is confidential fashion; and she was pleasantly aware that his manner
was open to misinterpretation.

In the nick of time, the lobster was served.

* * * * *

Dinner and the play--the show, as Ninian called it. This show was "Peter
Pan," chosen by Ninian because the seats cost the most of those at any
theatre. It was almost indecent to see how Dwight Herbert, the immortal
soul, had warmed and melted at these contacts. By the time that all was
over, and they were at the hotel for supper, such was his pleasurable
excitation that he was once more playful, teasing, once more the
irrepressible. But now his Ina was to be won back, made it evident that
she was not one lightly to overlook, and a fine firmness sat upon the
little doubling chin.

They discussed the play. Not one of them had understood the story. The
dog-kennel part--wasn't that the queerest thing? Nothing to do with the
rest of the play.

"I was for the pirates. The one with the hook--he was my style," said
Dwight.

"Well, there it is again," Ina cried. "They didn't belong to the real
play, either."

"Oh, well," Ninian said, "they have to put in parts, I suppose, to catch
everybody. Instead of a song and dance, they do that."

"And I didn't understand," said Ina, "why they all clapped when the
principal character ran down front and said something to the audience
that time. But they all did."

Ninian thought this might have been out of compliment. Ina wished that
Monona might have seen, confessed that the last part was so pretty that
she herself would not look; and into Ina's eyes came their loveliest
light.

Lulu sat there, hearing the talk about the play. "Why couldn't I have
said that?" she thought as the others spoke. All that they said seemed
to her apropos, but she could think of nothing to add. The evening had
been to her a light from heaven--how could she find anything to say? She
sat in a daze of happiness, her mind hardly operative, her look moving
from one to another. At last Ninian looked at her.

"Sure you liked it, Miss Lulu?"

"Oh, yes! I think they all took their parts real well."

It was not enough. She looked at them appealingly, knowing that she had
not said enough.

"You could hear everything they said," she added. "It was--" she
dwindled to silence.

Dwight Herbert savoured his rarebit with a great show of long wrinkled
dimples.

"Excellent sauces they make here--excellent," he said, with th