ut somehow or other he found it impossible to catch
her eye. The dance ended when she was on the other side of the room,
and immediately, with the last strains, the floor was in confusion.
Sam tried desperately to hurry across to where she was, but he lost her
in the crowd. He did not see her again until all of the Meadow Brook
folk, including himself, were seated in the carryalls, at which time
the Hollis Creek folk were at the edge of the porte-cochere and both
parties were exchanging a gabbling pandemonium of good-bys. He saw her
then, standing back among the crowd, and shouting her adieus as
vociferously as any of them. He caught her eye and she nodded to him
as pleasantly as to anybody, which was really worse than if she had
refused to acknowledge him at all!

CHAPTER VIII

NOT SAM'S FAULT THIS TIME

No, Miss Stevens was sorry that she could not go walking with him that
morning, which was the morning after the dance. She was very polite
about it, too; almost too polite. Her voice over the telephone was as
suave and as limpid as could possibly be, but there was a sort of
metallic glitter behind it, as it were.

No, she could not see him that afternoon either. She had made a series
of engagements, in fact, covering the entire day. Also, she regretted
to say, upon further solicitation, that she had made engagements
covering the entire following day.

No, she was not piqued about his last night's forgetfulness; by no
means; certainly not; how absurd!

She quite understood. He had been talking business with her father,
and naturally such a trifling detail as a dance with frivolous young
people would not occur to him.

Frivolous young people! This was the exact point of the conversation
at which Sam, with his ear glued to the receiver of the telephone and
no necessity for concealing the concerned expression on his
countenance, thought, in more or less of a panic, that he must really
be getting old, which was a good joke, inasmuch as nobody ever took him
to be over twenty-five. Heretofore his boyish appearance had worried
him because it rather stood in the way of business, but now he began to
fear that he was losing it; for he was nearing thirty!

Well, pleading was of no avail. He had to give it up. Reluctantly he
went out and took a solitary walk, then came in and religiously played
his two hours of tennis with Miss Westlake and Miss Hastings and
Tilloughby. Was he not on vacation, and must