Page:Frank Owen - Woman Without Love (1949 reprint).djvu/26

 I'm bored with living and so I decided to drop in and see if Hattie would marry me."

"I'm not in a marrying mood today," said Hattie.

"She never gets married on Tuesdays," broke in Louella.

"This isn't Tuesday," said Hattie thoughtfully.

"It's wedding's day," chuckled Don.

"That's awful," commented Louella. "Such humor always makes me bilious."

Don Raymond ignored the remark. "What do you say, Hattie," he asked, "shall we get married?"

"Why should we?" she wanted to know.

"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "Today I was fired from my job. I lost my last hundred dollars playing poker. And a chap threatened to cut my throat. You see it was my unlucky day, so I decided I might as well get married as not. As you were the first lady I thought of, I came to you."

Hattie Holt had a weakness for marriage and besides she had a great fondness for Don Raymond. She liked him particularly because he did not snore. It would be good, she decided, to have a man about the house.

"All right," she said abruptly, "I'll marry you."

"Thanks," said he. "We'll dash right out to the minister's. By the way you don't happen to have a second-hand wedding ring around anywhere that we can use?"

"Oh, yes," she said, "I have several."

"One will be quite enough."

"But I can't see why you are in such a dreadful hurry to get married."

"It can't come too soon for me."

"I'd like a bit of time to bake a cake."

"If you give her time to reflect," interrupted Louella, "She'll never marry you."

"Oh, I've got to get married tonight," explained Don. "My landlady turned me out today because I owed her for seven weeks' room rent. I have no place to sleep—which is a pity, because at that I am a past master."

"Oh," said Louella, "I see. You've decided to marry to avoid sleeping on a park bench."