But Effie May's amiability was proof even against this trying episode. She said to Joan, the day after the ball, when they were talking things over in unusual intimacy, "By the way, who's the young fellow that danced so much with you last night—a sort of broad, odd chap he was, with ears? I don't think I've seen him before."

"Oh, Mr. Blair," Joan smiled at the description. "He danced with me so much because he didn't know any one else."

"A stranger here? Where does he come from?"

"I don't know—the slums, I fancy. Ask Ellen Neal. He's a pal of hers. But he's a Louisville product, I believe."

Effie May glanced at her casually, "Didn't you like him, dearie?"

"Oh, well enough. Did you?"

"Yes," said the other, "I did. He's honest, and he stands up so straight—doesn't sort of droop over a girl as if his spine was feeble, like some of 'em do. I like a chap to stand up on his own two pins."

"But his ears, Effie May!"

"Oh, well, what's ears? Just means that his mother forgot to tuck 'em into his cap when he was a baby. Now if his eyes bulged out, that would be another thing. You look out for any man with a bulging eye, Joan."

"Very well," she agreed, "I will. What's dangerous about a bulging eye?"

"Stoopidity, girlie. Just plain bone-headedness. And if there's anything in the world more dangerous than that, I don't know it!—Let's ask your eary young man again to something, shall we?"

"I begin to think he's your eary young man!" smiled Joan.

Sometimes she almost forgot herself and liked her step-mother. There was something so human about the woman....

So it happened that Mr. Blair was delighted and amazed and a little perturbed to receive a few days later a note from Joan Darcy, inviting him to sit on a certain evening in the Darcy box at the impending Horse Show. One of the Darcy guests had failed at the last moment, and Joan had accepted the suggestion that she ask her protÉgÉ.

He rushed downstairs to spread the glad tidings to Ellen, who was in turn surprised and a little perturbed. She had not imagined "that woman" so forgiving. But then Ellen was a person who did nothing by halves. Justice to the enemy was not in her creed. Where she hated, she hated.

"Just look at it!" exulted Mr. Blair, exhibiting his note. "She asks for 'the pleasure of my company'! She 'hopes a previous engagement won't prevent'! (It won't.) All in her own hand, mind you!"

"What did you expect—typewriting?" commented Ellen, a little tartly. She was always tart when pleased.

Next arose the question of what to wear. Those people who fancy that this question confines itself to the lighter-minded sex have much to learn. They have not watched a youth of twenty-five—or thirty-five—or sixty-five—trying to ascertain in advance whether long or short tails shall grace a particular occasion. And if there is a more pitiable spectacle than the misery of a man appearing, say, in sack-suit and brown boots, where others of his sex gleam as to bosom and foot-gear, the author has yet to see it. Whereas any woman worth her salt, who happens to be dressed in hat and jacket among much dÉcolletage, can manage to make the other women present feel immodest.

Ellen Neal was of no help to Mr. Blair at this crisis. He consulted once more the oracle, Jakie Florsheimer. Archie had been to the Horse Show before, of course, but merely to see horses. This was a very different matter. Even Mr. Florsheimer admitted himself doubtful.

"You see, it's like this," he said, scratching his curly head. "If you was to go in a sporting way, y' see, I'd say a natty little sack, checked maybe, with one of our $3.99 plaid vests, and a Derby hat. But sitting in one of them boxes with society girls, all dolled up like they are, y' see—honest, I don't know would it be better to wear your swallow-tail or yet a frock with light stripe pants. Search me, Arch! You got me guessing."

Mr. Blair raised the question among his fellow employees without obtaining satisfaction, and at last in his desperation actually tackled the head of the firm, whose name sometimes appeared in the newspapers as among those present.

Thanks to this gentleman's surprised advice, Archibald made a most proper appearance on the night appointed, and this time gloves were not forgotten. Also, during the course of the afternoon, Joan received a mysterious bouquet of roses bearing the legend, "From a Friend."

She chuckled over this quite affectionately. "He's funny," she thought, "but he's really a dear!"

Archibald was very much surprised when she thanked him for the roses, and deeply relieved that she did not seem to think him "fresh."

"How did you guess it was me?" he wondered.

"Well—I haven't so many 'friends' whom it might have been."

"You?"—His incredulity was flattering.

She smiled. "Not many who would not want their generosity known, Mr. Blair. Usually in our world, when people do things for one they like to get full credit for it. They even expect a return in kind!"

Lightly as she spoke, her tone troubled him. Glancing at her furtively, he realized that this was not the little girl he had first seen in haughty tears on the train, and yearned over because she seemed too young to know the meaning of trouble. Now she was infinitely more approachable, but also, somehow, infinitely farther away. If he was not mistaken she had learned very thoroughly the meaning of trouble. There was a listless droop of the lids, a slightly weary inflection of the bright voice, that did not "belong." He remembered her as serious and dreamy. She had become gay and wary. It was a change he did not like.

