"Perhaps you will permit me to offer you some refreshment," I suggested, rising. I knew it sounded devilish stiff; and I knew, moreover, that I looked like a jolly m.u.f.f, in fact.

"Perhaps I will," she chuckled. "Say, don't urge me too hard, Mr.

Lightnut; you might embarra.s.s me."

I did not want to embarra.s.s her. "I thought perhaps a lemon soda would refresh you," I explained. "Or, if you will allow me, I will have Jenkins make you one of his famous seltzer lemonades. Perhaps, though, you would prefer just a plain--"

I halted in confusion, for she was laughing at me.

"A plain cup of tea," she gurgled, "or a _creme de menthe_!" And then her laughter burst deliciously. "Say, do you know, honestly, I'm only just getting on to that dry humor of yours. You've had me fooled. You do it with such a serious face, you know. Say, it's _great_!"

I tried to smile, but I knew it was a devilish sickly go--the more so, because just at that moment her slender fingers discarded the remnant of her last cigarette and reached for a cigar. Another instant, and she had deftly clipped and lighted it.

I decided I wouldn't ring for Jenkins.

I felt ashamed as I looked in the cellarette, and wondered what the deuce I should offer her. Couldn't think of anything I had ever heard of boarding-school girls going in for except ice-cream soda; and, dash it, I didn't have any ice-cream soda. Nearest thing would be a little seltzer and ginger ale. That would do.

"Oh, I say, I'm going to make you a highball," I said, trying to a.s.sume a frisky, jocular air.

Her voice lifted in alarm. "Nay, nay, Clarence--not for me!" she urged hastily.

"But it's only--"

"No fizzy adulterations in mine--not on your life." She followed me across the room. "Just give me the straight, pure goods--anything, just so it's whisky."

And before I could say a word--if, indeed, I could have said a word--she had selected a decanter of Scotch, and with cigar tilted upward in her tender mouth, was absorbingly pouring a shining stream of the amber fluid.

To see the slow curving of that delicately molded wrist, the challenging flash of the saucy eyes of blue, by Jove, it made me just forget all about what she was doing till the fluid ran over the brim. And then, before I could intercept her, she had lightly gestured her gla.s.s to mine, and in a flash the stuff was gone.

Gone! A full whisky gla.s.s; and I recalled with a shiver of horror that it was very high proof liquor--something I seldom touched myself, but kept on hand for certain of my friends.

"I say, you know!" I gasped in consternation.

"I'm awfully afraid that will--er--will--" I gulped wordlessly.

The coral lips curved scornfully.

"Get _me_ jingled?" She looked as she might have if I had insulted her.

"Maybe so in those girlie-girlie days you were trying to josh me about, but not since these two years I've been at college." She shook her lovely, bright head, and following a long enjoyable pull at the cigar, projected five perfect rings at a frescoed cherub in the ceiling. The exquisite eyes softened dreamily as under the spell of some pleasing thought--some tender reminiscence.

"Why, do you know," she said, looking at me earnestly, "when I was home for the holidays--" Then she paused. "Don't tell Brother Jack I told you this--will you, Mr. Lightnut? He's so sensitive about it."

"Certainly not," I said feelingly.

I thought the wistful face brightened.

"Well, when I was home, then, I put Brother Jack under the table two nights running; and you know that's going some!"

And smiling proudly, she poured out another! But not any more, for I put away the decanter.

My brain was reeling, as they say in books; dash it, I was almost sick.

Poor, poor little girl! And n.o.body to remonstrate with her. What a shame--what a shame!

By Jove, I wondered if she would listen to me! I fixed my gla.s.s resolutely as we resumed our seats, and bent toward her earnestly.

"May I say something very seriously, Miss Billings?" I began nervously.

"Without offense, you know--"

But she was off in a fit of chuckling. Most girls giggled, I had always heard, but she chuckled. Somehow, I liked it less than anything she did; it sounded so devilish ghastly, you know. And then it was so awfully embarra.s.sing--oh, awfully. If you've never tried to remonstrate with a girl about her vicious habits and had her chuckle, you just can't imagine! I felt my cheeks flushing jolly red and looked down, and then I had to look somewhere else quickly, for I seemed to be staring rudely at the ends of the pajamas, where her feet, as the poet chap says, "like little mice, stole in and out--" only, in this case, they were thrust into bedroom slippers, that looked oddly like a pair of my own--but miles and miles smaller.

"Say, do you know," she was chortling, "the way you do get off that Willie boy sort of talk--oh!" And she placed her hand to her side as she laughed. "I can see how Jack thinks you're the greatest ever, Mr.

Lightnut."

She leaned forward eagerly.

"Look here, I do _wish_ you would let me call you 'd.i.c.ky.'"

"Oh, I say--will you?" exploded from my mouth.

"_Will_ I?" Her look made my blood leap. "You just watch me--_d.i.c.ky_!

Oh, say, this is great; maybe it won't take a fall out of old Jack--always bragging that you allow only two or three to call you that."

"I hope you will always call me d.i.c.ky," I said--and said it very softly.

By Jove, I could hardly keep from taking her hand!

"You bet I think it's awfully good of you, Lightnut--I mean, d.i.c.ky."

Then her face grew pensive. "Say, do you know, I need a friend like you--just now, I mean--oh, worst kind."

"Do you?" I said eagerly, and hitched nearer. She proceeded:

"Haven't you had things sometimes you wanted to talk about to somebody--well, things you couldn't just tell to your brother or sisters--oh, nor even your room-mate? _You_ understand."

I wasn't sure that I did, for she was blushing furiously, and in her eyes was an appeal.

By Jove, some jolly love affair, I guessed suddenly. My heart just sank like a lump of what's-its-name, but my whole soul went out in sympathy for her. I made up my mind, then and there, to put myself aside.

"Devilish glad--I mean delighted to have you tell me anything," I murmured rather weakly; "but--er--I should think your mother--"

"The mater--tell her!" Her hand lifted. "She'd guy the life out of me!

Besides, she's in Europe." She paced to the window and back.

I protested indignantly: "I don't see how any mother--"

"Aw, forget it!" she broke in, and I winced again at slang from those sweet lips. "No, sir; I'm going to unload the whole thing on _you_, or n.o.body."

And, by Jove, the next thing I knew she had perched on the broad arm of the Morris chair in which I sat, her arm resting lightly above my shoulders.

"Here's what I want to know about," I heard her sigh. "When you're engaged to one person and meet another you like better, how are you going to--well, chuck it with the first, you know--and still do the square thing? There, that's what's. .h.i.t me, d.i.c.ky; and I'm up against it for fair!" Her hand gently patted my shoulder. "I'm telling you, old chap, because I know you'll understand--because I like you better than any man I ever saw--that's right!"

I was just afraid to move! Afraid she'd stop; afraid she'd go on. And all the while I was feeling happier than I ever had in all my life--happier than I ever knew people could be, you know. I never thought her bold--dash it, no--knew it was just her adorable, delicious, Arcadian simplicity, by Jove! That explained it, just as it explained to me all her other unconventionality.