steamer letter for to-morrow, but I forgot. I might make it up later, if I had time."

"I don't suppose Lenox is conducive to correspondence," he agreed, then added, "I have an idea that England might distinguish herself in that way."

"It's too bad you're going to be in Oxford when mother and I are in Paris."

"You come over in October?"

"Yes, just for clothes. We shall stay only a month. Then comes the plunge!"

"You ought to be accustomed to the temperature at the end of this summer."

"Perhaps. But now, the water looks very, very cold. Nearly every girl I know has spent her life in looking forward to her début. I've spent mine in overlooking it!"

"Why do it?" he asked, impulsively.

Before she could reply there came a knock, which resulted in icedtea and little round cakes. He poured her a tall glass with plenty of lemon.

"Thank you, I'll put in my own sugar; you'll give me too much. These cakes are delicious. Why come out, did you say? Because everyone expects it of me. My sisters did, my friends will, and Iwell, I must."

"But I thought you wanted to teach."

"So I do. All these four years at college, it's been my dream to go to Oxford with Evelyn Sturges and her mother-they really are going, you know and spend two years on High Street eating marmalade for breakfast!"

"How intellectual!"

"Of course, I might give a few moments to Magdalen and English," she smiled, then added seriously, "Oh, if you only knew how much I wanted to go!"

"Well, why don't you?"

"I've talked it all over with the family, but they think I'm insane. They can't understand why I should want to be different from any other girl in our set. I believe they secretly consider my schemes just a trifle indelicate."

"That's amusing."

"Yes, for you! To quote mother, people will say, 'Oh, yes, that younger Allerton girl. What did become of her, anyway? You know she was always queer. I think the last time I heard of her she was the dean of something, somewhere,'-and all that sort of thing.'

He laughed in the darkness. "I can barely see your glass, but I think it's empty. Let me have it, please."

"Thank you. Now it isn't as if I were needed at home. It isn't as if mother didn't revel in housekeeping and entertaining and all the rest of it! It's simply that every girl in my position is thrown on the matrimonial market, and I mustn't disgrace myself by being an exception to this time-honored rule."

"You'd make a very charming débutante," he ventured, trying to be fair.

"Just because I'm not the personification of co-education is no reason why I shouldn't have brains and enjoy the use of them. Does that sound conceited? The dark always makes me painfully frank."

"To the contrary, I like it. Do you mind if I smoke? Thanks. Don't think I am urging you on towards the white tulle and smilax. Really, I'm more disappointed than I care to think."

"Disappointed?"

"Yes. I was anticipating all sorts of good times together. I'm not so keen about the English that I'd scorn the friends of my infancy, you know."

She tinkled the ice in her glass. "How long are you to be there?" "My degree can't be taken under two years."

"Then you may still hope! The fact is, mother has told me that if I put myself unreservedly in her hands this coming winter, I can do what I please the year following. Evelyn will still be on High Street, and I-"

He laughed a little, mirthlessly. "That's very clever of Mrs. Allerton."

"What do you mean?"

"One winter as a débutante will evaporate every ambition you ever had in your life. Or rather it will substitute the new, false ones for the old and true."

"Most people would change round the positions of 'true' and 'false.'"

"I know. But thank heaven, you're not like most people. Mary, look here! Can't you-isn't there some way for you to back out? Couldn't you persuade them-by the work you've done already?"

"No girl is a prophet in her own family, I fear; anyway, I'm not in mine! My fate seems to be definitely fixed for this winter."

"I tell you it's a question of all time! You want to write. You can't write in that atmosphere-your style won't go with it. Imagine thinking out your 'Ode to Twilight' the afternoon before a dinnerdance! You know what Howells and-what his name, your Englishman-said about your sonnets. You have every chance in the world!" She laughed at his earnestness. "It's not as important as all that. I'm not so unutterably conceited, you know."

