ady begun forming about his feet.

The maddening, but yet--though she hadn't much room for any other
emotion--touching thing about the look of him, was the way his face,
above the dismal wreck, beamed good-humored innocent affection at her.
It was a big featured, strong, rosy face, and the unmistakable
intellectual power of it, which became apparent the moment he got his
faculties into action, had a trick of hiding, at other times, behind a
mere robust simplicity.

"Good gracious!" he said. "I didn't know you were going to have a
party."

It seemed though, he didn't want to make an issue of that. He hedged. "I
know you said something about a birthday cake, but I thought it would
just be the family. So instead of dressing, I thought I'd walk down from
home. It takes about the same time. And then it came on to rain, so I
took a street-car--and got put off."

It appeared from the way she echoed his last two words that she wanted
an explanation. He was painting with a large brush and a few details got
obliterated.

"Got into a row with the conductor, who wanted to collect two fares for
one ride, so I walked over to the elevated--and back, and here I am."

"Yes, here you are," said Frederica.

She didn't mean anything by that. Already she was making up her mind
what she would do with him. His own suggestion was that he should decamp
furtively by the back stairs, the sound of new arrivals to the dinner
party warning him that the other way of escape was barred. Waiters could
be instructed to rescue his hat for him, and he could toddle along
down-town again.

She didn't give him time to complete the outline of this masterly
stratagem. "Don't be impossible, Rod," she said. "Don't you even know
whose birthday party this is?"

He looked at her, frowned, then laughed. He had a great big laugh.

"I thought it was one of the kid's," he said.

"Well, it isn't," she told him. "It's yours. And those people down there
were asked to meet you. And you've got just about seven minutes to get
presentable in. Go into Martin's bathroom and take off those horrible
clothes. I'll send Walters in to lay out some things of Martin's."

She came up to him and, at arm's length, touched him with cautious
finger-tips. "And do, please, there's a dear boy," she pleaded, "hurry
as fast as you can, and then come down and be as nice as you can"--she
hesitated--"especially to Hermione Woodruff. She thinks you're a wonder
and I don't want her to