ery earnestly, "tell me what he said?"

He was silent.

"Tell me," she pleaded.

He was still silent.

"Tell me," she said imperiously.

He continued silent. They sat down.

"Mr. Denham," she said, as she took up her napkin, and her voice grew very
low, and yet he heard, "I don't think that we can pretend to be joking any
longer. You are my brother's friend, and I am a married woman. Please
treat me as you should."

"That's just it," said Jack; "that's all there is to it. It wouldn't have
amounted to anything except for that--or perhaps, if it hadn't been for
that, it might have amounted to a great deal."

"If it hadn't been for what?"

"For your being married."

She quite started in her seat.

"What do you mean?"

"You see I never knew it before."

"You never knew what before?"

"That you were married."

"Until when?"

"Until after you went out of the room to-night."

The men were putting the clams around. She seemed to reflect. And then she
peppered and salted them before she spoke.

"Bob is very wrong to talk so," she said at last, picking up her fork,
"when you're his friend, too."

He poked his clams--he hated clams.

"I suppose men think it's amusing to do such things," she continued, "but
I think it's as ill-bred as practical joking."

"But you are married," he said, trying fiercely to pepper some taste into
the tasteless things before him.

"Yes, I'm married," she admitted tranquilly, "but, then, my husband went
to Africa so soon afterwards that he hardly seemed to count at all. And
then he was killed there; so, after that, he seemed to count less than
ever."

The air danced exclamation points and the man on the other side spoke to
her then so that her turning to answer him gave Jack time to rally his
wits.

(A widow!)

Then she turned back and said:

"I think Bob mystified you unnecessarily. Of course I don't flatter myself
that you've suffered."

"Oh, but I have," he hastened to assure her.

(A widow! A widow!)

"But it always makes a difference whether a woman is married or not."

"I should say it did," he interrupted again. "It makes all the difference
in the world."

At that she laughed outright, and someone suddenly abstracted the
distasteful clams and substituted for them a golden and glorious soup, and
music sounded forth from some invisible quartet, and--and--

(A widow! A widow! A widow!)

CHAPTER FIVE - THE DAY AFTER FALLING IN LOVE

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