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By Root 1004 0

through the first floor, then up to the second. Presently they were in his own quarters, the same servants' apartment he had occupied before. The servants' furniture was gone, but in its place were a few oak pieces with leather seats, which she identified at once as having come from the shack at Lake Arrowhead. She sat down, sighed, and said it certainly would feel good to rest for a few minutes. He quickly offered tea, and when she accepted he disappeared into the bedroom. Then he came out and asked: "Or would you like something stronger? I have the heel of a bottle here."

"I'd love something stronger."

"I'm out of ice and seltzer, but—"

"I prefer it straight."

"Since when?"

"Oh, I've changed a lot."

The bottle turned out to be Scotch, which to her taste was quite different from rye. As she gagged over the first sip he laughed and said: "Oh, you haven't changed much. On liquor I'd say you were about the same."

"That's what you think."

He checked this lapse into the personal, and resumed his praise of the house. She said: "Well you don't have to sell me. I'm already sold, if wanting it is all. And you don't have to sit over there yelling at me, as though I was deaf. There's room over here, isn't there?"

Looking a little foolish, he crossed to the settee she was occupying. She took his little finger, tweaked it. "You haven't even asked me how I am, yet."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"Then that's that."

"How are you?"

"Fine."

"Then that's that."

She tweaked his little finger again. He drew it away and said: "You know, gentlemen in my circumstances don't have a great deal of romance in their lives. If you keep this up, you might find yourself the victim of some ravening brute, and you wouldn't like that, would you?"

"Oh, being ravened isn't so bad."

He looked away quickly and said: "I think we'll talk about the house."

"One thing bothers me about it."

"What's that?"

"If I should buy it, as I'm half a mind to, where would you be? Would there be a brute ravening around somewhere, or would I have it all to myself?"

"It would be all yours."

"I see."

She reached again for his finger. He pulled it away before she caught it, looking annoyed. Then, rather roughly, he put his arm around her. "Is that what you want?"

"H'm-h'm."

"Then that's that."

But she had barely settled back when he took his arm away. "I made a slight mistake about the price of this house. To you, it's twenty-nine thousand, five-hundred, and eighty. That'll square up a little debt I owe you, of five hundred and twenty dollars, that's been bothering me for quite some time."

"You owe me a debt?"

"If you try, I think you can recall it."

He looked quite wolfish, and she said "Booh!" He laughed, took her in his arms, touched the zipper on the front of her dress. Some little time went by, one half of him, no doubt, telling him to let the zipper alone, the other half telling him it would be ever so pleasant to give it a little pulL Then she fet her dress loosen, as the zipper began to slide. Then she felt herself being carried. Then she felt herself, with suitable roughness, being dumped down on the same iron bed, on the same tobacco4aden blankets, from which she had kicked the beach bag, years before, at Lake Arrowhead.

"Damn it, your legs are still immoral."

"You think they're 'bowed?"

"Stop waving them around."

"I asked you—"

"No."

Around dark, she grew sentimentally weepy. "Monty, I couldn't live here without you. I couldn't, that's all."

Monty lay still, and smoked a long time. Then, in a queer, shaky voice he said: "I always said you'd make some guy a fine wife if you didn't live in Glendale."

"Are you asking me to marry you?"

"If you move to Pasadena, yes."

"You mean if I buy this house."

"No—it's about three times as much house as you need, and I don't insist on it. But I will not live in Glendale."

"Then all right!"

She snuggled up to him, tried to be kittenish, but while he put his arm around her he continued sombre, and he didn't look at her. Presently it occured to her that he might be hungry, and she