“Cave-man stuff,” Billy said to Dick, pointing a thumb over his shoulder toward the interior of the Broadway moving-picture palace at the exit of which they had just met accidentally. “It always goes big, doesn’t it?”

“It does,” Dick agreed thoughtfully, “in the movies anyhow.”

“Caroline says that the modern woman has her response to that kind of thing refined all out of her.” Billy intended his tone to be entirely jocular, but there was a note of anxiety in it that was not lost on his friend.

Dick paused under the shelter of a lurid poster—displaying a fierce gentleman in crude blue, showing all his teeth, and in the act of strangling an early Victorian ingenue with a dimple,—and lit a cigarette with his first match.

“Caroline may have,” he said, puffing to keep his light against the breeze, “but I doubt it.”

“Rough stuff doesn’t seem to appeal to her,” Billy said, quite humorously this time.

“She’s healthy,” Dick mused, “rides horseback, plays tennis and all that. Wouldn’t she have liked the guy that swung himself on the roof between the two poles?” He indicated again the direction of the theater from which they had just emerged.

“She would have liked him,” Billy said gloomily, “but the show would have started her arguing about this whole moving-picture proposition,—its crudity, and its tremendous sacrifice of artistic values, and so on and so on.”

“Sure, she’s a highbrow. Highbrows always cerebrate about the movies in one way or another. Nancy doesn’t get it at just that angle, of course. She hasn’t got Caroline’s intellectual appetite. She’s not interested in the movies because she hasn’t got a moving-picture house of her own. The world is not Nancy’s oyster—it’s her lump of putty.”

“I don’t know which is the worst,” Billy said. “Caroline won’t listen to anything you say to her,—but then neither will Nancy.”

“Women never listen to anything,” Dick said profoundly, “unless they’re doing it on purpose, 95 or they happen to be interested. I imagine Caroline is a little less tractable, but Nancy is capable of doing the most damage. She works with concrete materials. Caroline’s kit is crammed with nothing but ideas.”

“Nothing but—” Billy groaned.

“As for this cave-man business—theoretically, they ought to react to it,—both of them. They’re both normal, well-balanced young ladies.”

“They’re both runnin’ pretty hard to keep in the same place, just at present.”

“Nancy isn’t doing that—not by a long shot,” Dick said.

“She’s not keeping in the same place certainly,” Billy agreed. “Caroline is all eaten up by this economic independence idea.”

“It’s a good idea,” Dick admitted; “economic conditions are changing. No reason at all that a woman shouldn’t prove herself willing to cope with them, as long as she gets things in the order of their importance. Earning her living isn’t better than the Mother-Home-and-Heaven job. It’s a way out, if she gets left, or gets stung.”

“I’m only thankful Caroline can’t hear you.” 96 Billy raised pious eyes to heaven but he continued more seriously after a second, “It’s all right to theorize, but practically speaking both our girls are getting beyond our control.”

“I’m not engaged to Nancy,” Dick said a trifle stiffly.

“Well, you ought to be,” Billy said.

Dick stiffened. He was not used to speaking of his relations with Nancy to any one—even to Billy, who was the closest friend he had. They walked up Broadway in silence for a while, toward the cross-street which housed the university club which was their common objective.

“I know I ought to be,” Dick said, just as Billy was formulating an apology for his presumption, “or I ought to marry her out of hand. This watchful waiting’s entirely the wrong idea.”

“Why do we do it then?” Billy inquired pathetically.

“I wanted Nancy to sow her economic wild oats. I guess you felt the same way about Caroline.”

“Well, they’ve sowed ’em, haven’t they?”

“Not by a long shot. That’s the trouble,—they 97 don’t get any forrider, from our point of view. I thought it would be the best policy to stand by and let Nancy work it out. I thought her restaurant would either fail spectacularly in a month, or succeed brilliantly and she’d make over the executive end of it to somebody else. I never thought of her buckling down like this, and wearing herself out at it.”

“There’s a pretty keen edge on Caroline this summer.”

“I’m afraid Nancy’s in pretty deep,” Dick said. “The money end of it worries me as much as anything.”

“I wouldn’t let that worry me.”

“She won’t take any of mine, you know.”

“I know she won’t. See here, Dick, I wouldn’t worry about Nancy’s finances. She’ll come out all right about money.”

“What makes you think so?”

