"O, you Hergesheimer!" smiled she, leaping to the ground, lighting a cigarette in her descent. "Now look here, Tawdry, what's the idea of your trailing me this way? My mind's made up. You'll have simply missed a whole day at bridge and you know you can't afford it. I'm going to put in a month--a full month on the Sahara. I've the sand so why shouldn't I?" Verbeena drew herself up and shot a cigarette snag squarely into a lizard's eye. Pardon--I forgot to mention the lizard was twisting in the brilliant sunshine on a nearby opalescent rock. "Kid," said Lord Tawdry, not unkindly, "cut the proud boyish beauty stuff for half a shake, if you please. One must get down to brass tacks once in a while and just now the situation is such that I feel as if I were sitting on the points of a million." "Talk reasonably," said Miss Mayonnaise almost effeminately, "and I will do what little I can to understand you." "Well then, why this sudden interruption in our plans? The idea was that I was to chuck myself to America and go to Newport or some other nearby spot like Los Angeles and pluck for myself a wife somewhere between twenty to forty in age and forty to sixty in millions of American--er--buckoes--I think the bounders call 'em." "And I," nodded Verbeena, "was to go along and subtly instruct the victim that it wasn't necessary in good society to perform so many fancy tricks as Americans do with their forks and that in acquiring an English accent one didn't say fawncy for fancy. And I was to tell her how sensitive you were about money--about ever being left without any." "Bright chap, you are, Verbeena! It was a jolly plan. But when Butternut and his five thousand pun' a year came along I was willing to sacrifice myself, was I not? "I was willing," said Lord Tawdry, "to postpone America and stick to bridge until you'd a chance to snap the bally, wedding manacles on the pretty youth. And everything seemed moving perfectly until late last night. His eyes were then shining like a pair of motor car lamps with love for you. "I saw him beg you to go out upon the balcony. "And next a scream! "Butternut is carried in on a stretcher and you stroll back looking like an incense burner. "I seek to see Butternut. I cannot. I seek explanation from you----" "If only you hadn't begun with that usual stuff of clubbing my curls, Tawdry!--I just made up my mind to let you remain in suspense a while. But now I'll tell all! "I tried to play fair, Tawdry, tried to play fair," said Verbeena earnestly, "like the square little fellow I am." "Did Butternut ask you to marry him out there on the balcony last night?" "He did." "Well then?" "Tawdry, old chap, I overplayed my hand. I threw myself into his arms cooing 'Bertie, dearest Bertie' in as ladylike a manner as my bringing up allows. And then he hugged me. And to show him I really loved him, don't you know, I hugged him back. I just let myself go, old dear!" "To be sure--quite right--under the circumstances."