of brilliant lights and dreamy music. Fred
DeLancy, back from a dance with Gladys Stone, stopped him with an
anecdote.

"I say, Bojo, wish you could have seen some of the old hens inspecting
the palace. You know Mrs. Orchardson, Standard Oil? I was right back of
her when she wandered into some Louis or other room, and what did she
do? She ran her thumbnail into a partition and whispered to her
neighbor: 'Ours is real mahogany'! Don't they love one another, though?"

By the buffet groups of men were smoking, glass in hand, Borneman and
Haggerdy talking business. In the ante-chamber where the great marble
staircase came winding down, he found Patsie at bay repelling a group
of admirers. She signaled him frantically.

"Bojo; rescue me. They're even quoting poetry to me!"

She sprang away and down the stairs to his side, hurrying him off.

"Faster, faster! Isn't there any place we can hide? My ears are dropping
off."

"Patsie, I never should have known you!" he said, amazed.

"Well, I'm out!" she said, with an indignant pout. "How do you like me?"

She stood away from him, a little malicious delight in her eyes at his
bewilderment, her chin saucily tilted, her profile turned, her little
hands balanced in the air.

"This is the way the models pose. Well?"

"I thought you were a child--" he said stupidly, troubled at the sudden
discovery of the woman.

"Is that all?" she said, pretending displeasure.

He checked an impulsive compliment and said a little angrily:

"Oh, Patsie, you are going to make a terrible amount of trouble. I can
see that!"

"Pooh!"

"Yes, and you like the mischief you're causing too. Don t fib!"

"Yes, I like it," she said, nodding her head. "Dolly and Doris stared at
me as if I were a ghost. Well, I'll show them I'm not such a savage."

"I hope you won't change," he said.

"Won't I?" she said, and to tease him she continued, "I'll show them!"

He felt sentimentally moved to give her a lecture, but instead he said,
deeply moved:

"I'd hate to think of your being different."

"Oh, really?" she continued irrelevantly. "You didn't bother your soul
about me while you thought I was nothing but a tomboy and a terror! But
now when there are a lot of black flies buzzing around me--"

"Now, Patsie, you know that isn't true!"

She relented with a laugh.

"Do you really like me like this? No, don't say anything mushy. I see
you do. Oh, dear, I knew this old money would find me," she sai