“I know so. We’ve got lots of things in the world to worry about, things that are scheduled to go wrong unless we’re mighty delicate in the way we handle ’em. Let’s worry about them, and leave Nancy’s financial problems to take care of themselves.”

“Which means,” Dick said, “that you are 98 sure that she’s all right. I’m not in her confidence in this matter—”

“Well, I am,” Billy said, “I’m her legal adviser, and with all due respect to your taste in girls, it’s a very difficult position to occupy. What with the things she won’t listen to and the things she won’t learn, and the things she actually knows more about than I do—”

The indulgent smile of the true lover lit Dick’s face, as if Billy had waxed profoundly eulogistic. Unconsciously, Billy’s own tenderness took fire at the flame.

“Why don’t we run away with ’em?” he said, breathing heavily.

Dick stopped in a convenient doorway to light his third cigarette, end on.

“It’s the answer to you and Caroline,” he said.

“Why not to you and Nancy?”

“It may be,” Dick said, “I dunno. I’ve reached an impasse. Still there is a great deal in your proposition.”

They turned in at the portico that extended out over the big oak doors of their club. An attendant in white turned the knob for them, with the grin of enthusiastic welcome that was 99 the usual tribute to these two good-looking, well set up young men from those who served them.

“I’ll think it over,” Dick added, as he gave up his hat and stick, “and let you know what decision I come to.”

In another five minutes they were deep in a game of Kelly-pool from which Dick emerged triumphantly richer by the sum of a dollar and ninety cents, and Billy the poorer by the loss of a quarter.

There is a town in Connecticut, within a reasonable motoring distance from New York that has been called the Gretna Green of America. Here well-informed young couples are able to expedite the business of matrimony with a phenomenal neatness and despatch. Licenses can be procured by special dispensation, and the nuptial knot tied as solemnly and solidly as if a premeditated train of bridesmaids and flower girls and loving relatives had been rehearsed for days in advance.

Dick and his Rolls-Royce had assisted at a hymeneal celebration or two, where a successful rush had been made for the temporary altars 100 of this beneficent town with the most felicitous results, and he knew the procedure. When he and Billy organized an afternoon excursion into Connecticut, they tacitly avoided all mention of the consummation they hoped to bring about, but they both understood the nature and significance of the expedition. Dick,—who was used to the easy accomplishment of his designs and purposes, for most obstacles gave way before his magnetic onslaught,—had only sketchily outlined his scheme of proceedings, but he trusted to the magic of that inspiration that seldom or never failed him. He was the sort of young man that the last century novelists always referred to as “fortune’s favorite,” and his luck so rarely betrayed him that he had almost come to believe it to be invincible.

His general idea was to get Nancy and Caroline to drive into the country, through the cool rush of the freer purer air of the suburbs, give them lunch at some smart road-house, soothingly restful and dim, where the temperature was artificially lowered, and they could powder their noses at will; and from thence go on until they were within the radius of the charmed circle 101 where modern miracles were performed while the expectant bridegroom waited.

“Nancy, my dear, we are going to be married,”—that he had formulated, “we’re going to be done with all this nonsense of waiting and doubting the evidence of our own senses and our own hearts. We’re going to put an end to the folly of trying to do without each other,—your folly of trying to feed all itinerant New York; my folly of standing by and letting you do it, or any other fool thing that your fancy happens to dictate. You’re mine and I’m yours, and I’m going to take you—take you to-day and prove it to you.” This was to be timed to be delivered at just about the moment when they drew up in front of the office of the justice of the peace, who was Dick’s friend of old. “Hold up your head, my dear, and put your hat on straight; we’re going into that building to be made man and wife, and we’re not coming out of it until the deed has been done.” In some such fashion, he meant to carry it through. Many a time in the years gone by he had steered Nancy through some high-handed escapade that she would only have consented to on the spur of the moment. She was one of 102 these women who responded automatically to the voice of a master. He had failed in mastery this last year or so. That was the secret of his failure with her, but the days of that failure were numbered now. He was going to succeed.

On the back seat of the big car he expected Billy and Caroline to be going through much the same sort of scene.

“We’ve come to a show-down now, Caroline,—either I sit in this game, or get out.” He could imagine Billy bringing Caroline bluntly to terms with comparatively little effort. That was what she needed—Caroline—a strong hand. Billy’s problem was simple. Caroline had already signified her preference for him. She wore his ring. Billy had only to pick her up, kicking and screaming if need be, and bear her to the altar. She would marry him if he insisted. That was clear to the most superficial of observers,—but Nancy was different.

