Mrs. Wallingford, gowned and hatted and jeweled as Fannie Bubble had never been, and had never expected to be, tried the luxurious life that J. Rufus affected and found that she liked it. She was happy from day’s end to day’s end. Her husband was the most wonderful man in the world, flawless, perfect. Immediately upon their arrival in the city he had driven in hot haste for a license, and they were married before they left the court-house. Then he had wired the news to Jonas Bubble.

“We start on our honeymoon at once,” he had added, and named their hotel.

By the time they had been shown to the expensive suite which Wallingford had engaged, a reply of earnest congratulation had come back from Jonas Bubble. The next day had begun the delights of shopping, of automobile rides, of the races, the roof gardens, the endless round of cafÉs. This world was so different, so much brighter and better, so much more pleasant in every way than the world of Blakeville, that she never cared to go back there—she was ashamed to confess it to herself—even to see her father!

Blackie Daw, still keeping out of the way of federal officers who knew exactly where to find him, met J. Rufus on the street a week after his arrival, and, learning from him of his marriage to Fannie, came around to Wallingford’s hotel to “look her over.” Fannie marveled at Signor Matteo’s rapid advance in English, especially his quick mastery of the vernacular, but she found him very amusing.

“You win,” declared Blackie with emphasis, when he and Wallingford had retired to a cozy little corner in the bar cafÉ. Fannie had inspired in him the awed respect that men of his stamp always render to good women. “You certainly got the original prize package. You and I are awful skunks, Jim.”

“She makes me feel that way, too, now and then,” admitted Wallingford. “I’d be ashamed of myself for marrying her if I hadn’t taken her from such a dog’s life.”

“She seems to enjoy this one,” said Blackie. “You’re spending as much money on her as you used to on Beauty Phillips.”

“Just about,” agreed Wallingford. “However, papa-in-law is paying for the honeymoon.”

“Does he know it?” asked Blackie.

Wallingford chuckled.

“Not yet,” he admitted. “I’d like to see him when he finds it out.”

Blackie also grinned.

“That little Blakeville episode was the happiest period of my life,” he declared. “By the way, J. Rufus, what was your game down there? I never understood.”

“As simple as a night-shirt,” explained Wallingford. “I merely hunted through the postal guide for the richest little town I could find that had no bank. Then I went there and had one started so I could borrow its money.”

Blackie nodded comprehendingly.

“Then you bought a piece of property and raised it to a fictitious value to cover the loan,” he added. “Great stunt; but it seems to me they can get you for it. If they catch you up in one lie they can prove the whole thing to have been a frame-up. Suppose they find out?”

Wallingford swelled up with righteous indignation.

“Vittoreo Matteo,” he charged, “you are a rascally scoundrel! I met you in New York and you imposed upon me with a miserable pack of lies. I have investigated and I find that there is no Etrusca, near Milan, Italy, no Etruscan black pottery, no Vittoreo Matteo. You induced me to waste a lot of money in locating and developing a black mud-swamp. When you had gained my full confidence you came to me in Blakeville with a cock-and-bull story that your mother was dying in Genoa, and on the strength of that borrowed a large sum of money from me. You are gone—I don’t know where. I shall have to make a clean breast of this matter to Jonas Bubble, and tell him that if I can not pay that note when it falls due he will have to foreclose. You heartless villain! Waiter, ice us another bottle of that ninety-three.”

When Wallingford returned to his wife he found her very thoughtful.

“When are we going to Blakeville, Jim?” she asked.

He studied her curiously for a moment. She would have to know him some time or other. He had hoped to put it off while they were leading this unruffled existence, but now that the test had come he might as well have it over with.

“I’m not going back,” he declared. “I’m through with Blakeville. Aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, pondering it slowly. “I could be happy here always, or, if not here, wherever you are. But your business back there, Jim?”

He chuckled.

“I have no business there,” he told her. “My business is concluded. I borrowed forty-five thousand dollars on that forty acres of sticky mud, and I think I’ll just let the bank foreclose.”

She looked at him a moment, dry-eyed and dry-lipped.

“You’re joking,” she protested, in a low voice.

“Not at all,” he seriously assured her.

They looked at each other steadily for some moments, and gradually Wallingford saw beneath those eyes a spirit that he might conquer, but, having conquered, would always regret.

“It’s—it’s a swindle!” she gasped, as the true situation began to dawn upon her. “You don’t mean, Jim, that you are a swindler!”

“No, I wouldn’t call it that,” he objected, considering the matter carefully. “It is only rather a shrewd deal in the game of business. The law can’t touch me for it unless they should chase down Vittoreo Matteo and find him to be a fraud, and prove that I knew it!”

She was thoughtful a long time, following the intricate pattern of the rug in their sitting-room with the toe of her neatly-shod foot. She was perfectly calm, and he drew a sharp breath of relief. He had expected a scene when this revelation should come; he was more than pleased to find that she was not of the class which makes scenes. Presently she looked up.

“Have you thought of what light this puts me in at home? Have you thought how I should be regarded in the only world I have ever known? Why, there are a thousand people back in Blakeville who know me, and even if I were never to meet one of them again—Jim, it mustn’t be! You must not destroy my self-respect for ever. Have you spent any of that money?”

“Well, no,” he reluctantly replied. “I have plenty of money besides that.”

“Good!” said she with a gasp of relief. “Write father that, as you will be unable to carry out your projects, you are sending him the money to take up that note.”

Wallingford was silent a long time. Wonderful the influence this girl had over him. He was amazed at himself.

“I can’t remember when I ever gave up any money,” he finally said, with an attempt at lightness; “but, Fannie, I think I’ll do it just this once—for you—as a wedding present.”

“You’ll do it right away, won’t you?”

“Right this minute.”

He walked over and stooped down to kiss her. She held up her lips submissively, but they were cold, and there was no answering pressure in them. Silently he took his hat and started down-stairs.

“By the way,” he said, turning at the door, “I’m going to make your father a present of that bay team.”

He scarcely understood himself as he dictated to the public stenographer a letter to Jonas Bubble, so far different from the one he had planned to write. It was not like him to do this utterly foolish thing, and yet, somehow, he felt that he could not do otherwise. When he came back up-stairs again, the letter written and a check inclosed in it and the whole mailed, he found her in the same chair, but now she was crying. He approached her hesitantly and stood looking down at her for a long, long time. It was, perhaps, but one minute, but it seemed much longer. Now was the supreme test, the moment that should influence all their future lives, and he dreaded to dissolve that uncertainty.

He knelt beside her and put his arm about her. Still crying, she turned to him, threw both arms around his neck and buried her head on his shoulder—and as she cried she pressed him more tightly to her!