er as the dance progressed. There
were daughters--shy and giggling to hide their shyness--Bud knew their
type very well and made friends with them easily, and immediately became
the centre of a clamoring audience after he had sung a song or two.

There was Honey, with her inscrutable half smile and her veiled eyes,
condescending to graciousness and quite plainly assuming a proprietary
air toward Bud, whom she put through whatever musical paces pleased her
fancy. Bud, I may say, was extremely tractable. When Honey said sing,
Bud sang; when she said play, Bud sat down to the piano and played
until she asked him to do something else. It was all very pleasant for
Honey--and Bud ultimately won his point--Honey decided to extend her
graciousness a little.

Why hadn't Bud danced with Marian? He must go right away and ask her
to dance. Just because Lew was gone, Marian need not be slighted--and
besides, there were other fellows who might want a little of Honey's
time.

So Bud went away and found Marian in the pantry, cutting cakes while the
coffee boiled, and asked her to dance. Marian was too tired, and' she
had not the time to spare; wherefore Bud helped himself to a knife
and proceeded to cut cakes with geometrical precision, and ate all
the crumbs. With his hands busy, he found the courage to talk to her a
little. He made Marian laugh out loud and it was the first time he had
ever heard her do that.

Marian disclosed a sense of humor, and even teased Bud a little about
Honey. But her teasing lacked that edge of bitterness which Bud had half
expected in retaliation for Honey's little air of superiority.

"Your precision in cutting cakes is very much like your accurate
fingering of the piano," she observed irrelevantly, surveying his
work with her lips pursed. "A pair of calipers would prove every piece
exactly, the same width; and even when you play a Meditation? I'm
sure the metronome would waggle in perfect unison with your tempo. I
wonder--" She glanced up at him speculatively. "--I wonder if you think
with such mathematical precision. Do you always find that two and two
make four?"

"You mean, have I any imagination whatever?" Bud looked away from her
eyes--toward the uncurtained, high little window. A face appeared there,
as if a tall man had glanced in as he was passing by and halted for a
second to look. Bud's eyes met full the eyes of the man outside, who
tilted his head backward in a significant movement and