m him
with surprising effect.

Mrs. Marshall-Smith was, as she had said, only human, and at this
she rose, her delicate face quiet and impassive, and shook out the
shimmering folds of her beautiful dress. She said casually, picking
up her fan and evidently preparing for some sort of adjournment: "Oh,
Arnold, don't be so absurd. Of course you can't foist yourself off
on a family that's no relation to you, that way. And in any case,
it wouldn't do for you to graduate from a co-educational State
University. Not a person you know would have heard of it. You know
you're due at Harvard next fall." With adroit fingers, she plucked the
string sure to vibrate in Arnold's nature. "Do go and order a table
for us in the Rose-Room, there's a good boy. And be sure to have the
waiter give you one where we can see the dancing."

The matter was settled.

CHAPTER XII

ONE MAN'S MEAT ...

That night after the Marshalls had gone back to their somewhat shabby
boarding-house, "things" happened to the two people they had left in
the great hotel. Sylvia and Judith never knew the details, but it was
apparent that something portentous had occurred, from the number of
telegrams Aunt Victoria had managed to receive and send between the
hour when they left her in the evening, and eleven o'clock the next
morning, when they found her, hatted and veiled, with an array of
strapped baggage around her.

"It's Arnold again!" she told them, with a resigned gesture. She laid
down the time-table she had been consulting and drew Mrs. Marshall to
the window for a low-voiced explanation. When she came back, "I'm so
sorry, dears, to cut short even by a single day this charming time
together," she told the girls. "But the news I've been getting from
Arnold's school--there's nothing for me to do but to stop everything
and take him back there to see what can be done to patch things
up." She spoke with the patient air of one inured to the sacrifices
involved in the upbringing of children. "We leave on the
eleven-forty--oh, I _am_ so sorry! But it would have been only one day
more. I meant to get you both a dress--I've 'phoned to have them sent
to you."

The rest was only the dreary, bustling futility of the last moments
before train-time--kisses, remarks about writing more often; a promise
from Aunt Victoria to send Sylvia from time to time a box of old
dresses and fineries as material for her niece's dressmaking
skill;--from Arnold, appearing at