And I told her, in the most fervent manner in my power.

"You quite understand?" she said, standing up, looking very young
and princess-like, her white throat gleaming between her furs and
up-turned chin.

"You will find, my dear," said I, "that the significance of your
Dead March of a Marionette will increase every day of your married
life."

She stiffened in a sudden stroke of passion, looking, for the
instant, electrically beautiful.

"I wish," she cried, "someone had written the Dead March of a
Devil."

She bent down, kissed me, and went out in a whirr of furs and
draperies.

Of course, all I could do was to scratch my thin iron-grey hair
and light a cigar and meditate in front of the fire. I knew all
about it--or at any rate I thought I did, which, as far as my
meditation in front of the fire is concerned, comes to the same
thing.

Betty had cast out the base metal of her love for Loenard Boyce in
order to accept the pure gold of the love of Willie Connor. So she
thought, poor girl. She had been in love with Boyce. She had been
engaged to Boyce. Boyce, for some reason or the other, had turned