the story by annihilating the hero thereof.

Heaven only knows how long the thing would have gone on if he
hadn't, one temptingly beautiful evening, reverted to the day of
the hold-up and apologized for not obeying her command. He
explained as well as he could just why he sat petrified with his
hands in the air.

And then having brought the thing freshly to her mind, he
somehow lost control of his wits and told her he loved her. He
told her a good deal in the next two minutes that he might
better have kept to himself just then. But a man generally makes
a glorious fool of himself once or twice in his life and it
seems the more sensible the man the more thorough a job he makes
of it.

Mona moved a little farther away from him, and when she answered
she did not choose her words. "Of all things," she said,
evenly, "I admire a brave man and despise a coward. You were
chicken-hearted that day, and you know it; you've just admitted
it. Why, in another minute I'd have had that gun myself, and
I'd have shown you--but Park got it before I really had a
chance. I hated to seem spectacular, but it served you right.
If you'd had any nerve I wouldn't have had to sit there and tell
you what to do. If ever I marry anybody, Mr. Thurston, it will
be a man."

"Which means, I suppose, that I'm not one?" he asked angrily.

"I don't know yet." Mona smiled her unpleasant smile--the one