, and in the temples a sort of buzzing--those first symptoms
of chivalry. A man of the world does not, however, succumb without a
struggle; and if his hat had not been out of reach, who knows whether he
would not have left the house hurriedly, saying to himself: "No, no, my
boy; Millicent Villas is hardly your form, when your intentions are
honourable"? For somehow that round and laughing face, bob of glistening
hair, those wide-opened grey eyes refused to awaken the beginnings of
other intentions--such is the effect of youth and innocence on even the
steadiest young men. With a kind of moral stammer, he was thinking: 'Can
I--dare I offer to see them to their tram? Couldn't I even nip out and
get the car round and send them home in it? No, I might miss
them--better stick it out here! What a jolly laugh! What a tipping
face--strawberries and cream, hay, and all that! Millicent Villas!' And
he wrote it on his cuff.

The door was opening; he heard that warm vibrating voice: "Come along,
Phyllis!"--the girl's laugh so high and fresh: "Right-o! Coming!" And
with, perhaps, the first real tremor he had ever known, he crossed to the
front door. All the more chivalrous to escort them to the tram without a
hat! And suddenly he heard: "I've got your hat, young man!" And her
mother's voice, warm, and simulating shock: "Phyllis, you awful gairl!
Did you ever see such an awful gairl; Mr.---"

"Pillin, Mother."

And then--he did not quite know how--insulated from the January air by
laughter and the scent of fur and violets, he was between them walking to
their tram. It was like an experience out of the "Arabian Nights," or
something of that sort, an intoxication which made one say one was going
their way, though one would have to come all the way back in the same
beastly tram. Nothing so warming had ever happened to him as sitting
between them on that drive, so that he forgot the note in his pocket, and
his desire to relieve the anxiety of the "old man," his father. At the
tram's terminus they all got out. There issued a purr of invitation to
come and see them some time; a clear: "Jock'll love to see you!" A low
laugh: "You awful gairl!" And a flash of cunning zigzagged across his
brain. Taking off his hat, he said:

"Thanks awfully; rather!" and put his foot back on the step of the tram.
Thus did he delicately expose the depths of his chivalry!

"Oh! you said you were going our way! What one-ers you do tell!