talk me out of
them." He had caught her attention. She showed that by the way she
looked at him. "The argument that impressed me most," he went on, "was
that it's quitting the game. You don't look as if you were a quitter,"
he ended, thoughtfully.

The girl's eyes blazed. He had aroused her once more, and he was glad of
it. He didn't know at all what to do or say, but he dimly felt that
almost any emotion in her would be better than the lethargy she had just
revealed.

"I'm not a quitter!" she cried. "But I've got dignity enough to leave a
place where I'm not wanted, even if that place happens to be the world.
Go away!" she added fiercely. "Go away and leave me alone!"

Resting one hand on the table between them, he held out the other.

"Come, let me have that," he suggested, imperturbably. "Then we'll talk
things over. I'll try to make you realize what I was made to realize
myself--that we were both on the wrong track. I'll tell you what others
think who are wiser than we are."

As she did not move, he added, more lightly: "You see, what we were
going to do isn't done much nowadays. It's all out of date. Come," he
repeated, gently, "let me have it."

With a movement of irritation the girl swept her hand forward and
tossed on the table between them the small revolver she had been
holding.

"Take it," she said, almost indifferently. And she added, "Another time
will do as well."

He picked up the little weapon and put it into his pocket.

"There isn't going to be any other time," he predicted buoyantly. "Now,
slip into a coat while I run across the street and get my hat and coat
and order a taxicab. We're going out to luncheon, and to tell each other
the stories of our lives, with all the grim and gory details."

"I don't know you," muttered the girl. She had dropped into a chair
beside the table, and was sitting with her chin in her hand, in what
seemed a characteristic attitude, watching him with an expression he
could not analyze.

Laurie seemed surprised. "Why, so you don't!" he agreed. "But you're
going to now. We're going to know each other awfully well before we get
through. In the meantime, you can see by the merest glance at me how
young and harmless I am. Where's the coat?"

He turned and began a vague, masculine search for it. The girl wavered.
His rising spirits were contagious, and it was clear that she dreaded
being left alone.

[Illustration: "You see, what we were going to do isn't done