caught the quiver in the tones. Again he got up and became the masterful male; the injured husband; the protector of his home. There were still tactics to be tested.