they had met Mr. Adding in Carlsbad, and without
heeding March's answer, he laughed and added: "Of course, I know she
must have told Mrs. March all about it."

March could not deny this; he laughed, too; though in his wife's absence
he felt bound to forbid himself anything more explicit.

"I don't give it up, you know," Kenby went on, with perfect ease. "I'm
not a young fellow, if you call thirty-nine old."

"At my age I don't," March put in, and they roared together, in men's
security from the encroachments of time.

"But she happens to be the only woman I've ever really wanted to marry,
for more than a few days at a stretch. You know how it is with us."

"Oh, yes, I know," said March, and they shouted again.

"We're in love, and we're out of love, twenty times. But this isn't a
mere fancy; it's a conviction. And there's no reason why she shouldn't
marry me."

March smiled gravely, and his smile was not lost upon Kenby. "You mean
the boy," he said. "Well, I like Rose," and now March really felt swept
from his feet. "She doesn't deny that she likes me, but she seems to
think that her marrying again will take her from him; the fact is, it
will only give me to him. As for devoting her whole life to him, she
couldn't do a worse thing for him. What the boy needs is a man's care,
and a man's will--Good heavens! You don't think I could ever be unkind
to the little soul?" Kenby threw himself forward over the table.

"My dear fellow!" March protested.

"I'd rather cut off my right hand!" Kenby pursued, excitedly, and then
he said, with a humorous drop: "The fact is, I don't believe I should
want her so much if I couldn't have Rose too. I want to have them both.
So far, I've only got no for an answer; but I'm not going to keep it. I
had a letter from Rose at Carlsbad, the other day; and--"

The waiter came forward with a folded scrap of paper on his salver,
which March knew must be from his wife. "What is keeping you so?" she
wrote. "I am all ready." "It's from Mrs. March," he explained to Kenby.
"I am going out with her on some errands. I'm awfully glad to see you
again. We must talk it all over, and you must--you mustn't--Mrs. March
will want to see you later--I--Are you in the hotel?"

"Oh yes. I'll see you at the one-o'clock table d'hote, I suppose."

March went away with his head whirling in the question whether he should
tell his wife at once of Kenby's presence, or leave her free for the
pleasures of Wurzburg