anchor in La Paz. And now what have you to say? Can you open your
mouth?"

Merriam came back to life.

"Florence," he said earnestly, "I want you. I don't care what you've
done. If the world--"

"Ralph," she interrupted, almost with a scream, "be my world!"

Her eyes melted; she relaxed magnificently and swayed toward Merriam
so suddenly that he had to jump to catch her.

Dear me! in such scenes how the talk runs into artificial prose. But
it can't be helped. It's the subconscious smell of the footlights'
smoke that's in all of us. Stir the depths of your cook's soul
sufficiently and she will discourse in Bulwer-Lyttonese.

Merriam and Mrs. Conant were very happy. He announced their
engagement at the Hotel Orilla del Mar. Eight foreigners and four
native Astors pounded his back and shouted insincere congratulations
at him. Pedrito, the Castilian-mannered barkeep, was goaded to extra
duty until his agility would have turned a Boston cherry-phosphate
clerk a pale lilac with envy.

They were both very happy. According to the strange mathematics of
the god of mutual affinity, the shadows that clouded their pasts when
united became only half as dense instead of darker. They shut the
world out and bolted the doors. Each was the other's world. Mrs.
Conant lived again. The remembering look left her eyes. Merriam was