y!" and Van Reypen's face went white. "You don't mean that."

"Yes, I do. I've had so much wedding doings for Mona, I'm sick and
tired of it. I don't want to be engaged myself, or hear of anybody
else being engaged, until I forget all about all this fuss and
feathers."

"There does seem to be an awful lot of fussy feathers, or whatever you
call it, about the affair, doesn't there?"

"Yes; and I'm glad to do all I can for Mona. I'm enjoying it, too, but
I don't want any wedding of my own for years and years and years."

"By that time you'll be a pretty old bird. You ticked off a goodly
number of years just then. But, seriously, Patty, I don't want to
bother you----"

"Well, you _do_ bother me. Why, Phil, every single chance you get, you
talk about----"

"About my love for you? I mean to, Patty, but you don't give me a
chance. When I try to tell you of my love and devotion, you break
loose about not wanting to be engaged----"

"Well, of course I do. A girl doesn't want to hear of love and
devotion from a man she isn't engaged to, does she?"

"I don't know. I hope so, in this case. That is, I hope I'm the man
you're going to be engaged to, and soon, so I can tell you of my love
and devotion. They're deep, Patty, deep and true, and----"

"Then why did you treat me so horridly down at Lakewood, just because I
enjoyed having to do with people who had some brains and weren't of the
silly, addle-pated type we meet mostly in our own class of society?"

"But, Patty, dearest, those Blaneys aren't the real things. They
haven't education and genius,--they only pretend they have."

"Phil, I think you're horrid. They have so. Why, Sam Blaney wrote a
poem that's the most beautiful thing I ever read!"

"Let me see it."

"I can't. I promised I wouldn't. It's--it's sort of sacred----"

"A sacred poem! Blaney?"

"No, I don't mean religious. But it's sacred to me,--it's--it's a real
poem, you see."

"Well, he isn't a real poet, by a long chalk! I did think, Patty, that
when you came home from Lakewood you'd forget all that rubbish bunch."

"How you do love to call them names! I don't think it's nice of you,
one bit. They're going to be at the wedding, and I hope you'll be
decent to them then, as they're my friends."

"Oh, I'll be decent to them, but I shan't have any time to waste on
them. I've a matter of my own on hand for that night. A girl I wot of
has promised to give me her answer to a qu