He moved back his chair in silence. The music came quite clearly now, some familiar Strauss waltz, the "Blue Danube" perhaps. The girl hummed it lightly, and handed him her glass to place on the table. "If I had half as much as you," he said, slowly, "I'd consider it a duty to give myself every opportunity. I'm trying to, as it is. And you sell your birthright for-for—”

"A pink tea?" she suggested, tolerantly. "Don't be foolish and serious, Douglas. You can spend next winter finding out nice places to show me when I come. Because I will come, as truly as I sit here!" "I can't help being afraid," he said, simply.

"Go to! And now suppose you read aloud to me until they come back. I think, since nobody's around to tell on us, we might try a little -a little Matthew Arnold."

He rose without another word and turned on the light.

II

The smoking-room was half filled with the usual crew of thinwaisted, broad-shouldered young men, with the usual white waistcoats, pearl studs, and camelias. The usual cigarettes and sherry were being consumed, and the usual topics discussed-cotillions, hockey-games, motor-cars, and girls. The rhythmic swing of the waltz-song from the latest comic opera, performed by the usual palm-hidden orchestra, came lilting through the smoke-wreathed atmosphere, punctuating the idle conversation with regular crescendos towards a light crash from the cymbals.

Leigh stood with his back to the others. They had amused him for a moment in their unconscious appeal to the memory of his own social strivings; but they belonged to a more youthful generation, and he did not know them. Three and a half years change young people surprisingly. He felt quite old and out of it, as he stood by the door, buttoning his gloves, and glancing through the portières of another lounging-room to the polished floor of the hall itself and the kaleidoscope of the dancers. He had finished the last button and was preparing to start in search of his hostess when a hand clapped him familiarly on the shoulder.

"Hello, Douglas! Where on earth did you drop from? I'm glad enough to see you." The voice was jovial and deep.

"Why, it's Jim!" They shook hands heartily. "Jim Rockwood, of all people! I haven't seen you since-it must be five years ago— yes, I'm home for the holidays." He tried to make his tone as sincere as the other's had been and was conscious of a certain failure; a failure, which, however, he knew Rockwood would be the last to notice. The latter had gone to Yale; they lived in the same neighborhood, and had ridden in the Park together when they were small. Later on, they had met occasionally during the Christmas vacations; and, although each had outgrown the other in every way, they still retained a conventional and useless remembrance of their back-yard intimacy, which resulted in a rather over-done friendliness whenever their paths chanced to

cross.

"Everything must seem new to you," said Rockwood, hospitably. "Come and meet some of the débutantes. You probably think of them in pigtails and short skirts, but time works wonders!"

"Thank you, I haven't seen Mrs. Clair yet. And I think I'll enjoy picking out by myself those whom I remember and who remember me. I do feel like a twentieth-century Rip Van Winkle, however. See you later, Jim. It's good to be back."

"Come out between times and we'll have a drink and talk over old times. It seems so damned funny to have you write a book. I haven't read it can't appreciate poetry myself-but Mary says it's pretty good!"

Leigh had scarcely time to be faintly amused by the first of this speech, before he was puzzled by the last. "Mary-?" he questioned, halting on his way to the door.

"Mary Allerton, you know. Be sure and come back for our jaw together. Girls bore me to death, now. So long." And he lunged forward to the table after a cigarette.

The mention of Miss Allerton's name suddenly recalled to Leigh that he had come to the dance for the express purpose of seeing her, and, as he crossed the floor to where his hostess was receiving, he glanced casually, yet keenly, at the little groups of people gathered about the room. Mrs. Clair, having already performed so many feats of memory that her mental muscles were almost exhausted, could not place him at once, although he had been stentoriously announced. This made him feel older and queerer than ever; he was about to inform her that he had attended her parties ever since he was born, when her uncertain smile broadened and she squeezed his hand tightly, as if to make up for her former forgetfulness.

"Douglas! I didn't exactly know-how are you, my dear boy? You look well. Absence seems to agree with you. Isn't your mother delighted to have you with her again? How long are you going to stay?" She looked over his shoulder and smiled again at some third person. "Mary, dear, come and see if Douglas isn't utterly changed!"