“I am inclined to think that I shall be proof against my nominal wife’s charms, no matter how great they may be,” he said emphatically. “There is a romantic side to the affair, I admit, but I cannot blind myself to the fact that it possesses a prosaic one as well. Association with a skunk like Steinbaum is hardly the best of credentials, in the first place. Secondly, one asks what motive any woman could have in wishing to marry a man condemned to die. I’m not flattering myself that my personal qualifications carried much weight.
“Admittedly, the lady wanted to wed because I was about to disappear. I give her the credit of believing that she would never have gone through with the farce if she had the least reason to think that I would not be dead within the next half hour. But the fact rem
