foresee them. Patricia is not one who forgives easily, and she will resent a hurt to her pride with all the force there is in her."

Beatrice rose to her feet, standing before him, and he, also, stood up, facing her. She reached out both her hands toward him, and he took them; and there were tears in her big blue eyes, when she added, with a depth of feeling that he did not understand:

"Roderick Duncan, it would be better for you, and for Patricia as well, if you never saw each other again. You might far better, and with much greater hope of happiness, cast your future lot with some other woman whom you have never thought of as a wife, than marry Patricia Langdon upon such terms as you have outlined. Have you known her so intimately all your life without understanding her at all? She might have forgiven disloyalty, or unfaithfulness, or at least have condoned such—but an offense against her pride? Never! You would be undergoing much less risk if you should select an utterly unknown woman from one of these boxes, and should take her out of this theatre now, and marry her instead!"

Having delivered this remarkable statement, Beatrice burst into laughter. Duncan, suddenly alive to her beauty and her nearness, deeply impressed by what she had said, and fully alive to the truth of her utterances, retained the grasp he had upon her hands, and drew her toward him, quickly.

"Why not?" he demanded, hotly. "I'll do it if you say the word! But not a strange woman. You, Beatrice—you!! I'll dare you!!! We'll go to the 'Little Church Around the Corner.' I dare you! I dare you, Beatrice! They always have a wedding ceremony on tap, there; if you've got the sand, come on. It offers a solution of everything. Come on, Bee—marry me!"

She raised her eyes to his, and he understood, instantly, how he had wounded her; he saw that her laughter had not been real, and that she was very near to tears. But the fact that she shrank away from his impetuous words and manner, only spurred him on anew. He caught her hands again.

"Let's do it, Beatrice," he said rapidly, bending forward with sudden eagerness. "I hate all this mess and muddle of affairs. I hate it! Say yes, Bee."

He stood with his back toward the curtains at the rear of the box; she was facing them. He saw her eyes dilate suddenly, and he had the sensation that she had discovered another person near them, or in the act of entering the box; and then, with more astonishment than he would have 

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