"Ye-es." He saw suddenly that he had made a fatal mistake.
"Then, Nat, I will be your wife in spite of all!"
He found himself suddenly caught about the neck by the girl's arms. His head was drawn down until her cheek caressed his and he felt her lips warm upon his own.
"Josie!" he gasped.
"Nat, my darling!"
With a supreme effort he pulled himself together and embraced the girl. "Josie," he said earnestly, "I—I'm going to try to be a good husband to you.... And that," he concluded, sotto voce, "wasn't in the agreement!"
She held him to her passionately. "Dearest, I'm so glad!"
"It makes me very happy to know you are, Josie," he murmured miserably. And to himself, while still she trembled in his embrace: "What a cur you are!... But I won't renege now; I'll play my hand out on the square, with her...."
Upon this tableau there came a sudden intrusion. The back door opened and Graham came in, Kellogg at his heels. It was the voice of the latter that told the two they were discovered: a hearty "Hello! What's this?" that rang in Nat's ears like the trump of doom.
In a flash the girl disengaged herself, and they were a yard apart by the time that Graham, blundering in his surprise, managed to turn on the lights at the switchboard. But even in the full glare of them he seemed unable to credit his sight.