ould have to back down, tell her he could not put the
bargain through, invent some other scheme.

The idea had been repugnant to her. It had taken her a week to fight it
out. It was a little beyond his reach, however, why the idea should have
been repugnant to her. It entailed nothing beyond a bit of mummery. The
repugnance was not due to religious training. The Conover household, as
he recalled it, had been rather lax in that respect. Why, then, should
Kitty have hesitated?

He thought of Hawksley, and swore. But for Hawksley's suggestion no
muddle like this would have occurred. Devil take him and his infernal
green stones!

Cutty suddenly remembered his train. He looked at his watch and saw that
his lower berth was well on the way to Baltimore. Always and eternally
he was missing something.

CHAPTER XXIX

Not unusually, when we burn our bridges, we have in the back of our
minds the dim hope that there may be a shallow ford somewhere. Thus,
bridges should not be burned impulsively; there may be no ford.

The idea of retreat pushed forward in Kitty's mind the moment she awoke;
but she pressed it back in shame. She had given her word, and she would
stand by it.

The night had been a series of wild impulses. She had not sent that
telegram to Cutty as the result of her deliberations in the country.
Impulse; a flash, and the thing was done, her bridges burned. To crush
Johnny Two-Hawks, fill his cup with chagrin, she had told him she was
going to marry Cutty. That was the milk in the cocoanut. Morning has a
way of showing up night-gold for what it is--tinsel. Kitty saw the stage
of last night's drama dismantled. If there was a shallow ford, she would
never lower her pride to seek it. She had told Two-Hawks, sent that wire
to Cutty, broke the news to Bernini.

But did she really want to go back? Not to know her own mind, to swing
back and forth like a pendulum! Was it because she feared that, having
married Cutty, she might actually fall in love with some other man
later? She could still go through the mummery as Cutty had planned; but
what about all the sublime generosity of the preceding night?

A queer feeling pervaded her: She was a marionette, a human manikin,
and some invisible hand was pulling the wires that made her do all
these absurd things. Her own mind no longer controlled her actions. The
persistence of that waltz! It had haunted her, broken into her dreams,
awakened her out of them. Why should