But Puck was not wanting speech of him just then. She turned her red
lips to his. "But even if it's a girl, darling, it won't matter, for
she'll be born on the right side of the safety-curtain now, thanks to
your goodness, your generosity."

He stopped her sharply. "Puck! Puck!"

Their lips met. Puck was sobbing a little and smiling at the same time.

"Your love is the safety-curtain, Billikins darling," she whispered,
softly. "And I'm going to thank God for it--every day of my life."

"My darling!" he said. "My wife!"

Her eyes shone up to his through tears. "Oh, do you realize," she said,"
that we have risen from the dead?"

The Experiment

CHAPTER I

ON TRIAL

"I really don't know why I accepted him. But somehow it was done before
I knew. He waltzes so divinely that it intoxicates me, and then I
naturally cease to be responsible for my actions."

Doris Fielding leant back luxuriously, her hands clasped behind her
head.

"I can't think what he wants to marry me for," she said reflectively. "I
am quite sure I don't want to marry him."

"Then, my dear child, what possessed you to accept him?" remonstrated
her friend, Vera Abingdon, from behind the tea-table.

"That's just what I don't know," said Doris, a little smile twitching
the corner of her mouth. "However, it doesn't signify greatly. I don't
mind being engaged for a little while if he is good, but I certainly
shan't go on if I don't like it. It's in the nature of an experiment,
you see; and it really is necessary, for there is absolutely no other
way of testing the situation."

She glanced at her friend and burst into a gay peal of laughter. No one
knew how utterly charming this girl could be till she laughed.

"Oh, don't look so shocked, please!" she begged. "I know I'm flippant,
flighty, and foolish, but really I'm not a bit wicked. Ask Phil if I am.
He has known me all my life."

"I do not need to ask him, Dot." Vera spoke with some gravity
notwithstanding. "I have never for a moment thought you wicked. But I do
sometimes think you are rather heartless."

Doris opened her blue eyes wide.

"Oh, why? I am sure I am not. It really isn't my fault that I have been
engaged two or three times before. Directly I begin to get pleasantly
intimate with any one he proposes, and how can I possibly know, unless I
am on terms of intimacy, whether I should like to marry him or not? I am
sure I don't want to be engaged to any one for any lengt