Marjorie hopped on, and they sat down, Mallory with eyes and thoughts on nothing but the watch he kept in his hand. During this tense journey the girl perfected her soul for graceful martyrdom. "I'll go to the train with you, Harry, and then you can send me home in a taxicab." Her nether lip trembled and her eyes were filmed, but they were brave, and her voice was so tender that it wooed his mind from his watch. He gazed at her, and found her so dear, so devoted and so pitifully exquisite, that he was almost overcome by an impulse to gather her into his arms there and then, indifferent to the immediate passengers or to his far-off military superiors. An hour ago they were young lovers in all the lilt and thrill of elopement. She had clung to him in the gloaming of their taxicab, as it sped like a genie at their whim to the place where the minister would unite their hands and raise his own in blessing. Thence the new husband would have carried the new wife away, his very own, soul and body, duty and beauty. Then, ah, then in their minds the future was an unwaning honeymoon, the journey across the continent a stroll along a lover's lane, the Pacific ocean a garden lake, and the Philippines a chain of Fortunate Isles decreed especially for their Eden. And then the taxicab encountered a lamppost. They thought they had merely wrecked a motor car--and lo, they had wrecked a Paradise. The railroad ceased to be a lover's lane and became a lingering torment; the ocean was a weltering Sahara, and the Philippines a Dry Tortugas of exile. Mallory realized for the first time what heavy burdens he had taken on with his shoulder straps; what a dismal life of restrictions and hardships an officer's life is bound to be. It was hard to obey the soulless machinery of discipline, to be a brass-buttoned slave. He felt all the hot, quick resentment that turns a faithful soldier into a deserter. But it takes time to evolve a deserter, and Mallory had only twenty minutes. The handcuffs and leg-irons of discipline hobbled him. He was only a little cog in a great clock, and the other wheels were impinging on him and revolving in spite of himself. In the close-packed seats where they were jostled and stared at, the soldier could not even attempt to explain to his fascinated bride the war of motives in his breast. He could not voice the passionate rebellion her beauty had whipped up in his soul. Perhaps if Romeo and Juliet had been forced to say farewell on a Chicago street car instead of a Veronese balcony, their language would have lacked savor, too. Perhaps young Mr. Montague and young Miss Capulet, instead of wailing, "No, that is not the lark whose notes do beat the vaulty heaven so high above our heads," would have done no better than Mr. Mallory and Miss Newton. In any case, the best these two could squeeze out was: "It's just too bad, honey." "But I guess it can't be helped, dear." "It's a mean old world, isn't it?" "Awful!"