d because----"

"Well? Go on."

"Because----" The bachelor hesitated and gazed deep into the violet
eyes.

"Please proceed, Mr. Travers."

"I won't!" The bachelor turned his back on her defiantly.

The widow came a little nearer and stooped around to peep under his
hat-brim.

"Please--Billy!" she breathed softly.

"Well, then--because I'm in the marrying mood," he replied.

But the widow was half way to the hotel before he knew what had
happened.

V

MONEY AND MATRIMONY.

"WHAT rhymes with 'matrimony'?" inquired the widow, taking her pencil
out of her mouth and looking up thoughtfully through the fringes of her
pompadour.

"Money," responded the bachelor promptly, as he flung himself down on
the grass beside her and proceeded to study her profile through the
shadows of the maple leaves.

The widow tilted her chin scornfully.

"I suppose they do sound alike," she condescended, "but I am making a
poem; and there is no poetical harmony in the combination."

"There is no harmony at all without it," remarked the bachelor shortly.
"But how on earth can you make a poem out of matrimony?"

"Some people do," replied the widow loftily.

"On paper!" sneered the bachelor. "On paper they make poems of death and
babies and railroad accidents and health foods. But in real life
matrimony isn't a poem; it's more like a declaration of war, or an
itemized expense account, or a census report, or a cold business
proposition."

The widow bit the end of her pencil and laid aside her paper. If the
bachelor could have caught a glimpse of her eyes beneath the lowered
lashes he might not have gone on; but he was studying the sky through
the maple leaves.

"It's a beautiful business proposition," he added. "A magnificent money
making scheme, a----"

The bachelor's eyes had dropped to the widow's and he stopped short.

"Go on," she remarked in a cold, sweet voice that trickled down his
back.

"Oh, well," he protested lamely, "when you marry for money you generally
get it, don't you? But when you marry for love--it's like putting your
last dollar on a long shot."

"If you mean there's a delightful uncertainty about it?" began the
widow.

"There's nothing half so delightful," declared the bachelor, "as betting
on a sure thing. Now, the man or woman who marries for money----"

"Earns it," broke in the widow fervently. "Earns it by the sweat of the
brow. The man who marries a woman for her money is a white sl