ce or framed it in heavy splendors with its shadows,
and the supple erectness of her graceful carriage, the lithe dignity of
her every movement.

But, at last, she stirred uneasily and sat up. Garson accepted this as a
sufficient warrant for speech.

"You know--Aggie told you--that Cassidy was up here from Headquarters.
He didn't put a name to it, but I'm on." Mary regarded him inquiringly,
and he continued, putting the fact with a certain brutal bluntness
after the habit of his class. "I guess you'll have to quit seeing young
Gilder. The bulls are wise. His father has made a holler.

"Don't let that worry you, Joe," she said tranquilly. She allowed a few
seconds go by, then added as if quite indifferent: "I was married to
Dick Gilder this morning." There came a squeal of amazement from Aggie,
a start of incredulity from Garson.

"Yes," Mary repeated evenly, "I was married to him this morning. That
was my important engagement," she added with a smile toward Aggie. For
some intuitive reason, mysterious to herself, she did not care to meet
the man's eyes at that moment.

Aggie sat erect, her baby face alive with worldly glee.

"My Gawd, what luck!" she exclaimed noisily. "Why, he's a king fish, he
is. Gee! But I'm glad you landed him!"

"Thank you," Mary said with a smile that was the result of her sense of
humor rather than from any tenderness.

It was then that Garson spoke. He was a delicate man in his
sensibilities at times, in spite of the fact that he followed devious
methods in his manner of gaining a livelihood. So, now, he put a
question of vital significance.

"Do you love him?"

The question caught Mary all unprepared, but she retained her
self-control sufficiently to make her answer in a voice that to the
ordinary ear would have revealed no least tremor.

"No," she said. She offered no explanation, no excuse, merely stated the
fact in all its finality.

Aggie was really shocked, though for a reason altogether sordid, not one
whit romantic.

"Ain't he young?" she demanded aggressively. "Ain't he good-looking, and
loose with his money something scandalous? If I met up with a fellow
as liberal as him, if he was three times his age, I could simply adore
him!"

It was Garson who pressed the topic with an inexorable curiosity born of
his unselfish interest in the woman concerned.

"Then, why did you marry him?" he asked. The sincerity of him was excuse
enough for the seeming indelicacy of the que