way up and had become recognized by fashionable society, had become an established social favorite, marriage had been robbed of one of its terrors.  But the other remained—­divorce still meant alimony.  The woman who trapped an eligible never endangered her hard-earned position; a man must be extremely careful or he would find himself forced to hard choice between keeping on with a woman he wished to be rid of and paying out a large part of his income in alimony.  It seemed far-fetched to think of these things in connection with such a woman as Margaret.  He certainly never could grow tired of her, and her looks were of the sort that had staying power.  Nor was she in the least likely to be so ungrateful as to wish to be rid of him and hold him up for alimony.  Still—­ wouldn’t it have been seemingly just as absurd to consider in advance such sordid matters in connection with any one of a dozen couples among his friends whose matrimonial enterprises had gone smash?  It was said that nowadays girls went to the altar thinking that if the husbands they were taking proved unsatisfactory they would soon be free again, the better off by the title of Mrs. and a good stiff alimony and some invaluable experience.  “I must keep my head,” thought he.  “I must consider how I’d feel after the fatal cards were out.”

“Yes, you were quite eager for me to marry him,” persisted she.  She was watching his face out of the corner of her eye.

“I admit it,” said he huskily.  “But we’ve both changed since then.”

“Changed?” said she, perhaps a shade too encouragingly.

He felt the hook tickling his gills and darted off warily.  “Changed toward him, I mean.  Changed in our estimate of his availability as a husband for you.”  He rose; the situation was becoming highly perilous.  “I must speak to your mother and fly.  I’m late for an appointment now.”

As he drove away ten minutes later he drew a long breath.  “Gad!” said he half aloud, “Rita’ll never realize how close I was to proposing to-day.  She almost had me....  Though why I should think of it that way I don’t know.  It’s damned low and indelicate of me.  She ought to be my wife.  I love her as much as a man of experience can love a woman in advance of trying her out thoroughly.  If she had money I’d not be hesitating, I’m afraid.  Then, too, I don’t think the moral tone of that set she and I travel with is what it ought to be.  It’s all very well for me, but—­Well, a man ought to be ready for almost anything that might happen if his wife went with that crowd—­or had gone with it before he married her.  Not that I suspect Margaret, though I must say—­What a pup this sort of life does make of a man in some ways! ...Yes, I almost leaped.  She’ll never know how near I came to it....  Perhaps Josh’s more than half-right and I’m oversophisticated.  My doubts and delays may cost me a kind of happiness I’d rather have than anything on earth—­if it really exists.”  There he laughed comfortably.  “Poor Rita!  If she only knew, how cut up she’d be!”