"Why didn't you introduce us?" Messner queried.

"I'll tell him," she replied, with a toss of her head. "Don't
think I'm afraid."

"I never knew you to be afraid, very much, of anything."

"And I'm not afraid of confession, either," she said, with
softening face and voice.

"In your case, I fear, confession is exploitation by indirection,
profit-making by ruse, self-aggrandizement at the expense of God."

"Don't be literary," she pouted, with growing tenderness. "I never
did like epigrammatic discussion. Besides, I'm not afraid to ask
you to forgive me."

"There is nothing to forgive, Theresa. I really should thank you.
True, at first I suffered; and then, with all the graciousness of
spring, it dawned upon me that I was happy, very happy. It was a
most amazing discovery."

"But what if I should return to you?" she asked.

"I should" (he looked at her whimsically), "be greatly perturbed."

"I am your wife. You know you have never got a divorce."

"I see," he meditated. "I have been careless. It will be one of