But he liked Joan. He liked her almost too well. Never did a heart more chivalrous beat beneath a $3.99 waistcoat; and if he had not long ere this become a notable squire of dames, it was simply for lack of the opportunity. Most of the dames he knew seemed so amply able to take care of themselves.

The evening under these conditions became almost as glorious an occasion as the ball had been. True, he saw little of Joan, because other men came and went constantly in the box, and frequently took her away with them to stroll around the ring. Despite Mrs. Darcy's seemingly oblivious amiability, he could not talk to her with any comfort. He had no skill to hide the stiffness with which her presence affected him, and after a few kind-hearted attempts to put him at ease, she left him to the Major entirely. But that suited Archibald very well. He admired the Major tremendously, aside from the fact that he was Joan's father.

"A perfect gentleman," he pronounced him inwardly, taking envious note of his manners, his well-fitting, soft-bosomed shirt, the mellifluous tones of his really beautiful voice.

Major Darcy, always at his best before an admiring audience, produced some of his neatest anecdotes for this appreciative guest, and they presently entered into a learned and congenial discussion of the Horse, expert knowledge of which was part of their mutual birthright. It was a proud young man who later strolled out to the bar for liquid refreshment with Richard Darcy's arm thrust carelessly through his. Archibald had within him great possibilities for hero-worship.

It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that meandering show of dÉbutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which would almost have bought him an education!

He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!"

But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed pleasantly aloof, a little distrait, as if she were an older woman listening to children.

"Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself.

She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any other trade."

"But you don't speak it."

"I think perhaps it's not my trade."

He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?"

"I don't know," said Joan, "yet."

Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of his head passed them, and paused.

"Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan.

"Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him.

"My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or other, and never turned up."

"Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a whistle!"

"Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on.

Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you going to say to her?"

"That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that the cause of his forgetfulness was the contretemps of having requested his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment!

Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper with me!"

"I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact.

Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man might do very well in that capacity.

"Take me right back to our box," she commanded, "and go and make your peace with Miss Carmichael! Don't you know you can't afford to antagonize such a power at court?"

He obeyed meekly. With quite a proprietary interest, she watched his awkward entry into the enemy's country, his introduction to Carmichael pÈre and Carmichael mÈre, a lady who looked on life (the Darcys included) through a rather invidious lorgnon. This lorgnon trained itself on Archibald at close range.

"Poor Mr. Blair!" thought Joan.

But a little while later she was surprised to see that her protÉgÉ and Mrs. Carmichael had joined the ranks of the strollers and were chatting and laughing together with quite an air of old friendship. He looked up at her as they passed, shyly, and Joan clapped her hands softly to indicate approval.

The last ring of horses was showing when he finally returned.

"Well," Joan rallied him. "I thought you'd gone over to the enemy for good!"

"Judge Carmichael and I were talking over old times when I used to sell him papers," explained Archibald. "I reminded him of a day when he treated me to a pair of shoes because he said my toes sticking out made him feel chilly.... But are they your enemies?"

Joan bit her lip. She did not like her self-consciousness about the Carmichaels. "Really, I don't know," she said indifferently. "They certainly are not my friends."

"I think they'd like to be, though!" remarked the unexpected Archie. "Miss Carmichael said you were the only one of the dÉbutantes who looked worth while, and she asked a lot of questions about you and your father, and said she would have been to see you long ago, except for—" He stopped abruptly. He had almost finished the quotation verbatim.

Joan flushed. "I trust you were able to give her a good account of us!" she remarked haughtily.

Archie answered in all innocence. "I told her Mrs. Darcy was your step-mother."

Despite her annoyance, Joan had to laugh at that. After all it was too absurd, this protÉgÉ of hers, this discovery out of the slums, standing sponsor for the Darcy family with the Carmichaels!...

It did not occur to her to invite him to call. She had not as yet plumbed the depths of his social ignorance. He stood down-cast throughout the leave-takings, the remarks of "See you to-morrow," and "One o'clock lunch, did you say?" realizing that this wonderful evening was over, and not daring to hope that such luck would come his way a third time. He looked rather like a big, humble puppy that is about to be shut out of the house at night.

It was Effie May who noticed the resemblance. "Be sure you pay your two party-calls promptly, Mr. Blair," was her parting suggestion. "And if you happen to be at the Horse Show any other night this week, drop in at our box, you know."

"Yes 'm! yes 'm, I certainly will," he replied to both these hints—stiffly, because it was the only way he could manage to speak to this lady. But his ears were quite pink with pleasure.