“Can you blame me?” She shrugged her shoulders disdainfully. “Have I not daily evidence of your attentions to Janet Fordyce?” Barnard threw back his head and laughed long and heartily. “Madge, are you quite blind?” he asked. “I am attentive to Janet, yes, because then I can be near you. Do you really suppose I care for that bread-and-butter miss?” “Bread and butter’s very good for a steady diet,” Marjorie passed a nervous hand over her forehead. “Particularly when it’s spread with gold dust.” “Steady, Madge, steady; there are some insults a man can’t take from even a woman.” Barnard’s eyes were flashing ominously, and every bit of color had deserted his face. “Have you no spark of feeling about you? Are you all adamantine? Have you no recollection of the night we plighted our troth?” his voice quivered with pent-up passion, and she moved uneasily. “I am not the one who forgot, Chichester,” she said, refusing to meet his eyes. “When I found--changed conditions, I gave you back your freedom.” “Because I had not been to see you for a couple of days. What a reason!” he laughed mirthlessly. “You accuse me of lack of faith; come, where was _your_ faith?” “It’s the pot calling the kettle black;” Marjorie, intent on controlling her impulse to cry, failed to observe Barnard’s altered demeanor. He had been intently studying the varying emotions which flitted across her face, and, keen student of human nature that he was, instantly put his knowledge of her character to the test. “Come,” he sprang to his feet. “We will go to Madame Yvonett....” “What for?” in alarm, the recollection of the chattel mortgage returning to her. “To ask her consent to our marriage.” Marjorie sat back in her seat. “Would you wed me, the beggar maid?” “Within the hour, if you wish.” He leaned nearer her, and his hot passionate words soothed her troubled heart, and finally dispelled her last lingering doubt. She gazed at him half shyly, never had he appeared to greater advantage, her chevalier “_sans peur et sans reproche_.” A piercing automobile siren brought her back from her day-dream. “What time is it?” she asked in some alarm. Barnard looked at his watch. “Twenty minutes of one.” “Then we can just do it,” and snatching up her chain bag, she led the way to Pennsylvania Avenue. “Are we going to Madame Yvonett’s?” he asked tenderly. “Not now.” Her eyes smiled wistfully back into his. “Madge, won’t you marry me?” stopping directly in front of her. “Not just yet.” Marjorie only saw the bitter disappointment in the fine eyes regarding her so wistfully; she never caught the significance of his long-drawn sigh of relief. “I have some pride, Chichester. Let me first get clear of my debts, and then we’ll talk of marriage.” “Won’t you let me help you with that chattel mortgage?” pleaded Barnard. “No,” gently. “I shall write to some friends in New York--here comes our car, Chichester, do hurry.”