"Just wait!" she said, ominously, and stalked in like a young Zenobia. He put out an appealing hand: "Now, Marjorie, listen to reason. Of course I know you won't marry me now." "Oh, you know that, do you?" she said, with a squared jaw. "But, really, you ought to marry me--not merely because I love you--and you're the only girl I ever----" He stopped short and she almost smiled as she taunted him: "Go on--I dare you to say it." He swallowed hard and waived the point: "Well, anyway, you ought to marry me--for your own sake." Then she took his breath away by answering: "Oh, I'm going to marry you, never fear." "You are," he cried, with a rush of returning hope. "Oh, I knew you loved me." She pushed his encircling arms aside: "I don't love you, and that's why I'm going to marry you." "But I don't understand." "Of course not," she sneered, as if she were a thousand years old, "you're only a man--and a very young man." "You've ceased to love me," he protested, "just because of a little affair I had before I met you?" Marjorie answered with world-old wisdom: "A woman can forgive a man anything except what he did before he met her." He stared at her with masculine dismay at feminine logic: "If you can't forgive me, then why do you marry me?" "For revenge!" she cried. "You brought me on this train all this distance to introduce me to a girl you used to spoon with. And I don't like her. She's awful!" "Yes, she is awful," Mallory assented. "I don't know how I ever----" "Oh, you admit it!" "No." "Well, I'm going to marry you--now--this minute--with that preacher, then I'm going to get off at Reno and divorce you." "Divorce me! Good Lord! On what grounds?" "On the grounds of Miss Kitty--Katty--Llewellington--or whatever her name is." Mallory was groggy with punishment, and the vain effort to foresee her next blow. "But you can't name a woman that way," he pleaded, "for just being nice to me before I ever met you." "That's the worst kind of unfaithfulness," she reiterated. "You should have known that some day you would meet me. You should have saved your first love for me." "But last love is best," Mallory interposed, weakly. "Oh, no, it isn't, and if it is, how do I know I'm to be your last love? No, sir, when I've divorced you, you can go back to your first love and go round the world with her till you get dizzy." "But I don't want her for a wife," Mallory urged, "I want you." "You'll get me--but not for long. And one other thing, I want you to get that bracelet away from that creature. Do you promise?" "How can I get it away?" "Take it away! Do you promise?" Mallory surrendered completely. Anything to get Marjorie safely into his arms: "I promise anything, if you'll really marry me." "Oh, I'll marry you, sir, but not really."