The color flowed back into her face and her lips parted. "Jerry--Only a girl like me's got to be careful--that was all I meant, Jerry. Jerry!" He scooped her in his short arms and kissed her lips, with her small face crumpled up against his shoulder, and she lay quiescent enough in his embrace. Wind sang in her ears as they rushed swiftly and surely along the oiled road, but the two small fists she pressed against his coat lapels did not relax. "Aw, now, Peachy, you mustn't treat a fellow cold no more! Ain't I going to marry you? Ain't I going to set you up right in my house out in Newton Heights? Ain't I going to give you a swell ten-room house? Ain't you going to live right in the house with my girl, and ain't she going to have you for a little stepmother?" "Jerry, the--the little girl. I wonder if she wants--" "Sure she does. Her mother gets her every other month. I'd let her go for good if you don't want her, except it would do her mother too much good. The courts give her to me every other month and I'll have her down to the last minute of the last hour or bust." "Jerry!" "That's what I gotta keep up the house out there for. The court says I gotta give her a home, and that's why I want a little queen like you in it. Gad! Won't her mother throw a red-headed fit when she sees the little queen I picked! Gad!" "Oh, Jerry, her your first wife and all! Won't it seem funny my going in her house and--and living with her kid." "Funny nothing. Cloonan won't think it's funny when I tell her she's finished running my house for me. Funny nothing. To-morrow's Sunday and I'm going to take you out in the afternoon and show you the place, and Monday, instead of going to your bargain bin, we're going down for a license, and you kiss the old hag good-by for me, too. Eh, how's that for one day's work?" "Gee! and--and--Monday the spring opening and me not there! Jerry, I--I can't get over me being a lady in my own house. Me! Me that hates ugliness and ugly clothes and ugly living so. Me that hates street-cars and always even hated boat excursions 'cause they was poor folks' pleasures. Me a lady in my own house. Oh, Jerry!" She quivered in his arms and he kissed her again with his moist lips pressed flat against hers. "Ten rooms, Peachy--that's the way I do things." They were curving up a gravel way, and through the lacy foliage of spring lights gleamed, and there came the remoter strains of syncopated music. She sat up and brushed back her hair. "Is this the place?" "Right-o! Now for that steak smothered in mushrooms, and, gad! I could manage a sweetbread salad on the side if you asked me right hard." They drew up in the flood-light of the entrance. "'Ain't I told you not to open the door for me, George? I don't need no black hand reaching back here to turn the handle for me. That don't make up for bad driving. Black hands off." "Jerry!" They alighted with an uncramping and unbending of limbs.