oward getting in
her point. "That she threw herself into the pond? Did he say that Jim
Breen dived after her and brought her up?"

He answered indifferently. "He said some one did. He didn't say who."

"It was Jim. He saved her." As the statement evoked no response, she
continued, "Claude, what did you come home _for_?"

Again he withdrew his cigar from his mouth, looking at her obliquely.
"To marry her."

She allowed some time to elapse before saying, "Claude, I don't think
you will."

"Oh yes, I shall."

"What makes you so sure?"

"Because I am."

"I'm not. Or, rather, if I _am_ sure--it's the other way."

He sprang up, seizing her by the arm over which there was nothing but a
gauze scarf by way of covering. "Lois, for God's sake! What do you mean?
You know something. Tell me. She hasn't gone away with Thor, has she?"

She, too, sprang up, shaking off his hand as if it had been a serpent.
"You fool! Don't touch me! She'll marry Jim Breen. She'll be in love
with him in a week or two."

It was all over in an instant, but the blaze in her eyes seemed
literally to knock him down. He fell back into the deck-chair again,
though he sat astride on it with his feet on the floor, covering his
face with his hands.

"I beg your pardon, Lois," he muttered, humbly. "I don't know what I'm
saying."

"No, you don't," she agreed, speaking breathlessly because the leaping
of her heart was so wild; "but that's hardly an excuse for taking leave
altogether of your senses."

He continued to mutter into his hands. "I'm crazy! I'm drunk! I'm stark
mad! But, oh, Lois, if you knew what I've been through you wouldn't
mind."

The hot anger that had rolled over her with a wrath such as she had
never felt before began to roll away again, leaving her sick and
shivering. It was an excuse for going into the house to find a cloak and
for getting the minute's respite necessary to self-control. To regain
it--to overcome that throb of her being of which the after effect was a
faintness unto death--she was obliged to walk steadily, holding her head
high. She was obliged, too, to repent of the tigress impulse with which
she had turned on Claude, flinging in his face that for which she had
meant to prepare him by degrees. The fact that it had seemingly passed
over his head was no palliation to the outrage. As she mounted the
stairs and went to her room she repeated her own formula: "_Nothing that
isn't kind and well thought out beforehan