lace.
What do you say to trying?"

He paused, diffidently, and she knew that in the pause he was hunting
for polite terms of refusal.

"I'll tell you how it is. You're mighty kind to make the offer. You
haven't seen much of me and that little bit has been--pretty rough." He
laughed away his embarrassment. "So I appreciate your confidence--a lot.
But I'm afraid that I'd be a tolerable lot like Hervey." He hurried on
lest she should take offense. "You see, I don't like orders."

"Of course if it were a man who made the offer to you--" she began
angrily.

He raised his hand. There were little touches of formal courtesy in him
so contrasted with what she had seen of him in action, so at variance
with the childishly gaudy clothes he wore, that it put Marianne
completely at sea.

"It's just that I like my own way. I've been a rolling stone all my
life. About the only moss I've gathered is what you see." He touched the
dust-tarnished gold braid on his sombrero and his twinkling eyes
invited her to mirth. But Marianne was sternly silent. She knew that her
color was gone and that her beauty had in large part gone with it; a
reflection that did not at all help her mood or her looks. "I get my fun
out of playing a free hand," he was concluding. "I don't like partners.
Not that I'm proud of it, but so you can see where I stand. If I don't
like a bunkie you can figure why I don't want a boss."

She nodded stiffly, and at the unamiable gesture she saw him shrug his
shoulders very slightly, his eyes wandered again as though he were
seeking for a means to end the interview.

Marianne rose.

"I see your viewpoint, Mr. Perris," she said coldly. "And I'm sorry you
can't accept my offer."

He came to his feet at the same moment, but still he lingered a moment,
turning his hat thoughtfully so that she hoped, for an instant, that he
was on the verge of reconsidering. After all, she should have used more
persuasion; she was firmly convinced that at heart men are very close
to children. Then his head went up and he shook away the mood which had
come over him.

"Some time I'll come to it," he admitted. "But not yet a while. I take
it mighty kind of you to have thought I could fill the bill and--I'm
wishing you all sorts of luck, Miss Jordan."

"Thank you," said Marianne, and hated herself for her unbending
stiffness.

At the door he turned again.

"I sure hope it's easy for you to forget songs," he said.

"Songs?" echoed Mar