t----"

"After I'm gone shall we--shall we _stay_ married?"

This being the real question he was glad she faced it with the
directness which gave her a kind of charm. He admitted that. She had
the charm of everything which is genuine of its kind. She made no
pretense. Her expression, her voice, her lack of sophistication, all
had the limpidity of water. He felt himself thanking God for it. "He
alone knows what kind of hands I might have fallen into yesterday,
crazy fool that I am." Of this child, crude as she was, he could make
his own disposition.

So in answer to her question he told her he had seen his lawyer in the
afternoon--he was a lawyer himself but he didn't practice--and the
great man had explained to him that of all the processes known to
American jurisprudence the retracing of such steps as they had taken
on the previous day was one of the simplest. What the law had joined
the law could put asunder, and was well disposed toward doing so.
There being several courses which they could adopt, he put them before
her one by one. She listened with the sort of attention which shows
the mind of the listener to be fixed on the speaker, rather than on
anything he says. Not being obliged to ask questions or to make
answers she could again see him as the handsome, dark-eyed prince whom
she would have loved to save from drowning or any other fate.

Of all he said she could attach a meaning to but one word:
"desertion." Even in the technical marital sense she knew vaguely its
significance. She thought of it with a tightening about the heart. Any
desertion of him of which she would be capable would be like that of
the little mermaid when she dived sorrowfully down to her father's
palace, leaving him with those to whom he belonged. It was this
thought which prompted a question flung in among his observations,
though the link in the train of thought was barely traceable:

"Is she takin' you back--the girl you told me about yesterday?"

He looked puzzled. "Did I tell you about a girl yesterday?"

"Why, sure! You said she kicked you out----"

"Well, she hadn't. I--I didn't know I'd gone so far as to say----"

"Oh, you went a lot farther than that. You said you were goin' to the
devil. Ain't you? I mean, aren't you?"

"I--I don't seem able to."

"You're the first fellow I've ever heard say that."

"I'm the first fellow I've ever heard say it myself. But I tried
to-day--and I couldn't."

"What did you do?"

"I t