to be presented. On the way across the room they passed Henry.
Tom, who stared at him, missed the tell-tale blush on Nancy's cheeks.
Instead, he only saw Henry shift his eyes calmly from Nancy to him and
bow coldly. Tom bowed as coldly in his turn, and then Nancy left him
with the Philadelphia cousin.

Lily Griffin, the Philadelphia cousin, gazed at him steadily from under
the floppy expanse of her black hat. She was sitting on a low cane
covered bench before the fireplace, and her legs, which were encased in
light grey silk stockings and which terminated in slippers of the same
colour, her legs, let it be relentlessly repeated, were the most
conspicuous things in the room. Over her shoulders were the thin strings
of an undergarment that Tom thought was generally concealed. Still, one
couldn't be at all sure about such things from one day to the next.

"Would you mind taking my cigarette?" she asked, handing him the stub.

"So you know Platt Raeburn," he began amiably when he had returned from
his pretty task.

"Yes."

"He's an awfully nice boy. I know him quite well." Platt was in the
Star; and Lily, who knew a great deal about such things, immediately
suspected that Tom was also. How else would a professor know a crew star
"quite well"? Her interest in Tom rose. He had, as a matter of fact,
attractive eyes; and that cerise-coloured knitted tie with a pearl
stickpin might indicate much.

"Platt is a nice boy, isn't he?" she continued with a shade more
enthusiasm. "We went on the most wonderful party this Easter. He wasn't
in training then, you know, and I have never seen any one funnier than
he was. We were at the Greysons' in Ardmore, and Platt thought he was
insulted by the butler when he took Platt's cigarette off a table and
threw it in the fire. It was burning the table, but old Platt didn't
know that, and he knocked the man down."

"It must have been funny," said Tom, who had heard the story before.

"Oh, it was a scream. I thought I'd die laughing. It was really awfully
bad of him, though, don't you think?"

"Oh, I don't know," said Tom boldly. "I don't think it was so very bad.
You've got to expect that sort of thing nowadays."

"Mercy, I didn't think you'd say that. Aren't you a professor here, or
something?"

"Yes, something."

"Well, but I always thought----"

"What?" with a smile.

"Oh, nothing. Say, just between you and I, don't you think this is
rather slow?" and she gave him a look that