"No," said Bill, with a quiet grin; "I just told him you were crazy to see him. You would have lost him if it hadn't been for me. Every girl in Reno is crazy about John, but I got him so he's willing to marry you."
"Oh, daddy, I don't know what I am going to do with you!" Millie was almost in tears and leaned dejectedly on a shoulder indifferent through habit and not will.
"You don't mean to say you asked John Marvin to marry me?" she pouted.
"Sure I did," said Bill, untouched by any thought of having done what was not right. "It was a tough job after the way you treated him," he admonished, dropping into the chair and tipping it back while he clasped his hands behind his head and whistled. "I told him," he went on, "that you had made a fool of yourself, but that most women did that now and then, and not to mind it. After he's been married awhile he'll get used to it. I asked him, if you would own up that you were wrong like mother did, would he give you another chance?" Bill looked up at her, adding, complacently, "'Ain't I done a good piece of business?"
Millie gave one shriek and ran up the stairs. Bill, unmoved by any sense of his own iniquity, followed her to the foot of the staircase, calling after her, "Now, if you beg his pardon when he comes—"
She stopped at the top step and looked back. "Beg his pardon!" she exclaimed, defiantly. "I don't even intend to see him when he comes!"
Bill held out one hand toward her in a deprecating gesture.
"Oh, come along down-stairs again." Taking a little square box from his pocket, he opened it and held it up to view, saying, "If you don't see him, what is he going to do with this?"
"What is it?" she asked, her curiosity getting the better of her anger as she came slowly back down the stairs. Bill showed her his prize in its nest of bright purple velvet. "He got it for you. He sent me out to buy it while he was in court!"
Mildred looked at the thing, and with one long "Oh!" of disgust she turned and went through the door into the dining-room.