world. Even Barry had to admit that his manners were
irreproachable, and his clothes. As for his looks, he was not to be
matched with Mary's auburn Apollo--one cannot compare a royal stag and a
tawny-maned lion!

During the rest of the program, Roger sat enthroned at Mary's side, and
listened. He watched the candles, an increasing row of little pointed
lights. He went down to supper, and again sat beside Mary--and knew not
what he ate. He saw Porter's hot eyes upon him. He knew that to-morrow
he must doff his honors and be as he had been before. However, "who
knows but the world may end to-night," he told himself, desperately.

Thus he played with Fate, and Fate, turning the tables, brought him at
last to Delilah Jeliffe as the guests were saying "good-bye."

"Somewhere I've heard your voice," she said with the upsweep of her
lashes. "It isn't the kind that one is likely to forget."

"Yet you have forgotten," he parried.

"I shall remember," she said. "I want to remember--and I shall want to
hear it again."

He shook his head. "It was my--swan song----"

"Why?"

He shrugged. "One isn't always in the mood----"

And now it was she who shook her head. "It isn't a mood with you, it's
your life."

She had him there, so he carried the conversation lightly to another
topic. "I had not thought to give Whittington until I saw Pittiwitz."

"And Mary's green gown?"

Again he parried. "It was dark. I could not see the color of her gown."

"But 'love has eyes.'" The words were light and she meant them lightly.
And she went away laughing.

But Roger did not laugh.

And when Mary came to look for him he was gone.

And up-stairs, his evening stripped of its glamour, he told himself that
he had been a fool! The world would _not_ end to-night. He had to live
the appointed length of his days, through all the dreary years.

CHAPTER VI

_In Which Mary Brings Christmas to the Tower Rooms; and in Which Roger
Declines a Privilege for Which Porter Pleads._

On Christmas Eve, Mary and Susan Jenks brought up to Roger a little
tree. It was just a fir plume, but it was gay with tinsel and spicy
with the fragrance of the woods, and it was topped by a wee wax angel.

In vain Mary and Barry and even Aunt Isabelle had urged Roger to join
their merrymaking downstairs. Aunt Frances, having delayed her trip
abroad until January, was coming; and except for Leila and General Dick
and Porter Bigelow, it wa