The new transmission was of a better model than the old one, and I foresaw I might have trouble about it with the syndicate.  It would be just like Harry to talk about “unearned increment” and rope me in to pay part.  But I still owed on my leather coat and wasn’t in the humor to hand out a cent.  What is the good of iron-clad agreements, anyway, if people don’t live up to them —­and as for the transmission, I was quite satisfied with the old one till they broke it.  So when Nelly came around one night, all smiles and friendliness, I suspected trouble and didn’t kiss her very hard back.  But she was in too high spirits to notice anything, and hugged me and hugged me till I inwardly relented ten dollars’ worth on the transmission—­for Nelly and I had been good chums before we went into the syndicate, and there was a time when we would have shared our last chocolate cream.

“Virgie, you can’t guess!” she exclaimed, her eyes dancing.

“The makers will do the right thing and won’t charge for it?”

This brought her back again to earth at once.

“It—­it isn’t the transmission at all,” she said.  “I am going to get married next month!”

“I thought they insisted that Harry had to save a thousand dollars first.”

“He’s got it!  He’s got it!” she cried delightedly.

I was nearly as happy as she was, for it had looked terribly hopeless up till then, what with all the money they had put into the syndicate and the way the bubble was gobbling us up.

“Oh, Nelly, I am so glad,” I said.  “I’ll put in that forced water circulation at once, and I’ll make your and Harry’s share of it a wedding present!”

“Oh, I’m out of the syndicate,” she said.  “I guess we’d prefer something for the flat.”

“Out of the syndicate?” I cried.

“Yes,” she returned brazenly.  “Sold out!”

It took me a moment to pull myself together.  I felt premonitions running all over me.  I didn’t feel so enthusiastic about their marriage as I had at first thought I was.

“Oh, Virgie, darling, you won’t hate me?” she asked.

“Not till I hear more about it,” I said.

She thought to make it up by squeezing my hands.  But it wasn’t squeezing that I wanted, it was facts.  I drew away a bit and waited for them.

“Losing that front wheel was bad enough,” she said, “especially as I went over the dashboard in my dotted muslin and Harry has limped ever since; but when the transmission broke it seemed as though it was both our hearts.  Harry said we had come to a place where we had to choose between owning an automobile or getting married.  It was perfectly plain we couldn’t do both. $e said he didn’t want to influence me either way, but that there was no good drifting on and on, deceiving ourselves and thinking it would all come out right.  Of course, when he put it to me like that the bubble wasn’t in it—­and so we towed home for the last time and Harry, went around to close out our interest in the syndicate.”