"They'll be such a consolation," Mrs. Wellington explained, "while the Doctor is out with his patients." Dr. Temple and Mrs. Temple looked at each other in dismay, then at the flask and the cigars, then at the Wellingtons, then they stammered: "Thank you so much," and sank back, stupefied. Wellington stared at his wife: "Lucretia, are you sincere?" "Jimmie, I promise you I'll never smoke another cigar." "My love!" he cried, and seized her hand. "You know I always said you were a queen among women, Lucretia." She beamed back at him: "And you always were the prince of good fellows, Jimmie." Then she almost blushed as she murmured, almost shyly: "May I pour your coffee for you again this morning?" "For life," he whispered, and they moved up the aisle, arm in arm, bumping from seat to seat and not knowing it. When Mrs. Whitcomb, seated in the dining-car, saw Mrs. Little Jimmie pour Mr. Little Jimmie's coffee, she choked on hers. She vowed that she would not permit those odious Wellingtons to make fools of her and her Sammy. She resolved to telegraph Sammy that she had changed her mind about divorcing him, and order him to take the first train West and meet her half-way on her journey home. CHAPTER XXXVI A DUEL FOR A BRACELET All this while Marjorie and Mallory had sat watching, as kingfishers shadow a pool, the door wherethrough the girl with the bracelet must pass on her way to breakfast. "She's taking forever with her toilet," sniffed Marjorie. "Probably trying to make a special impression on you." "She's wasting her time," said Mallory. "But what if she brings her mother along? No, I guess her mother is too fat to get there and back." "If her mother comes," Marjorie decided, "I'll hold her while you take the bracelet away from the--the--from that creature. Quick, here she comes now! Be brave!" Mallory wore an aspect of arrant cowardice: "Er--ah--I--I----" "You just grab her!" Marjorie explained. Then they relapsed into attitudes of impatient attention. Kathleen floated in and, seeing Mallory, she greeted him with radiant warmth: "Good morning!" and then, catching sight of Marjorie, gave her a "Good morning!" coated with ice. She flounced past and Mallory sat inert, till Marjorie gave him a ferocious pinch, whereupon he leaped to his feet: "Oh, Miss--er--Miss Kathleen." Kathleen whirled round with a most hospitable smile. "May I have a word with you?" "Of course you can, you dear boy." Marjorie winced at this and writhed at what followed: "Shan't we take breakfast together?" Mallory stuttered: "I--I--no, thank you--I've had breakfast." Kathleen froze up again as she snapped: "With that--train-acquaintance, I suppose." "Oh, no," Mallory amended, "I mean I haven't had breakfast." But Kathleen scowled with a jealousy of her own: "You seem to be getting along famously for mere train-acquaintances." "Oh, that's all we are, and hardly that," Mallory hastened to say with too much truth. "Sit down here a moment, won't you?"