the rest."

"You angel!" Margaret said. "Oh, don't cut us off!" she cried to the
girl at the exchange, for a buzzing sound filled her ears. "Are you
there? Can you hear? I won't take much on my honeymoon," she said,
but her words did not reach Hadassah; no answer came back to her. They
had been cut off. She quickly put the receiver back on its hook and
hurried off to do the next thing which suggested itself as being the
most important--writing a short list of the things which she would have
to buy the next day, and sending a telegram to her Aunt Anna.

[1] Hermann Fernau: _The Coming Democracy_.

CHAPTER III

The next day, when Margaret met Michael in the garden square, she was
not in her V.A.D.'s uniform. She told him that she was now her own
mistress, so much so that she had that morning almost completed the
purchase of her trousseau, and that she was free to stay out as long as
she liked.

"But I want you," she said, "to return with me now to Clarges Street,
to the Iretons. They are in town, and Hadassah says we can be married
from their rooms to-morrow."

"They are the kindest people in the world," he said. "I felt sure you
were making friends with Hadassah while I was in the desert. I often
comforted myself with the fact that she would understand the whole
situation and help you."

"She's a brick!" Margaret said. "She has been your ardent champion all
the time."

They signalled to a taxi-cab to drive them to Clarges Street. It was
necessary to do everything as quickly as they could; there was no time
for leisurely walking or discussion.

Suddenly Margaret said, "Look! Quick, Mike, there! I saw that black
figure again. She was sitting in the gardens when I arrived. She
never used to be here--I feel convinced that she is following us. I
believe one of these taxies is waiting for her." Her eyes indicated
two taxis, which were waiting outside the gardens.

"Why do you think so?" Michael said. "What can any human being want
with us? Why should our movements be interesting to any one but our
two selves?" He laughed. "By Jove, they are interesting to us,
though, aren't they?"

His eyes spoke of the morrow.

Margaret laughed, too. Michael's high spirits allowed her no time for
reflection. He was carrying her off her feet in his old magnetic way.
If he had only beckoned, she would have followed him to the ends of the
earth; wings would have carried her, the air would have bo