"I should be very flattered if Doris--"

"Oh, don't talk that way," she said with a fling of her shoulders.

"That's like all the others. Tell me, are all New York men such hopeless ninnies? Lord, I'm going to have a dreary time of it." She looked at him critically. "One thing I like about you; you don't wear spats."

"I suppose you're home for the wedding," he asked curiously, "or are you through with the boarding-school?"

"Didn't you hear about this?" she said with a touch to her shortened hair. "They wanted me to come out and I said I wouldn't come out. And when they said I should come out, I said to myself, I'll just fix them so I can't come out, and I hacked off all my hair. That's why they sent me off to Coventry for the summer. I'd have hacked it off again, but Dad cut up so I let it grow, and now the plaguey old fashion has gotten around to bobbed hair. What do you think of that?"

"So you don't want to come out?" he answered.

"What for? To be nice to a lot of old frumps you don't like, to dress up and drink tea and lean up against a wall and have a crowd of mechanical toys tell you that your eyes are like evening stars and all that rot. I should say _not_."

"Well, what would you like to do?"

"I'd like to go riding and hunting with Dad, live in a great country house, with lots of snow in winter and tobogganing--" She broke off with a sudden suspicion. "Say, am I boring you?"

"You are not," he said with emphasis.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Say, you're a judge of muscle, aren't you?'"]

"You don't like that society flub-dub either, do you?" she continued confidentially. "Lord, these dolled up women make me tired. I'd like to jounce them ten miles over the hills. Say, you're a judge of muscle, aren't you?"

"In a way."

"What do you think of that?" She held out a cool firm forearm for his inspection and he was in this intimate position when Doris came down the great stairway, with her willowy, trailing elegance. She gave a quick glance of her dark eyes at the unconventional group, with Romp in the middle an interested spectator, and said:

"Have I been keeping you hours? I hope this child's been amusing you."

The child, being at this moment perfectly screened, retorted by a roguish wink which almost upset Bojo's equanimity. The two sisters were an absolute contrast. In her two seasons Doris had been converted into a complete woman of the world; she had the grace that was the grace of art, yet undeniably effective; stunning was the term applied to her.

Her features were delicate, thinly turned, and a quality of precious fragility was about her whole person, even to the conscious moods of her smile, her enthusiasm, her serious poising for an instant of the eyes, which were deep and black and l.u.s.trous as the artfully pleasing ma.s.ses of her hair. But the charm that was gone was the charm that looked up at him from the unconscious twilight eyes of the younger sister!

"Patsie, you terrible tomboy--will you ever grow up!" she said reprovingly. "Look at your dress and your hair. I never saw such a little rowdy. Now run along like a dear. Mother's waiting."

But Patsie maliciously declined to hurry. She insisted that she had promised to show off Romp and, abetted by Bojo in this deception, she kept her sister waiting while she put the dog through his tricks and--to cap the climax went off with a bombsh.e.l.l.

"My, you two don't look a bit glad to see each other--you look as conventional as Dolly and the Duke."

"Heavens," said Doris with a sigh, "I shall have my hands full this winter. What they'll think of her in society the Lord knows."

"I wouldn't worry about her," said Bojo pensively. "I don't think she's going to have as much trouble as you fear."

"Oh, you think so?" said Doris, glancing up. Then she laid her hand over his with a little pressure. "I'm awfully glad to see you, Bojo."

"I'm awfully glad to see you," he returned with accented enthusiasm.

"Just as glad as ever?"

"Of course."

"We shall have to use the Mercedes; Dolly's off with the Reynier. You don't mind?" she said, flitting past the military footman. "Where are we lunching?"

He named a fashionable restaurant.

"Oh, dear, no; you never see any one you know there. Let's go to the Ritz." And without waiting for his answer she added: "Duncan, the Ritz."

At the restaurant all the personelle seemed to know her. The head waiter himself showed her to a favorite corner, and advised with her solicitously as to the selection of the menu, while Bojo, who had still to eat ten thousand such luncheons, furtively compared his elegant companion with the brilliant women who were grouped about him like rare hot-house plants in a perfumed conservatory. The little sh.e.l.l hat she wore suited her admirably, concealing her forehead and half of her eyes with the same provoking mystery that the eastern veil lends to the women of the Orient. Everything about her dress was soft and beguilingly luxurious. All at once she turned from a fluttered welcome to a distant group and, a.s.suming a serious air, said:

"Have you seen Dad yet? Oh, of course not--you haven't had time. You must right away. He's taken a real fancy to you, and he's promised me to see that you make a lot of money--" she looked up in his eyes and then down at the table with a shy smile, adding emphatically--"soon!"

"So you've made up your mind to that?"

"Yes, indeed. I'm going to make you!"

She nodded, laughing and favoring him with a long contemplation.

"You dress awfully well," she said approvingly. "Clothes seem to hang on you just right--"

"But--" he said, laughing.

"Well, there are one or two things I'd like you to do," she admitted, a little confused. "I wish you'd wear a mustache, just a little one like the Duke. You'd look stunning."

He laughed in a way that disconcerted her, and an impulse came into his mind to try her, for he began to resent the a.s.sumption of possession which she had a.s.sumed.

"How do you think that would go in a mill town with overalls and a lunch can?"

"What do you mean?

"In a week I expect to be shipped to New England, to a little town, with ten thousand inhabitants; nice, cheery place with two moving-picture houses and rows on rows of factory homes for society."

"For how long?"

"For four or five years."

"Bojo, how horrible! You're not serious!"

"I may be. How would you like to keep house up there?" He caught at the disconsolate look in her face and added: "Don't worry, I know better than to ask that of you. Now listen, Doris, we've been good chums too long to fool ourselves. You've changed and you're going to change a lot more. Do you really like this sort of life?"

"I adore it!"

"Dressing up, parading yourself, tearing around from one function to another." She nodded, her face suddenly clouded over. "Then why in the world do you want me? There are fifty--a hundred men you'll find will play this game better than I can."

He had dropped his tone of sarcasm and was looking at her earnestly, but the questions he put were put to his own conscience.

"Why do you act this way just when you've come back?" she said, frightened at his sudden ascendency.

"Because I sometimes think that we both know that nothing is going to happen," he said directly; "only it's hard to face the truth. Isn't that it?"

"No, that isn't it. I love to be admired, I love pretty things and society and all that. Why shouldn't I? But I do care for you, Bojo; you've always brought out--" she was going to say, "the best in me," but changed her mind and instead added: "I am very proud of you-- I always would be. Don't look at me like that. What have I done?"