u have," she objected.

Francis looked up at her suddenly, flashingly. "You know better," he
burst out. "You know I'd marry you over again if I were forty years
old, and as wise as Solomon. The kind of love I had for you isn't the
kind that gets changed."

Marjorie lay for a minute silently. Then she looked at him
incredulously.

"But you said----" she began very softly.

"I said things that I ought to be horsewhipped for. I loved you so
much that I was jealous. I do think I've learned a little better.
Why, if you wanted to talk to some other man now, even if I knew you
loved him madly, if it would make you happier I think I'd get him for
you. . . . No. No, I don't believe I could. I want you too much
myself. But--I've learned a better kind of love, at least, than the
kind that only wants to make you miserable. I _did_ get Pennington for
you when you were so ill, and wanted him instead of me. Count that to
me for righteousness, Marge, when you think about me back there in the
city."

"Then--you mean--that you love me just as much as ever?"

She lay there, wide-eyed, flushed and unbelieving.

"As much? A thousand times more--you know it. Good heavens, how could
any one live in the house with you and not care more and more for you
all the time?"

"But, then, why did you----"

"Because I was a brute. I've told you that. And because it made me
unhappier and unhappier to see you drifting away from me, and then,
every time I could have done anything to draw you a little closer I'd
lash out and send you farther away with my selfishness and jealousy. I
didn't know it was any surprise to you. It's been the one thing you've
known from the beginning----"

She shook her head.

"Every time you lost your temper you said you'd stopped loving me. And
that nobody could love the bad girl I was, to flirt and deceive you----"

"I've no excuse. I haven't even the nerve to ask you to try it a
little longer. But believe this, Marjorie; the very hardest thing you
could ask me to do----"

She laughed a little, starry-eyed,

"If I asked you to go and do the cooking and cleaning for your beloved
men, that you made me do?" she asked whimsically.

He nodded matter-of-coursely.

"It would mean Pennington doing my directing, and I don't think he's up
to it; he's a fine second in command, but he can't plan. Yes, I'd do
it in a minute, though it would probably mean the job I'm making my
reputation on going sm