"Oh, well, I don't know. We'll see when the time comes. But just now, we must put this affair of yours through. I'm glad there are only a few more days. I couldn't stand this excitement very long. Come on, girls, get ready for dinner. The boys will come soon. There's the bell now. If it's Roger, let Mona go down and see him alone. I'm a fine gooseberry, don't you think so?"

"It is Roger," Patty announced, a moment later, as she leaned over the banister to see, "skip along, Mona, we'll be down in ten minutes."

"Isn't she funny?" said Elise, as Patty returned to her room. "I never saw anybody so crazy."

"She's so excited, she doesn't know whether she's on her head or her heels," agreed Patty. "Her nature is volatile, and she has no sense of moderation. She wants everything and all there is of it. That's all."

"She's a good one for Roger. He's inclined to take things lazily.

Mona will be a sort of spur to him."

"They're all right," agreed Patty. "It's an ideal match. Come on, Elise, we've given them enough time alone."

The girls went down, and then Van Reypen and Kit Cameron appeared.

Dinner was a gay feast, and the elder Fairfields were as much interested in the chatter as the young people.

"a.s.sert yourself, Roger," said Mr. Fairfield. "Don't let these girls monopolize the conversation, with their feminine fripperies and millinery muddles."

"Models, Dad, not muddles," laughed Patty. "But we don't talk about those much now, they're all finished. Oh, Mona, Genevieve's skirt had to be all made over----"

"Oh, no," said her father, "you don't talk about them much! Only all the time, that's all!"

"Let 'em," said Roger, magnanimously; "I've learned in the last few days, that the hang of Genevieve's skirt is a matter of enormous magnitude."

"Good!" cried Patty, "Mona has begun training you already. When is your Bachelor dinner, Roger?"

"Not till Wednesday night. I put it off so Farnsworth could get here."

"Oh, is he coming? I didn't know he was East."

"He wasn't. He's coming on on purpose for the event. I wanted him especially. At least, Mona did."

"All the same," said Mona. "Oh, yes, of course I wanted Big Bill here.

We've been friends for years, and he must dance at my wedding."

It was the first time Patty had seen Van Reypen since her return from Lakewood, and, during the evening, he drew her away from the others and leading her to the semi-privacy of a big davenport in the library, he announced he was going to talk to her.

"Talk away," said Patty, "but I warn you, I've no time or attention for anything not connected with wedding bells."

"But this is connected with wedding bells," and Philip's dark eyes smiled into her own, "only, not Mona's chimes. Our own."

"Don't, Phil," said Patty, gently, noting his serious look and tone.

"I've got four days yet till the fifteenth, and,--oh, pshaw, I might as well tell you now, that I'm not going to be engaged to you."

"Patty!" 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 cla.s.s 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 question I asked, and, when the time comes, I can't help thinking that that girl is going to be kind to me."

"I dunno," said Patty.

CHAPTER X

MONA'S WEDDING

It was the night of Mona's wedding. The ballroom of the big hotel where Mona and her father lived was the scene of the ceremony, and this was already filled with guests. A temporary altar had been erected at one end of the long room, and was banked with lilies and white hydrangeas against a background of tall palms. On either side were tall candles in cathedral candlesticks.

To the altar led a temporary aisle, formed by stanchions of old silver candelabra filled with ascension lilies, and joined by garlands of white blossoms.

Promptly on time, the bridal cortege appeared. First walked a vested choir singing a processional. Then the bridesmaids, in palest pink tulle frocks, each pair carrying between them a long garland of pink roses, and wearing wreaths of pink roses on their hair.

Patty and Daisy Dow were the first pair, and very lovely they looked as they traversed the flower-hung room. Garlands of pink roses were everywhere, on the walls, from the doorframes and windows, and gracefully drooping from the ceiling. Next came Elise, Maid of Honor, in a gown of slightly deeper pink, and then Mona, her father beside her.