convenient vent for her nervousness.  "It's all your fault!" she exclaimed.  "They want to force me to marry you. And I dare not bring here the man I love." 

 "My fault?" he muttered, dazed.  "I'm not to blame." 

 "Stupid! You're always in the way—no wonder I HATE you!"  She was clasping and unclasping her hands, trying to think, not conscious of what she was saying. 

 "Hate me?" he repeated mechanically. "Oh, no—surely not that. No, you can't—" 

 "Be still! Let me think. Ach! Gott im Himmel! He's in the hall!" She sank wretchedly into a chair.  "Can you do nothing but gape and mutter?"  In her desperation her tone was appealing. 

 "He can say he came with me," said Otto.  "I'll stand for him." 

 "Yes—yes!" she cried.  "That will do! Thank you—thank you!"  And as the knock came at the door she opened it. She had intended to be reproachful, but she could not. This splendid, romantic creature, with his graceful hat and his golden hair and his velvet collar, was too compelling, too overpowering. Her adoring love put her at a hopeless disadvantage.  "Oh—Mr. Feuerstein," she murmured, her color coming and going with the rise and fall of her bosom. 

 Mr. Feuerstein majestically removed his hat and turned a look of haughty inquiry upon Otto. Otto's fists clenched—he longed to discuss the situation in the only way which seemed to him to meet its requirements. 

 "Hilda," said the actor, when he thought there had been a long enough pause for an imposing entrance, "I have come to end the deception—to make you, before the world, as you are before Almighty God, my affianced bride." 

 "You—you mustn't," implored Hilda, her fears getting the better of her awe. 

 "If my parents learn now—just now, they will—oh, it will be hopeless!" 

 "I can not delay, angel of my heart!"  He gave her the look that is the theatrical convention for love beyond words.  "It must be settled at once. I must know my fate. I must put destiny to the touch and know happiness or—hell!" 

 "Bah!" thought Otto.  "He has to hurry matters—he must be in trouble. He's got to raise the wind at once." 

 "Mr. Feuerstein—Carl!" pleaded Hilda.  "PLEASE try to be practical." She 

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