lved for him. At last after a rather prolonged pause on
his part, just at a point when he should have expressed admiration of
her guidance of a delicate affair, Estelle glanced at him and discovered
that he was asleep! They hadn't been married for three hours, and he
could go to sleep in the middle of their first real talk! She was sure
Lionel Drummond wouldn't have done any such thing. But Winn was old--he
was thirty-five--and she could see quite plainly now that the hair round
the tops of his ears was gray. She looked at him scornfully, but he
didn't wake up.

When he woke up he laughed.

"By Jove!" he exclaimed, "I believe I've been to sleep!" but he didn't
apologize. He began instead to tell her some things that might interest
her, about what Drummond, his best man, and he, had done in Manchuria,
just as if nothing had happened; but naturally Estelle wouldn't be
interested. She was first polite, then bored, then captious. Winn looked
at her rather hard. "Are you trying to pay me back for falling asleep?"
he asked with a queer little laugh. "Is that what you're up to?" Estelle
stiffened.

"Certainly not," she said. "I simply wasn't very interested. I don't
think I like Chinese stories, and Manchuria is just the same, of
course."

Winn leaned over her, with a wicked light in his eyes, like a naughty
school boy. "Own up!" he said, laying his rough hand very gently on her
shoulder. "Own up, old lady!"

But has anybody ever owned up when they were being spiteful?

Estelle didn't. She looked at Winn's hand till he withdrew it, and then
she remarked that she was feeling faint from want of food.

After she had had seven chicken sandwiches, pate de foie gras, half a
melon, and some champagne, she began to be agreeable.

Winn was delighted at this change in her and quite inclined to think
that their little "breeze" had been entirely due to his own awkwardness.
Still, he wished she had owned up.

CHAPTER V

It took Winn a month to realize that he had paid his money, had his shy,
and knocked down an empty cocoanut.

He couldn't get his money back, and he must spend the rest of his life
carrying the cocoanut about with him.

It never occurred to him to shirk the institution of marriage. The
church, the law, and the army stood in his mind for good, indelible
things. Estelle was his wife as much as his handkerchief was his
handkerchief. This meant that they were to be faithful to each other, go
out to dinne