of a lucky punch, an accident. Lots
of chance," he said gravely.

She shrank against him, clingingly and protectingly, and he laughed with
surety.

"You wait, and you'll see. An' don't get scared at the start. The first
few rounds'll be something fierce. That's Ponta's strong point. He's a
wild man, with an kinds of punches,--a whirlwind,--and he gets his man in
the first rounds. He's put away a whole lot of cleverer and better men
than him. It's up to me to live through it, that's all. Then he'll be
all in. Then I go after him, just watch. You'll know when I go after
him, an' I'll get'm, too."

They came to the hall, on a dark street-corner, ostensibly the quarters
of an athletic club, but in reality an institution designed for pulling
off fights and keeping within the police ordinance. Joe drew away from
her, and they walked apart to the entrance.

"Keep your hands in your pockets whatever you do," Joe warned her, "and
it'll be all right. Only a couple of minutes of it."

"He's with me," Joe said to the door-keeper, who was talking with a
policeman.

Both men greeted him familiarly, taking no notice of his companion.

"They never tumbled; nobody'll tumble," Joe assured her, as they climbed
the stairs to the second story. "And even if they did, they wouldn't
know who it was and they's keep it mum for me. Here, come in here!"

He whisked her into a little office-like room and left her seated on a
dusty, broken-bottomed chair. A few minutes later he was back again,
clad in a long bath robe, canvas shoes on his feet. She began to tremble
against him, and his arm passed gently around her.

"It'll be all right, Genevieve," he said encouragingly. "I've got it all
fixed. Nobody'll tumble."

"It's you, Joe," she said. "I don't care for myself. It's you."

"Don't care for yourself! But that's what I thought you were afraid of!"

He looked at her in amazement, the wonder of woman bursting upon him in a
more transcendent glory than ever, and he had seen much of the wonder of
woman in Genevieve. He was speechless for a moment, and then stammered:--

"You mean me? And you don't care what people think? or anything?--or
anything?"

A sharp double knock at the door, and a sharper "Get a move on yerself,
Joe!" brought him back to immediate things.

"Quick, one last kiss, Genevieve," he whispered, almost holily. "It's my
last fight, an' I'll fight as never before with you lookin' at me."

The