an unfinancial
way. Finally he laid violent hands upon his truck and retreated into the
hall, swearing, as became his age, more luridly than the bellboys.

Once more Marjorie looked out into the street for a while and began to
plan the exact form of greeting with which she should meet John. It
already seemed an eternity since she had parted with him. She drew the
pretty evening dress which she had chosen for this and most important
evening from its tissue-paper nest in the upper tray of her trunk. Its
daintiness comforted and cheered her, as a friend's face might have
done, and under its impetus she found calm enough to rearrange her hair,
and, with many a shy recoil and shy caress, to lay out John's evening
things for him, as she had often laid out her father's. How surprised,
she smiled, he would be. How delighted, when he came, to find everything
so comfy and domestic. Surely it was time for him to come. Presently it
was late, and yet he did not come. She evolved another form of greeting:
he did not deserve comfort and domesticity when he did not set more
store on them than on a stupid interview in a stuffy office. He should
see that an appointment with old Nicholson could not be allowed to
interfere with their home life; that, simply because they were married
now, he could not neglect her with impunity.

She practised the detached, casual sort of smile with which she would
greet him, and the patient, uninterested silence with which she would
listen to his apologies. Then, realizing that these histrionics would be
somewhat marred by a pink negligee, she struggled into her dinner dress.

It was then seven o'clock and time to practise some more vehement reception
for the laggard. It went well--very well. Any man would have been
annihilated by it, but there was still no man when half-past seven came.

Quite suddenly she fell into a panic. John was dead! She had heard and
read of the perils of New York. She had seen a hundred potential
accidents on her drive from the ferry. Trolley, anarchist, elevated
railroad, collapsed buildings, frightened horses, runaway automobiles.
Her dear John! Her mangled husband! Passing out of the world, even while
she, his widowed bride, was dressing in hideous colors, and thinking so
falsely of him!

He must be brought to her. Some one should go and say something to
somebody! Telephone Uncle Richard! She flew to the directory, which had
interested her so little when the polite bellboy