for another effort.

"Now look here, Loretta, be sensible. What is this about kisses. You
haven't told me everything?"

"I--I don't want to tell you everything."

She looked at him beseechingly in the silence that fell.

"Must I?" she quavered finally.

"You must," he said imperatively. "You must tell me everything."

"Well, then... must I?"

"You must."

"He... I... we..." she began flounderingly. Then blurted out, "I let
him, and he kissed me."

"Go on," Bashford commanded desperately.

"That's all," she answered.

"All?" There was a vast incredulity in his voice.

"All?" In her voice was an interrogation no less vast.

"I mean--er--nothing worse?" He was overwhelmingly aware of his own
awkwardness.

"Worse?" She was frankly puzzled. "As though there could be! Billy
said--"

"When did he say it?" Bashford demanded abruptly.

"In his letter I got this morning. Billy said that my... our... our
kisses were terrible if we didn't get married."

Bashford's head was swimming.

"What else did Billy say?" he asked.

"He said that when a woman allowed a man to kiss her, she always married
him--that it was terrible if she didn't. It was the custom, he said;
and I say it is a bad, wicked custom, and I don't like it. I know I'm
terrible," she added defiantly, "but I can't help it."

Bashford absent-mindedly brought out a cigarette.

"Do you mind if I smoke?" he asked, as he struck a match.

Then he came to himself.

"I beg your pardon," he cried, flinging away match and cigarette. "I
don't want to smoke. I didn't mean that at all. What I mean is--"

He bent over Loretta, caught her hands in his, then sat on the arm of
the chair and softly put one arm around her.

"Loretta, I am a fool. I mean it. And I mean something more. I want you
to be my wife."

He waited anxiously in the pause that followed.

"You might answer me," he urged.

"I will... if--"

"Yes, go on. If what?"

"If I don't have to marry Billy."

"You can't marry both of us," he almost shouted.

"And it isn't the custom... what... what Billy said?"

"No, it isn't the custom. Now, Loretta, will you marry me?"

"Don't be angry with me," she pouted demurely.

He gathered her into his arms and kissed her.

"I wish it were the custom," she said in a faint voice, from the
midst of the embrace, "because then I'd have to marry you, Ned dear...
wouldn't I?"

JUST MEAT

He strolled to the corner and glanced up and down th