Why should I even laugh a little to myself because he used a rather "obvious" expression?—an expression that "everybody" uses. If you come to that, nobody else has ever used it to me! And I don't believe that he, Mr. Reginald Brace, has ever used it before. It would not surprise me at all if he had never made love, real, respectful, with-a-view-to-matrimony love, to any other girl but me.

Very likely he's scarcely even flirted with anybody else.

Something tells me that I should be the very first woman in this man's life.

Now isn't that a beautiful idea?

No other woman in the world will have taught him how to make love.

Any girl ought to be pleased with a husband like that! She would not have to worry her head about "where" he learnt to be so attractive, and sympathetic, and tactful, and companionable, and to give all the right sort of little presents and to say all the right kind of pretty things. She would not have to feel that he must have been "trained" through love affairs of every kind, class and age. She would not have to catch, in his speech, little "tags" of pointed, descriptive, feminine expression; she wouldn't have to wonder: What girl used he to hear saying that? Ah, no! The wife of a man like Mr. Reginald Brace wouldn't be made to feel like purring with pleasure over the deft way he tied the belt of her sports coat and pinned in her collar at the back or put her wrap about her shoulders at the end of the second act—she wouldn't have to remember: "Some woman must have taught him to be so nice in these 'little ways' that make all the difference to us women...."

There'd be none of all this about Mr. Brace. I should be the first—the one—the only Love! Oughtn't that thought to be enough to please and gratify any girl?

And I am gratified....

I must be gratified.

If I haven't been feeling gratified all this time, it's simply because I've been so "rushed" with the worry of Miss Million's disappearance, and of all that business about the detective, and the missing ruby. (I wonder, by the way, if we have heard the last of all that business?)