"My what?" Marjorie laughed, then she spoke with lofty condescension: "Harry Mallory, if you're going to be jealous of that dog, I'll never marry you the longest day I live." "So you'll let a dog come between us?" he demanded. "I wouldn't give up Snoozleums for a hundred husbands," she retorted. "I'm glad to know it in time," Mallory said. "You'd better give me back that wedding ring." Marjorie's heart stopped at this, but her pride was in arms. She drew herself up, slid the ring from her finger, and held it out as if she scorned it: "With pleasure. Good afternoon, Mr. Mallory." Mallory took it as if it were the merest trifle, bowed and murmured: "Good afternoon, Miss Newton." He stalked out and she turned her back on him. A casual witness would have said that they were too indifferent to each other even to feel anger. As a matter of romantic fact, each was on fire with love, and aching madly with regret. Each longed for strength to whirl round with outflung arms of reconciliation, and neither could be so brave. And so they parted, each harking back fiercely for one word of recall from the other. But neither spoke, and Marjorie sat staring at nothing through raining eyes, while Mallory strode into the Men's Room as melancholy as Hamlet with Yorick's skull in his hands. It was their first great quarrel, and they were convinced that the world might as well come to an end. CHAPTER XXVIII THE WOMAN-HATER'S RELAPSE The observation room was as lonely as a deserted battle-field and Marjorie as doleful as a wounded soldier left behind, and perishing of thirst, when the conductor came back with Snoozleums in his arms. He regarded with contemptuous awe the petty cause of so great an event as the stopping of the Trans-American. He expected to see Marjorie receive the returned prodigal with wild rapture, but she didn't even smile when he said: "Here's your powder-puff." She just took Snoozleums on her lap, and, looking up with wet eyes and a sad smile, murmured: "Thank you very much. You're the nicest conductor I ever met. If you ever want another position, I'll see that my father gets you one." It was like offering the Kaiser a new job, but the conductor swallowed the insult and sought to repay it with irony. "Thanks. And if you ever want to run this road for a couple of weeks, just let me know." Marjorie nodded appreciatively and said: "I will. You're very kind." And that completed the rout of that conductor. He retired in disorder, leaving Marjorie to fondle Snoozleums with a neglectful indifference that would have greatly flattered Mallory, if he could have seen through the partition that divided them. But he was witnessing with the cynical superiority of an aged and disillusioned man the, to him, childish behavior of Ira Lathrop, an eleventh-hour Orlando.