As soon as Peaches was left alone with her fiancé the disgust and repulsion which had been rapidly mounting in her breast all evening reached its apex in expression. True, Sebastian Markheim was no different from what he had been right along--a little less attractive, rather more grotesquely disordered and a little more drunken, perhaps, but Markheim just the same--slightly accented, that was all. But the small exaggerations were enough to drive her wild. Coming to light as they did at a moment when she was at the highest possible tension, when for forty-eight hours she had been living with the animate ghost of her old and far deeper love, the spectacle of this disorganized little millionaire with his ungroomed head, his preposterous purple satin wrapper, his stupid drunkenness and his ineffective querulousness about his picture was too much for her. The very thought of marrying him became more than the mere impossibility which it had been from the moment when her memories of Sandro had been quickened into new life. This marriage, now only a few weeks distant, became an actual horror. She felt unable to face the thought of it another hour. And so, despite his condition, she set about making a clean break. "Mark," said she in a low strained voice, towering over him as he sat in a crumpled heap upon the big sofa before the fire place, "Mark--I am not going to marry you." "Eh? What's that, what's that?" said he. "I said that it's all off!" Peaches affirmed. "I couldn't marry you--not on a bet. I'm awfully sorry of course. Will you forgive me?" "Forgive you!" he said, getting to his feet and seizing her by the hand. "Here--sit down a minute--you can't do that, you know--sit down and let's talk this over!" She did not want to do so, but his grip upon her arm was strong, and rather than cross him she complied. "You don't understand--I'm breaking it off," she said firmly. "But what have I done?" Sebastian asked. "Come on now--don't be mad at me! Didn't I pet you enough to-night? Come--give us a kiss and forget it!" "I don't want to kiss you!" said Peaches, drawing away from his advance. "Please, Mark! I'm trying to tell you that I had the wrong dope--I never loved you enough to marry you, and to-night I got a gleam of light I can't go through with it." "Not go through with it!" he replied sullenly. As the fact that she really meant what she said slowly penetrated to his befuddled brain a look of anger took the place of the maudlin affection which had been in his face a moment before. "Not go through with it--but you--you promised. Why, the wedding invitations go out to-morrow--impossible not to go through with it!" "I'm sorry--but you heard me," said she. "I don't love you." "But I love you!" he burst out. "And as for love--you don't know anything about it. What can a great big kid like you know about love? You'll love me when we are married! Stop your nonsense and give us a kiss!"