eanwhile had been talking to Fanny. In a moment he turned to her
anew.

"Where are you going this summer?"

"To Narragansett. It is cool and cheap. Why don't you come?"

"It is such a beastly hole."

"Well, perhaps. But do you think you would think so if I were there?"

"That would rather depend on how you treated me."

"You mean, don't you, that it would rather depend on how I let you
treat me?" Fanny, as she spoke, looked Loftus in the eyes and made a
face at him.

That face, Loftus, after a momentary interlude with knife and fork,
tried to mimic. "If a chap gave you the chance you would drive him to
the devil."

On Fanny's lips a smile bubbled. She shook her pretty head. "No, not
half so far. Not even so far as the other end of Fifth avenue, where I
saw you trying to scrape acquaintance with that girl. Apropos. You
might tell me. How are matters progressing? Has the castle
capitulated?"

"I haven't an idea what you are talking about."

"That's right. Assume a virtue though you have it not. It's a good
plan."

"It does not appear to be yours."

"Appearances may be deceptive."

"And even may not be."

Sylvia interrupted them. "What are you two quarreling about?"

"Mr. Loftus does not like my hat. Don't you like it, Mr. Orr?"

"I like everything about you, everything, from the crown of your head
to the soles of your feet."

"There!" exclaimed Fanny. "That is the way I like to have a man talk."

"It is dreadfully difficult," Loftus threw in.

"You seem to find it so," Fanny threw back.

Sylvia raised a finger. "Mr. Loftus, if you do not stop quarreling
with Fanny I will make you come and sit by me."

"If I am to look upon that as a punishment, Miss Waldron," Loftus with
negligent gallantry replied, "what would you have me regard as a
reward?"

"Arthur! Arthur!" Fanny cried. "Did you hear that? This man is making
up to Sylvia."

But Annandale did not seem in the least alarmed. He was looking about
for Ferdinand. "Here," he began, when at last the waiter appeared.
"You neglect us shamefully. We want some more moselle and more
Scotch."

"None for me," said Loftus rising. "I have an appointment."

"Appointment," Fanny announced, "is very good English for
_rendezvous_."

"And _taisez-vous, mademoiselle_, is very good French for I wish it
were with yourself."

"I have not a doubt of it."

"Fanny!" Sylvia objected. "You are impossible."

"Yes," Fanny indolently replied. "Yet then, to be