"Am coming up to arrange with you about Mrs. Ellison," it said. "Know all." It was signed by Logan. "Good heavens!" said Marjorie helplessly. "Knows all!" said Francis bitterly. "And that's the sort of girl you are!" CHAPTER V Marjorie froze in consternation. She had forgotten to allow for Francis's gusts of anger; indeed, there had been no need, for since his one flare-up over the telephone he had been perfectly gentle and courteous to her. She stared at him, amazed. "But I didn't do anything to make that happen!" she protested. "I never dreamed--why, I'd have too much pride----" "Pride!" thundered Francis. "It's plain cause and effect. You write to that pup in New York, and I give you the envelope and paper--help you straight through it, good heavens!--and you use my decency to appeal to him for help, after you've agreed to try it out and see it through!" Marjorie stiffened with anger. "I _was_ going to try it out and see it through," she countered with dignity. "But if you treat me this way I see no reason why I should. Even this housekeeper of yours would give me money to escape with." "Escape! You act as if you were in a melodrama!" said Francis angrily. "We made a bargain, that's all there is to it; and the first chance you get, you smash it. I suppose that's the way women act. . . . I don't know much about women, I admit." "You don't know much about me," said Marjorie icily, "if you jump to conclusions like that about me. Whatever that Logan man knows he doesn't know from me. Have you forgotten Lucille?" "Lucille wouldn't----" began Francis, and stopped. "And why wouldn't she? Didn't she tell me that I was a poor little pet, and that men could always take care of themselves and, then turn around and help you carry me away? And it was carrying me away--it was stealing me, as if I were one of those poor Sabine women in the history book." They were fronting each other across the threshold all this time, Francis with his face rigid and pale with anger, his wife flushed and quivering. "I admit I hadn't thought of that," said Francis, referring presumably to Lucille's possibilities as an informer, and not to Marjorie's being a Sabine woman. Marjorie moved back wearily and sat on the bed. "And you were just getting to be such a nice friend," she mourned. "I was getting so I _liked_ you. There never was anybody pleasanter than you while we were coming up from New York. Why, you weren't like a person one was married to, at all!" "More like a friend nor a 'usband," quoted Francis unexpectedly. Marjorie looked at him in surprise. Any one who could stop in the middle of a very fine quarrel to see the funny side of things that way wasn't so bad, her mind remarked to itself before she could stop it. "What do you mean?" she asked, mitigating her wrath a little.