some uninteresting country place where they would have to
lounge around a cheap hotel until concert time. Why couldn't the manager
get up a schedule that would give them a day or so longer in a place
like Los Angeles? This making a college trip with the sole idea of
money-getting was degrading. He, for one, was willing enough to pay his
share of the extra expense.

On his way he stopped at a florist's. It was a habit he had acquired
under similar circumstances. He was puzzled to know just what to send in
a land where the highways and hedges run riot with flowers, but he
finally selected some wonderful orchids of delicate lavender and mauve.
Purposely, he put no card with them, feeling that she would guess the
sender.

He got into his dress clothes in rather an ungracious humor. Pomona was
the next place, a fruit town further south. Oh, it was too bad! Well, at
least he would see her again at the concert that night. He was grateful
for this much. Her seat was on an aisle, she told him; he would be able
to speak to her during the intermission; more than this, she had said,
in her best convent manner, that he might ride home with her papa and
mamma afterwards.

Still, this was an unsatisfactory way of carrying on an affair of the
sort, especially when it was the first really serious one he had ever
had. Clean out of Van's mind had faded the memory of a Montana cow-girl,
a San Francisco actress, a senior in the Lambda Mu sorority, a----but
space forbids. He mussed three ties. Freshmen are petulant things.

Perkins, who led the Mandolin Club, joshed him at dinner.

"What's the matter, my boy; didn't you have a good time this afternoon?"

"Of course he didn't," answered a guitar man. "You must have noticed his
bored expression all through; that is, when you saw him at all."

"That was merely the blase look that comes with four months at the
Youngest and Best," said "Cap." Smith. "The Freshman was happy on his
little inside because he was so well got up. He really looked the part;
now he's in ordinary clothes, like a common strolling player, and he
feels cross."

"No," growled Van Dyke, "I've caught cold or something."

"Oh," said Phillips, the Glee Club leader. He took up his table fork and
bit the end; holding it to his ear he gave the table a starting chord,
and they hummed "Ma Onliest One," while Van grew red, and the rest of
the dining-room stopped to listen.

Dolores Payson sat in an orchestra seat and smiled