a moment, and smiled again.

"I'm going to Etois," she said. "I think I shall get a little villa
there and stay all summer."

"Then," he declared, "I think I shall go to Etois myself."

"I 'm afraid you must n't."

"But the doctor says I must n't play golf for six months. What do you
think I'm going to do with myself until then?"

"There's all the rest of the world," she suggested.

Monte frowned.

"Are you going to break our engagement, then?"

"It has served its purpose, hasn't it?" she asked.

"Up to now," he admitted. "But you say it can't go any farther."

"No, Monte."

The next suggestion that leaped into Monte's mind was obvious enough,
yet he paused a moment before voicing it. Perhaps even then he would
not have found the courage had he not been rather panic-stricken. He
had exactly the same feeling, when he thought of her in Etois, that he
had when he thought of Edhart in Paradise. It started as resentment,
but ended in a slate-gray loneliness.

He could imagine himself as sitting here alone at one of these little
iron tables, and decidedly it was not pleasant. When he pictured
himself as returning to his room in the hotel and to the company of the
hotel valet, it put him in a mood that augured ill for the valet.

It would have been bad enough had he been able to resume his normal
schedule and fill his time with golf; but, with even that relaxation
denied him, such a situation as she proposed was impossible. For the
present, at any rate, she was absolutely indispensable. She ought to
know that a valet could not adjust a silk handkerchief properly, and
that without this he could not even go upon the street. And who would
read to him from the American papers?

There was no further excuse, she said, for her to bring in his
breakfasts, but if she did not sit opposite him at breakfast, what in
thunder was the use of eating breakfast? If she had not begun
breakfasting with him, then he would never have known the difference.
But she had begun it; she had first suggested it. And now she calmly
proposed turning him over to a valet.

"Marjory," he said, "didn't I ask you to marry me?"

She nodded.

"That was necessary in order that we might be engaged," she reminded
him.

"Exactly," he agreed. "Now there seems to be only one way that we may
keep right on being engaged."

"I don't see that, Monte," she answered. "We may keep on being engaged
as long as we please, may n't we?"

"It