“Do—­do you really care for me, Jack?” she asked, softly; then cried, “No, no, you needn’t answer—­because, of course, you worship me madly, unboundedly, distractedly.  They all do, but you do it more convincingly.  You have been taking lessons at night-school, I dare say, at all sorts of murky institutions.  And, Jack, really, cross my heart, I always stopped the others when they talked this way.  I tried to stop you, too.  You know I did?”

She raised her lashes, a trifle uncertainly, and withdrew her hand from his, a trifle slowly.  “It is wrong—­all horribly wrong.  I wonder at myself, I can’t understand how in the world I can be such a fool about you.  I must not be alone with you again.  I must tell my husband—­everything,” she concluded, and manifestly not meaning a word of what she said.

“By all means,” assented Mr. Charteris, readily.  “Let’s tell my wife, too.  It will make things so very interesting.”

“Rudolph would be terribly unhappy,” she reflected.

“He would probably never smile again,” said Mr. Charteris.  “And my wife—­oh, it would upset Anne, quite frightfully!  It is our altruistic, nay, our bounden duty to save them from such misery.”

“I—­I don’t know what to do!” she wailed.

“The obvious course,” said he, after reflection, “is to shake off the bonds of matrimony, without further delay.  So let’s elope, Patricia.”

Patricia, who was really unhappy, took refuge in flippancy, and laughed.

“I make it a rule,” said she, “never to elope on Fridays.  Besides, now I think of it, there is, Rudolph—­Ah, Rudolph doesn’t care a button’s worth about me, I know.  The funny part is that he doesn’t know it.  He has simply assumed he is devoted to me, because all respectable people are devoted to their wives.  I can assure you, mon ami, he would be a veritable Othello, if there were any scandal, and would infinitely prefer the bolster to the divorce-court.  He would have us followed and torn apart by wild policemen.”

Mr. Charteris meditated for a moment.

“Rudolph, as you are perfectly aware, would simply deplore the terribly lax modern notions in regard to marriage and talk to newspaper reporters about this much—­” he measured it between thumb and forefinger —­“concerning the beauty and chivalry of the South.  He would do nothing more.  I question if Rudolph Musgrave would ever in any circumstances be capable of decisive action.”

“Ah, don’t make fun of Rudolph!” she cried, quickly.  “Rudolph can’t help it if he is conscientious and in consequence rather depressing to live with.  And for all that he so often plays the jackass-fool about women, like Grandma Pendomer, he is a man, Jack—­a well-meaning, clean and dunderheaded man!  You aren’t; you are puny and frivolous, and you sneer too much, and you are making a fool of me, and—­and that’s why I like you, I suppose.  Oh, I wish I were good!  I have always tried to be good, and there doesn’t seem to be a hatpin in the world that makes a halo sit comfortably.  Now, Jack, you know I’ve tried to be good!  I’ve never let you kiss me, and I’ve never let you hold my hand—­until to-day—­ and—­and——­”