she
tied a becoming cardinal bow under her chin, hummed two bars of "The
Wedding March" through the pins in her mouth.

Two minutes later saw her seated on the high box beside her future
lord _in posse_; the bays plunging like mad and Andy swinging to the
reins as if for life. For, before she could speak one word--and for no
reason to her apparent--he had let the limber lash drop stingingly
across their backs.

Very keen was the winter wind that swept by her tingling ears; and
Miss Wood raised her seal-skin muff and hid her modest blushes from
it. For that gentle virgin had ever a familiar demon at her elbow. His
name was Experience; and now he whispered to her: "A red nose never
reflects sentiment!"

"And _he_ is so particular how one looks," Miss Rose whispered back to
the familiar; and her tip-tilted feature sought deeper protection in
the furs.

At length, when well off the paved streets, the mad rush of the brutes
cooled down to a swinging trot--ten miles an hour; Browne's tense arms
relaxed a trifle; and he drew a long, deep breath--whether of relief,
or anxiety, no listener could have guessed. But he kept his eyes still
rooted to that off-horse's right ear as though destiny herself sat
upon its tip.

Then, for the first time, he spoke; and he spoke with unpunctuated
rapidity, in a hard, mechanical tone, as though he were a bad model of
Edison's latest triumph, and some tyro hand was grinding at the
cylinder.

"Miss Rose," he began, "we are old friends--never so old; but I can
never sufficiently regret--last night!"

He felt, rather than saw, the muff come sharply down and the face turn
full to him; regardless now of the biting wind.

"No! don't interrupt me," he went on, straight at the off-horse's
right ear. "I _know_ your goodness of heart; _know_ how it pained you;
but you could have done nothing else but--_refuse me!_"

Miss Rose Wood's mouth opened quickly; but a providential gutter
jolted her nearly from the seat; and the wind drove her first word
back into her throat like a sob.

The inexorable machine beside her ground on relentless.

"Yes, I understand what you would say: that you refused me _firmly_
and _finally_ because I--_deserved it!_" Had Andy Browne's soul really
been the tin-foil of the phonograph, it could not have shown more
utter disregard of moral responsibility. "You knew I was under the
influence of wine; that I would never have dared to address you had I
been myself! I repe