"They've shoved this cabinet over as if they had a special antagonism to it," he was saying, righting a small piece of furniture containing mostly Mary's papers. "There--not hurt, is it? Do the drawers open?" He began pulling them out, one after another. The last refused to open. "What's in this one--it blocks the spring?" Mary tried her hand at it. "Something wedged right at the edge. I'm sure I don't see what it can be. I never used that drawer for anything but----" At their combined jerk the drawer came flying into space, and with it the remains of a white cardboard box with the monograms of B. C. and S. O. entwined by means of a cupid and a tiny wreath of flowers. Dried cake crumbs lay in the bottom of the drawer. It was the Gorgeous Girl's box of wedding cake which Mary Faithful had found on her desk. Neither spoke immediately. Finally Mary said: "I suppose that's as bad an omen as to break a mirror under a ladder on Friday the thirteenth. Now shall I have the men sweep the office out? There is no reason we cannot get to work to-morrow." "Wait a moment about sweeping out offices and going to work," Steve insisted. "If you want to break the hoodoo you have just brought on yourself by smashing up wedding cake--let me talk and act as high priest." She shook her head. "You promised, and you've been true-blue--don't spoil it. Besides, it can do no good." "I want to ask a question," he insisted. "I'm not going to break faith with you or take advantage of knowing what you told me. I shall always try to appreciate the honour done me, no matter if I am unworthy. I want to ask a question in as impersonal a way as if I wrote in to a woman's column." He tried to laugh. "Ask away." Mary sat down in the nearest chair, the broken cardboard box at her feet. "Why is it that a man can honestly be in love with the woman he marries and yet in an amazingly short time find himself playing the cad in feeling disappointed, discontented, utterly lacking affection? It's a ghastly happening. Why is it he saw no handwriting on the wall? I am not stupid, Mary, neither am I given to inconstancy--I've had to struggle too much not to have my mind made up once and for all time. Why didn't I see through this veneer of a good time that these Gorgeous Girls manage to have painted over their real selves? Why did I never suspect? And what is a man to do when he discovers the disillusionment? You see it all, there's no sense in not admitting it--why do I find myself ill at ease, now tense, now irritable over trifles, now sulky, despondent--as plainly sulky and despondent as a wild animal successfully caged and labelled, which must perforce stay put yet which will not afford its spectators the satisfaction of walking wistfully from cage corner to cage corner and yowling in unanswered anguish!" "Is it as bad as that?" she asked, softly.