“Who will pay the hotel?” Lorelei smiled.

“Mr. George W. Bridegroom, of course.  I’ll get the money, never fear.  I know everybody, and I’ve borrowed thousands of dollars when I didn’t need it.  My rooms at the Charlevoix are full of expensive junk; I’ll sell it, and that will help.  As soon as we’re decently settled I’ll look for a salaried job.  Then watch my smoke.  To quote from the press of a few months hence:  ’The meteoric rise of Robert Wharton has startled the financial world, surpassing as it does the sensational success of his father.  Young Mr. Wharton was seen yesterday at his Wall Street office and took time from his many duties to modestly assure our representative that his ability was inherited, and merely illustrates anew the maxim that “a chip of the old block will return after many days.”  That will please dad.  He’ll relent when I attribute my success to him.”

“You must quit drinking before you begin work,” said Lorelei.

“I have quit.”

With a person of such resilient temperament, one who gamboled through life like a faun, argument was difficult.  Bob Wharton was pagan in his joyous inconsequence; his romping spirits could not be damped; he bubbled with the optimism of a Robin Goodfellow.  Ahead of him he saw nothing but dancing sunshine, heard nothing but the Pandean pipes.  The girl wife watched him curiously.

“I wonder if you can,” she mused.  “Before we begin our new life we’re going to make a bargain, binding on both of us.  You’ll have to stop drinking.  I won’t live with a drunkard.  I’ll work until you’ve mastered the craving.”

“No!” Bob declared, firmly.  “I’ll take the river before I’ll let you—­keep me.  Why, if I—­”

Lorelei rose and laid her hand over his lips, saying quietly: 

“I’m planning our happiness, don’t you understand? and it’s a big stake.  You must pocket your pride for a while.  Nobody will know.  We’ve made a botch of things so far, and there is only one way for us to win out.”

“A man who’d let his wife—­”

“A man who wouldn’t let his wife have her way at first is a brute.”

“You shouldn’t ask it,” he cried, sullenly.

“I don’t ask it:  I insist upon it.  If you refuse we can’t go on.”

“Surely you don’t mean that?” He looked up at her with grave, troubled eyes.

“I do.  I’m entirely in earnest.  You haven’t strength to go out among your friends and restrain yourself.  No man as far gone as you could do it.”

“I’ve a simpler way than that,” he told her, after a moment’s thought.  “There are institutions where they straighten fellows up.  I’ll go to one of those.”

“No.”  She rejected this suggestion positively.  “They only relieve; they don’t cure.  The appetite comes back.  This is something you must do yourself, once and for all.  You must fight this out in secret; this city is no place for men with appetites they can’t control.  Do this for me, Bob, and—­and I’ll let you do anything after that.  I’ll let you—­beat me.”  Getting no response from him, she added gravely, “It is that or—­nothing.”