he had not even
noticed it.

But Amory, being on the spot, leaned over quickly and kissed Myra's
cheek. He had never kissed a girl before, and he tasted his lips
curiously, as if he had munched some new fruit. Then their lips brushed
like young wild flowers in the wind.

"We're awful," rejoiced Myra gently. She slipped her hand into his,
her head drooped against his shoulder. Sudden revulsion seized Amory,
disgust, loathing for the whole incident. He desired frantically to
be away, never to see Myra again, never to kiss any one; he became
conscious of his face and hers, of their clinging hands, and he wanted
to creep out of his body and hide somewhere safe out of sight, up in the
corner of his mind.

"Kiss me again." Her voice came out of a great void.

"I don't want to," he heard himself saying. There was another pause.

"I don't want to!" he repeated passionately.

Myra sprang up, her cheeks pink with bruised vanity, the great bow on
the back of her head trembling sympathetically.

"I hate you!" she cried. "Don't you ever dare to speak to me again!"

"What?" stammered Amory.

"I'll tell mama you kissed me! I will too! I will too! I'll tell mama,
and she won't let me play with you!"

Amory rose and stared at her helplessly, as though she were a new animal
of whose presence on the earth he had not heretofore been aware.

The door opened suddenly, and Myra's mother appeared on the threshold,
fumbling with her lorgnette.

"Well," she began, adjusting it benignantly, "the man at the desk told
me you two children were up here--How do you do, Amory."

Amory watched Myra and waited for the crash--but none came. The pout
faded, the high pink subsided, and Myra's voice was placid as a summer
lake when she answered her mother.

"Oh, we started so late, mama, that I thought we might as well--"

He heard from below the shrieks of laughter, and smelled the vapid
odor of hot chocolate and tea-cakes as he silently followed mother and
daughter down-stairs. The sound of the graphophone mingled with the
voices of many girls humming the air, and a faint glow was born and
spread over him:

"Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un
Casey-Jones--'th his orders in his hand.
Casey-Jones--mounted to the cab-un
Took his farewell journey to the prom-ised land."

*****

SNAPSHOTS OF THE YOUNG EGOTIST

Amory spent nearly two years in Minneapolis. The first winter he wore
moccasins that were born yellow,