The day was hot, and grew steadily hotter. By the time Nancy and Caroline were actually in the car, after an almost superhuman effort to assemble them and their various accessories of veils and wraps, and to dispose 103 of the assortment of errands and messages that both girls seemed to be committed to despatch before they could pass the boundaries of Greater New York, the two men were very nearly exhausted. It was only when the chauffeur let the car out to a speed greatly in excess of the limitations on some clear stretch of road, that the breath of the country brought them any relief whatsoever.

Dick looked over his shoulder at the two in the back seat, and noted Caroline’s pallor, and the fact that she was allowing a listless hand to linger in Billy’s; but when he turned back to Nancy he discovered no such encouraging symptoms. She was sitting lightly relaxed at his side, but there was nothing even negatively responsive in her attitude. Her color was high; her breath coming evenly from between her slightly parted lips. She looked like a child oblivious to everything but some innocent daydream.

“You look as if you were dreaming of candy and kisses, Nancy,—are you?” he asked presently.

“No, I’m just glad to be free. It’s been a long time since I’ve played hooky.”

“I know it.” The “dear” constrained him, and he did not add it: “You’ve been working most unholy hard. I—I hate to have you.”

“But I was never so happy in my life.”

“That’s good.” His voice hoarsened with the effort to keep it steady and casual. “Is everything going all right?”

“Fine.”

“Is—is the money end of it all right?”

“Yes, that is, I am not worrying about money.”

“You’re not making money?”

“No.”

“You are not losing any?”

“I am—a little. That was to be expected, don’t you think so?”

“How much are you losing?”

“I don’t know exactly.”

“You ought to know. Are you keeping your own books?”

“Betty helps me.”

“Are you losing a hundred a month?”

“Yes.”

“Five hundred?”

“I suppose so.”

“A thousand?”

“I don’t really know.”

“A thousand?” he insisted.

“Yes,” Nancy answered recklessly, “the way I run it.”

“It doesn’t make any difference, of course;” Dick said, “you’ve got all my money behind you.”

“I haven’t anybody’s money behind me except my own.”

“You had fifteen thousand dollars. Do you mean to say that you have any of that left to draw on?”

“No, I don’t.”

“Do you mind telling me how you are managing?”

“Billy borrowed some money for me.”

“On what security?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why didn’t he come to me?”

“I told him not to.”

“Nancy, do you realize that you’re the most exasperating woman that ever walked the face of this earth?” the unhappy lover asked.

Nancy managed to convey the fact that Dick’s asseveration both surprised and pained her, without resorting to the use of words.

“I wish you wouldn’t spoil this lovely party,” she said to him a few seconds later. “I’m extremely tired, and I should like to get my mind off my business instead of going over these tiresome details with anybody.”

“You look very innocent and kind and loving,” Dick said desperately, “but at heart you’re a little fraud, Nancy.”

She interrupted him to point out two children laden with wild flowers, trudging along the roadside.

“See how adorably dirty and happy they are,” she cried. “That little fellow has his shoestrings untied, and keeps tripping on them, he’s so tired, but he’s so crazy about the posies that he doesn’t care. I wonder if he’s taking them home to his mother.”

“You’re devoted to children, Nancy, aren’t you?” Dick’s voice softened.

“Yes, I am, and some day I’m going to adopt a whole orphan asylum,”—her voice altered in a way that Dick did not in the least understand. “I could if I wanted to,” she laughed. “Maybe I will want to some day. So many of my ideas are being changed and modified by experience.”

The road-house of his choice, when they reached it, proved to have deteriorated sadly since his last visit. The cool interior that he remembered had been inopportunely opened to the hottest blast of the day’s heat, and hermetically sealed again, or at least so it seemed to Dick; and the furniture was all red and thickly, almost suffocatingly, upholstered. Nancy had no comment on the torrid air of the dining-room,—she rarely complained about anything. Even the presence of a fly in her bouillon jelly scarcely disturbed her equanimity, but Dick knew that she was secretly sustained by the conviction that such an accident was impossible under her system of supervision at Outside Inn, and resented her tranquillity accordingly.

