“She was in the office?”

“Sure.  She was Uncle Chester’s steno.  She was a queer sort of girl; pretty, too.  I was sore because my father made me work there, and I wanted to join the navy or go to college, or go on the stage, and she’d sit there making herself collars and things, and sort of console me.  She was engaged to a fellow in Los Angeles, or she said she was.

“We liked each other all right, she’d tell me her troubles and I’d tell her mine; she had a stepfather she hated, and sometimes she’d cry and all that.  The crowd began to jolly us about liking each other, and I could see she didn’t mind it much—–­”

“Perhaps she loved you, Wallie?” Martie suggested on a quick, excited breath.

“You bet your life she loved me!” he affirmed positively.

“Poor girl!” said the wife in pitying anticipation of a tragedy.

“Don’t call her ‘poor girl!’” Wallace said, his face darkening.  “She’ll look out for herself.  There’s a lot of talk,” he added with a sort of dull resentment, “about ‘leading young girls astray,’ and ‘betraying innocence,’ and all that, but I want to tell you right now that nine times out of ten it’s the girls that do the leading astray!  You ask any fellow—–­”

The expression on Martie’s face did not alter by the flicker of an eyelash.  She had been looking steadily at him, and she still stared steadily.  But she felt her throat thicken, and the blood begin to pump convulsively at her heart.

“But Wallace,” she stammered eagerly, “she wasn’t—­she wasn’t—–­”

“Sure she was!” he said coarsely; “she was as rotten as the rest of them!”

“But—­but—–­” Martie’s lips felt dry, her voice failed her.

“I was only a kid, I tell you,” said Wallace, uneasily watching her.  “Why, Mart,” he added, dropping on his knees beside the bed, and putting his arms about her, “all boys are like that!  Every one knows it.  There isn’t a man you know—–­And you’re the only girl I ever loved, Sweetheart, you know that.  Men are different, that’s all.  A boy growing up can’t any more keep out of it—–­And I never lied to you, Mart.  I told you when we were engaged that I wished to God, for your sake, that I’d never—–­”

“Yes, I know!” Martie whispered, shutting her eyes.  He kissed her suddenly colourless cheek, and she heard him move away.

“Well, to go on with the rest of this,” Wallace resumed suddenly.  Martie opened tired eyes to watch him, but he did not meet her look.

“Golda and I went together for about a year,” he said, “and finally she got to talking as if we were going to be married.  One day—­it was a rainy day in the office, and I had a cold, and she fixed me up something hot to drink—­she got to crying, and she said her stepfather had ordered her out of the house.  I didn’t believe it then, and I don’t believe it now, but anyway, we talked it all over, and she said she was going down to Los Angeles and hunt up this other fellow.  Well, that made me feel kind of sick, because we had been going together for so long, and her talking about how things would be when we were married and all that, and I said—­you know the way you do—­’What’s the matter with us getting married, right now?’”