I am sorry."

His visitor looked at him with a new, flashing light in her eyes.

"Not one?" she said, significantly. "Not one young _college_ man?"

He was unsuspicious of her meaning.

"Not one."

For a moment she fingered her glove where it lay upon the desk. Then a
look of more pronounced determination and courage came upon her face as
she raised her eyes once more to Garrison's.

She said:

"Are you married?"

A flush came at once upon Garrison's face--and memories and heartaches
possessed him for a poignant moment. He mastered himself almost
instantly.

"No," he said with some emotion, "I am not."

"Then," she said, "couldn't you undertake the task yourself?"

Garrison leaned forward on the table. Lightning from an azure sky
could have been no more astonishing or unexpected.

"Do you mean--will I play this role--as your husband?" he said slowly.
"Is that what you are asking?"

"Yes," she answered unflinchingly. "Why not? You need the money; I
need the services. You understand exactly what it is I require. It is
business, and you are a business man."

"But I have no wish to be a married man, or even to masquerade as one,"
he told her bluntly.

"You have quite as much wish to be one as I have to be a married
woman," she answered. "We would understand each other thoroughly from
the start. As to masquerading, if you have no acquaintances, then who
would be the wiser?"

He acknowledged the logic of her argument; nevertheless, the thing
seemed utterly preposterous. He rose and walked the length of his
office, and stood looking out of the window. Then he returned and
resumed his seat. He was strangely moved by her beauty and some
unexplained helplessness of her plight, vouchsafed to his senses, yet
he recognized a certain need for caution.

"What should I be expected to do?" he inquired.

His visitor, in the mental agitation which had preceded this interview,
had taken little if any time to think of the details likely to attend
an alliance such as she had just proposed. She could only think in
generalities.

"Why--there will be very little for you to do, except to permit
yourself to be considered my lawful husband, temporarily," she replied
after a moment of hesitation, with a hot flush mounting to her cheek.

"And to whom would I play?" he queried. "Should I be obliged, in this
capacity, to meet your relatives and friends?"

"Certainly--a few," said his visitor. "But I have alm