etailed with a spice
of mischief much of Mrs. Marigold's advice. She had seated herself on
the music stool. Swinging round, she quoted:

"'Even the best husband,' she said, 'will go on swelling himself up
with vanity just because he's a man. A sensible woman, Miss, lets him
go on priding of himself, poor creature. It sort of helps his dignity
when the time comes for him to eat out of your hand, and makes him
think he's doing you a favour.'"

"When are you going to eat out of my hand, Willie?" she asked.

"Haven't I been doing it for the past week?"

"Oh, they always do that before they're married--so Mrs. Marigold
informed me. I mean afterwards."

"Don't you think, my dear," I interposed, "it depends on what your
hands hold out for him to eat?"

Her eyes wavered a bit under mine.

"If he's good," she answered, "they'll be always full of nice things."

She sat, flushed, happy, triumphant, her arms straight down, her
knuckles resting on the leathern seat, her silver-brocaded, slender
feet, clear of the floor, peeping close together beneath her white
frock.

"And if he isn't good?"

"They'll be full of nasty medicine."

She laughed and pivoted round and, after running over the keys of the
piano for a second or two, began to play Gounod's "Death March of a
Marionette." She played it remarkably well. When she had ended, Connor
walked from the hearth, where he had been standing, to her side. I
noticed a little puzzled look in his eyes.

"Delightful," said he. "But, Betty, what put that thing suddenly into
your head?"

"We had been talking nonsense," she replied, picking out a chord or
two, without looking al him. "And I thought we ought to give all past
vanities and frivolities and lunacies a decent burial."

He put both hands very tenderly on her shoulders.

"Requiescat," said he.

She spread out her fingers and struck the two resonant chords of an
"Amen," and then glanced up at him, laughing.

After a while, Marigold announced her car, or, rather, her aunt's car.
They took their leave. I gave them my benediction. Presently, Betty,
fur-coated, came running in alone. She flung herself down, in her
impetuous way, beside my wheel-chair. No visit of Betty's would have
been complete without this performance.

"I haven't had a word with you all the evening, Majy, dear. I've told
Willie to discuss strategy with Sergeant Marigold in the hall, till I
come. Well--you thought I was a damn little fool the other d