Caroline, behaving not so well, seemed to him a much more human and sympathetic figure, though her nose took on a high shine unknown to Nancy’s demurer and more discreetly served features; but Billy evidently preferred Nancy’s deportment, which was on the surface calm and reassuring.

“Nancy’s a sport,” he pointed out to Caroline enthusiastically, “no fly in the ointment 108 gets her goat. She enjoys herself even when she’s perfectly miserable.”

“She doesn’t feel the heat the way I do,” Caroline snapped.

“I feel the heat,” Nancy said, “but I—”

“She’s got a system,” Dick cut in savagely: “she stands it just as long as she can, and then she takes it out of me in some diabolical fashion.”

Nancy’s gray-blue eyes took on the far-away look that those who loved her had learned to associate with her most baffling moments.

“Just by being especially nice to Dick,” she said thoughtfully, “I can make him more furious with me than in any other way.”

Nancy and Caroline finished their sloppy ices at the table together while Dick and Billy sought the solace of a pipe in the garage outside.

“I don’t understand coming into Connecticut to-day,” Nancy said as soon as they were alone; “it seems like such a stupid excursion for Dick to make. He’s usually pretty good at picking out places to go. In fact, he has a kind of genius for it.”

“He slipped up this time,” Caroline said, “I’m so hot.”

“So am I,” said Nancy, slumping limply into the depths of her red velour chair. “I want to get back to New York. Oh! what was it you told me the other day that you had been saving up to tell me?”

Caroline brightened.

“Oh, yes! Why, it was something Collier Pratt said about you. You know Betty has scraped up quite an acquaintance with him. She goes and sits down at his table sometimes.”

“She’s going to be stopped doing that,” Nancy said.

“Well, you remember the night when you went home early with a headache, and passed by his table going out?”

“Yes, but I didn’t know he saw me.”

“He sees everything, Betty says.”

“He didn’t suspect me?”

“He didn’t know you came out of the interior. He said to Betty, ‘It’s curious that Miss Martin never stays here to dine in the evening, though she so often drops in.’ Betty is pretty 110 quick, you know. She said, ‘I think Miss Martin is a friend of the proprietor.’”

“So I am,” said Nancy, “the best friend she’s got. Go on, dear.”

“Then he said slowly and thoughtfully, ‘It’s a crime for a woman like that not to be the mother of children. If ever I saw a maternal type, Miss Ann Martin is the apotheosis of it. Why some man hasn’t made her understand that long ago I can not see.’”

Nancy’s cheeks burned crimson and then white again.

“How dare Betty?” she said.

“Wait till you hear. You know Betty doesn’t care what she says. Her reply to that was peculiarly Bettyish. She sighed and cast down her eyes,—the little imp! ‘The course of true love never does run smooth,’ she said; ‘perhaps Ann has discovered the truth of that old saying in some new connection.’ She didn’t mean to be a cat, she was only trying to create a romantic interest in your affairs, doing as she would be done by. The effect was more than she bargained for though. Collier Pratt’s eyes quite lit up. ‘I can imagine no greater crime than frustrating the instincts 111 of a woman like that,’ he said. Imagine that—the instincts—whereupon Betty, of course, flounced off and left him.”

“She would,” Nancy said. Then a storm of real anger surged through her. “I’ll turn her out of my place to-morrow. I’ll never look at her or speak to her again.”

“I think it would be more to the point,” Caroline said, “to turn out Collier Pratt. That was certainly an extraordinary way for him to speak of you to a girl who is a stranger to him.”

“Caroline, you’re almost as bad as Betty is. You’re both of you hopelessly—helplessly—provincially American. I don’t think that was extraordinary or impertinent even,” Nancy said. “I—I understand how that man means things.”

The car drove up in front of the office of the justice of the peace in the town beyond that in which they had had their unauspicious luncheon party.

“Are we stopping here for any particular reason?” Caroline said.

Nancy had not spoken in more than a monosyllable 112 since they had resumed their places in the car again.

“Not now,” Dick said wearily. “I thought I’d point out the sights of the town. This place is called the Gretna Green of America, you know. A great many runaway couples come out here to be married. The man inside that office, the one with whiskers and no collar, is the one that marries them.”

“Does he?” Billy asked a trifle uncertainly.

Nancy turned to Dick with a real appeal in her voice. It was the first time during the day that she had addressed him with anything like her natural tenderness and sweetness.

“Oh! Dick, can’t we start on?” she said.