e flamed at
him. "How dared you come here?"

"I had to come, dear." His voice was pleading, yet imperturbably
pleasant. "You refused to answer the letters I wrote you begging you
to meet me somewhere to talk things over. I read that Mrs. De Peyster
was sailing to-night, and I knew that you were sailing with her.
Surely you understand, before she went, I had to see my wife."

"I refuse to recognize myself as such!" cried Miss Gardner.

"But, my dear, you married--"

"Yes, after knowing you just two days! Oh, you can be charming and
plausible, but that shows just how foolish a girl can be when she's a
bit tired and lonesome, and then gets a bit of a holiday."

"But, Clara, you really liked me!"

"That was because I didn't know who you were and what you were!"

"But, Clara," he went on easily--he could not help talking easily,
though his tone had the true ring of sincerity. There seemed to be no
bit of agressive self-assurance about this young gentleman; he seemed
to be just quietly, pleasantly, whimsically, unsubduably his natural
self. "But, Clara, you must remember that it was as sudden with me as
with you. I hardly thought about explaining. And then, I'll be frank,
I was afraid if I did tell, you wouldn't have me. I did side-step a
bit, that's a fact."

"You admit this, and yet you expect me to accept as my husband a man
who admits he is a crook!"

"My dear Clara," he protested gently, "I never admitted I was such an
undraped, uneuphonious, square-cornered word as that."

"Well, if a forger isn't a crook, then who is? The business of those
forged letters of Thomas Jefferson, do you think I can stand for
that?"

The young man was in earnest, deadly earnest; yet he could not help
his wide mouth tilting slightly upward to the right. Plainly there was
something here that amused him.

"But, Clara, you don't seem to understand that business--and you don't
seem to understand me."

"No, I must say I don't!" she said caustically.

"Well, perhaps I can't blame you," he admitted soothingly, "for I
don't always understand myself. But really, my dear, you're not seeing
this in the right light. Oh, I'm not going to defend myself. It's sad,
very sad, but I'll confess I'm no chromo of sweet and haloed rectitude
to be held up for the encouragement and beatification of young John D.
Rockefeller's Bible Class. Still, I get my living quite as worthily as
many of the guests who grace"--with a light wave of his hand about