d appearance of her protege, noted
that he was at home with men, at least.

Mr. Goodyear, indeed, clutched with his eye at the blue-and-gold
button in the lapel of Bertram's coat, at the figure of him, and at
the name.

"You aren't Chester who played tackle on the Berkeley Varsity last
season?" he asked. An old Harvard oar, Goodyear kept up his interest
in athletics.

"Tackle and half," said the youth. "Yes, sir."

"Well, well, I remember you in the game!" said Goodyear.

Mrs. Tiffany, now that her protege no longer needed watching, had
returned to her tea things.

"Eleanor," she called. "Will you run into the house and get that box
of chocolate wafers that's over the ice chest?"

"Let me carry 'em for you, Miss Gray," put in Chester, breaking
through a college reminiscence of Goodyear's.

Eleanor never flicked an eyelash as she announced:

"I should be very glad."

Tiffany, glancing over the group, noted with comparative relief that
none but she, Goodyear, and the young persons involved, had heard this
passage.

As they moved toward the house, Bertram opened upon Miss Gray at
once.

"This is the second chance I've had alone at you," he said.

"We are rather conspicuous," she burst out.

"Oh, nobody'll mind. A girl always thinks everybody is looking at her.
Besides, I wouldn't care if they were. I've wanted to tell you
something, and I couldn't with Heath trailing us. You've got awfully
nice eyes."

Eleanor seemed to see neither the necessity nor the convenience of an
answer.

"But you have!" he persisted. "They're better than pretty. They're
nice."

Again Eleanor said nothing. It seemed to her that there was nothing to
say.

"I know why you've got it in for me," he burst out. "You have, you
know. When I speak to you, you never talk back, and yesterday you
wouldn't let me stay after I had corralled the bull. It's because I'm
working for your uncle. It's because I'm making a living, not eating
what someone else made for me like--" he swept his hand backward
toward the company on the lawn--"like those people out there."

Stung, for a second, to a visible emotion, Eleanor raised her grey
eyes and regarded him.

"You are assuming a little, aren't you?" said she.

"Then why can't I come to see you sometime in the evening if that
isn't so? I don't ask it of many nice girls."

She caught at the delimiting phrase, "nice girls," and glanced up
again. By this time, they had passed through the livin