attention on me."

"Is that what you think?"

"Sure, it's the way it is. If I haven't got any kick coming I don't
see why you should have any. You're worth it to me. That's the
point."

Caroline opened her lips to speak, and then thought better of it. The
dangerous glint in her pellucid hazel eyes was lost on Billy. He was
watching the clear cool curve of her cheek, the smooth brown hair
brushed up from the temple, and tucked away under the smart folds of a
premature velvet turban.

"I like those mouse-colored clothes of yours," he said contentedly.

"I think the only reason a woman should marry a man is that
she--she--"

"Likes him?" Billy suggested.

"No, that she can be of more use in the world married than single. She
can't be that unless she's going to marry a man who is entirely in
sympathy with her point of view."

"That I know to be unsound," Billy said. "Caroline, my love, this is a
bat. Can't we let these matters of the mind rest for a little? See,
I've ordered _Petite Marmite_, and afterward an artichoke, and all the
nice fattening things that Nancy won't let me eat."

"I wish you'd tell me about Nancy," Caroline said. "It makes a lot of
difference. You haven't any idea how much difference it makes."

"See the nice little brown pots with the soup in them," Billy implored
her. "Cheese, too, all grated up so fine and white. Sprinkle it in
like little snow-flakes."

But in spite of all Billy's efforts the evening went wrong after that.
Caroline was wrapped in a mantle of sorrowful meditation the opacity
of which she was not willing to let Billy penetrate for a moment.
After they had dined they took a taxi-cab up-town and danced for an
hour on the smooth floor of one of the quieter hotels. Billy's dancing
being of that light, sure, rhythmic quality that should have installed
him irrevocably in the regard of any girl who had ever danced with a
man who performed less admirably. Caroline liked to dance and fell in
step with an unexpected docility, but even in his arms, dipping,
pivoting, swaying to the curious syncopation of modern dance time, she
was as remote and cool as a snow maiden.

At the table on the edge of the dancing platform where they sat
between dances, Billy pledged her in nineteen-four _Chablis Mouton_.

"This is what you look like," he said, holding up his glass to the
light, "or perhaps I ought to say what you act like,--clear, cold
stuff,--lovely, but not very sweet."

"If it's