ur license, and
were married."

"Very well. I will take you home to your father and mother, now; then
see this man, myself. If there is indeed no flaw in the marriage and it
cannot be annulled, a divorce must be arranged. Any money I have or
expect to have would be a small price to set you free from the miserable
business. But the first thing is to get you home. We will start now."

She detained my hand when I would have signalled our waiter. Her eyes,
shining and solemn as a small child's, met mine.

"No, Cousin, please! I am not going home any more. At least, not alone.
I asked you to bring me here where he is, because I am going to stay
with my husband."

"Never," I stated firmly.

"Yes."

"Not if I have to send for your father and take you home by force."

"You cannot. I am of age."

"Phillida, I am responsible for you to your parents tonight. Let me take
you home, explain things to them, and then decide your course."

"But that is what I most do not want to do!" she naively exclaimed.

"You will not?"

"I'm sorry. No."

"Then I must see the man."

"Not--hurt----?"

I recalled the man we had just seen on the skating floor, with a qualm
of quite unreasonable bitterness. That anxiety of Phillida's had a
flavor of irony for me.

"Hardly," I returned. "There are fortunately other means of persuasion
than physical force."

"Oh! But you cannot persuade him to give me up."

I was silent. At which, being a woman, she grew troubled.

"How could you?" she urged.

"You have had no opportunity of judging what influence money has on some
people, Phil."

She laughed out in relief.

"Is that all? Try, Cousin."

"You trust him so much?"

"In everything, forever!"

"Then if I succeed in buying him off, promise me that you will come home
with me."

"If he takes money to leave me?"

"Yes."

"I should die. But I will promise if you want me to, because I know it
never will happen. Just as I might promise to do anything, when I knew
that I never would have to carry it out."

"Very well," I accepted the best I could get. "I will go find him."

"There is no need. He is coming here to our table as soon as he is
free."

"I will not have you seen with him in this place."

"But I am going to stay here with him," she said.

Her eyes, the meek eyes of Phillida, defied me. My faint authority was a
sham. What could be done, I recognized, must be done through the man.

We sat in silence, after that. Pr