But Marjorie set her jaw hard: "Well, you get that bracelet, or you don't get me." And then her smouldering jealousy and grief took a less hateful tone: "Oh, Harry!" she wailed, "I'm so lonely and so helpless and so far from home." "But I'm here," he urged. "You're farther away than anybody," she whimpered, huddling close to him. "Poor little thing," he murmured, soothing her with voice and kiss and caress. "Put your arm round me," she cooed, like a mourning dove, "I don't care if everybody is looking. Oh, I'm so lonely." "I'm just as lonely as you are," he pleaded, trying to creep into the company of her misery. "Please marry me soon," she implored, "won't you, please?" "I'd marry you this minute if you'd say the word," he whispered. "I'd say it if you only had that bracelet," she sobbed, like a tired child. "I should think you would understand my feelings. That awful person is wearing your bracelet and I have only your ring, and her bracelet is ten times as big as my r-i-ing, boo-hoo-hoo-oo!" "I'll get that bracelet if I have to chop her arm off," Mallory vowed. The sobs stopped short, as Marjorie looked up to ask: "Have you got your sword with you?" "It's in my trunk," he said, "but I'll manage." "Now you're speaking like a soldier," Marjorie exclaimed, "my brave, noble, beautiful, fearless husband. I'll tell you! That creature will pass through this car on her way to breakfast. You grab her and take the bracelet away from her." "I grab her, eh?" he stammered, his heroism wavering a trifle. "Yes, just grab her." "Suppose she hasn't the bracelet on?" he mused. "Grab her anyway," Marjorie answered, fiercely. "Besides, I've no doubt it's wished on." He said nothing. "You did wish it on, didn't you?" "No, no--never--of course not--" he protested "If you'll only be calm. I'll get it if I have to throttle her." Like a young Lady Macbeth, Marjorie gave him her utter approval in any atrocity, and they sat in ambush for their victim to pass into view. They had not had their breakfast, but they forgot it. A dusky waiter went by chanting his "Lass call for breakfuss in Rining Rar." He chanted it thrice in their ears, but they never heard. Marjorie was gloating over the discomfiture of the odious creature who had dared to precede her in the acquaintance of her husband-to-be. The husband-to-be was miserably wishing that he had to face a tribe of bolo-brandishing Moros, instead of this trivial girl whom he had looked upon when her cheeks were red. CHAPTER XXXV MR. AND MRS. LITTLE JIMMIE Mrs. Sammy Whitcomb had longed for the sweet privilege of squaring matters with Mrs. Jimmie Wellington. Sneers and back-biting, shrugs and shudders of contempt were poor compensation for the ever-vivid fact that Mrs. Wellington had proved attractive to her Sammy while Mrs. Wellington's Jimmie never looked at Mrs. Whitcomb. Or if he did, his eyes had been so blurred that he had seen two of her--and avoided both.