onsidered. "My dear Mr. Stover--Dear Mr.
Stover--well, that's all right. But what the deuce does she mean by
'faithful cavalier'--I wonder now, I wonder. She wants me to visit
her--she can't be offended then. 'Your very good friend,' underlined
twice, that sounds as though she wanted to warn me. Undoubtedly I made
a fool of myself and this is her angelic way of letting me down.
'Friend'--underlined twice--of course that's it. What a blooming,
sentimental, moon-struck jay I was. Gee, I could kick myself to
Jericho and back!" But here his eye fell on the postscript and his jaw
dropped. "Now how did she guess that? That sounds different from the
rest, as though--as though she understood."

He went to the window frowning, and then to the mirror, with a new
interest in this new Mr. John H. Stover who received perplexing notes
on scented paper.

"I must get some decent collars," he said pensively. "How the deuce
does Lovely Mead keep his tie tight--mine's always slipping down,
showing the stud." He changed his collar, having detected a smirch,
and tried the effect of parting his hair on the side, like Garry
Cockrell.

"She's a wonderful woman--wonderful," he said softly, taking up the
letter again. "What eyes! Reminds me of Lorna Doone. Josephine--so
that's her name, Josephine--it's a beautiful name. I wish the deuce I
knew just what she did mean by this!"

By nightfall he had written a dozen answers which had been torn up in
a panic as soon as written. Finally, he determined that the craftiest
way would be to send her his remembrances by Tough--that would express
everything as well as show her that he could be both discreet and
dignified.

In the afternoon he added a dozen extra high collars to his wardrobe
and examined hesitatingly the counter of Gent's Bon-Ton socks, spring
styles, displayed at Bill Appleby's.

The collars, the latest cut, he tried on surreptitiously. They were
uncomfortable and projected into his chin, but there was no question
of the superior effect. Suddenly a new element in the school came to
his notice--fellows like Lovely Mead, Jock Hasbrouk and Dudy Rankin,
who wore tailor-made clothes, rainbow cravats, who always looked
immaculate and whose trousers never bagged at the knees.

No sooner was this borne in upon him than he was appalled at the state
of his wardrobe. He had outgrown everything. Everything he had bagged
at the elbows as well as the knees. His neckties were frazzled and
his soc