cheeks
flushed with insolence, his eyes moist with libations.

"Let's make peace," said Trampy. "Peace in the home: that's my motto!"

"Divorce!" cried Lily.

"Peace in the home for me!" rejoined Trampy, who grew the more radiant as
Lily grew more and more incensed.

"Let me tell you," he continued, puffing luxuriously at his cigar, "that
divorce--why, how can you think of it?--means a public scandal, my name
dragged in the mud...."

"Footy rotter!" roared Lily.

"Dragged in the mud; and my dear little wife left to her own resources,
marrying again, as she feels inclined, marrying some one unworthy of her,
perhaps. I won't have it! I'm responsible for you! I'm your natural
protector! You're not Miss Lily, you're Mrs. Trampy. You've been in the
wrong, certainly; you had me turned off the stage, me, your husband; but I
forgive you."

"And I ... take that!" Lily broke in, spitting in his face. "That's how
_I_ forgive _you_! Take that! And that!"

Trampy reveled with delight:

"You _are_ my dear little wifie, aren't you? And you'll remain so ... and
you'll never belong to any one else, do you hear? I am a faithful husband.
You're trying for a divorce, I know, but you won't get it. The wrong is on
your side and I'm not going to law, and you're Mrs. Trampy and Mrs. Trampy
you'll remain! Will you come and have a drink, Mrs. Trampy?" he continued,
lighting a fresh cigar. "Won't you? Very well. Good night, wifie!"

And Trampy, turning his back to her, disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

CHAPTER IV

Lily came home and went straight to bed, without even waiting for supper,
so great was her hurry to forget. It seemed to her that things had
happened, things without end; that this day had been as long as a year.
She simply could not understand Trampy. She could have imagined anything,
except that! She racked her brain to conjecture how, why; and sleep
quieted her till the next morning; and she woke up with teeth clenched and
eyebrows set and ... why? Why? And again why? Did he still want to keep
her?--after realizing in a hundred different ways that she did not love
him, that she loathed him, that she had married him only to escape her
whippings and that she had but one idea in her head: to divorce him!

Now--only Lily could not know this--it was because of that very reason
that Trampy clung to her, like a faithful husband: Jimmy, Jimmy was his
bugbear. He believed Jimmy to be in love with his wife. Once Lily was