oses. Even Miss Mattie
Gaskett, who always clung like a burr to woollen clothing with the
least encouragement, said carelessly when he showed her the lemonade
tray:

"As good as your best, Wallie," and edged over to hear what Pinkey was
saying.

There was nothing to do but withdraw unobtrusively, though Wallie
realized with chagrin that he could have gone upstairs on his hands and
knees without attracting the least attention. For the first time he
regretted deeply that his eyesight had kept him out of the army, for he,
too, might have been winning war crosses in the trenches instead of
rolling bandages and knitting socks and sweaters.

Wallie almost hated the lemonade tray as he slammed it on the table, for
in his utter disgust with everything and everybody the design seemed to
look more like cabbages than roses.

CHAPTER IV

THE BRAND OF CAIN

There never was a nose so completely out of joint as Wallie's nor an
owner more thoroughly humiliated and embittered by the fickleness and
ingratitude of human nature. The sacrifices he had made in escorting
dull ladies to duller movies were wasted. The unfailing courtesy with
which he had retrieved their yarn and handkerchiefs, the sympathy and
attention with which he had listened to their symptoms, his solicitude
when they were ailing--all were forgotten now that Pinkey was in the
vicinity.

The ladies swarmed around that person, quoted his sayings delightedly,
and declared a million times in Wallie's hearing that "he was a
character!" And the worst of it was that Helene Spenceley did not seem
sufficiently aware of Wallie's existence even to laugh at him.

As the displaced cynosure sat brooding in his room the third morning
after Pinkey's arrival he wished that he could think of some perfectly
well-bred way to attract attention.

He believed in the psychology of clothes. Perhaps if he appeared on the
veranda in something to emphasize his personality, something suggesting
strength and virility, like tennis flannels, he could regain his hold on
his audience.

With this thought in mind Wallie opened his capacious closet filled with
wearing apparel, and the moment his eyes fell upon his riding breeches
he had his inspiration. If "the girl from Wyoming" thought her friend
Pinkey was the only person who could ride a horse, he would show her!

It took Wallie only so long to order a horse as it required to get the
Riding Academy on the telephone.

"I want a goo