hey?"

They were both at their ease again by the time young Haight stood at the
door with his hat in his hand ready to go.

He raised his free hand over her head, and said, with burlesque,
dramatic effect, trying to keep down a smile:

"Bless you both; go, go marry Vandover and be happy; I forgive you."

"Ah--don't be so _utterly_ absurd," she cried, beginning to laugh.

Chapter Seven

On a certain evening about four months later Ellis and Vandover had a
"date" with Ida Wade and Bessie Laguna at the Mechanics' Fair. Ellis,
Bessie, and Ida were to meet Vandover there in the Art Gallery, as he
had to make a call with his father, and could not get there until
half-past nine. They were all to walk about the Fair until ten, after
which the two men proposed to take the girls out to the Cliff House in
separate coupes. The whole thing had been arranged by Ellis and Bessie,
and Vandover was irritated. Ellis ought to have had more sense; rushing
the girls was all very well, but everybody went to the Mechanics' Fair,
and he didn't like to have nice girls like Turner or Henrietta Vance see
him with chippies like that. It was all very well for Ellis, who had no
social position, but for _him_, Vandover, it would look too confounded
queer. Of course he was in for it now, and would have to face the music.
You can't tell a girl like that that you're ashamed to be seen with her,
but very likely he would get himself into a regular box with it all.

When he arrived at the Mechanics' Pavilion, it was about twenty minutes
of ten, and as he pushed through the wicket he let himself into a huge
amphitheatre full of colour and movement.

There was a vast shuffling of thousands of feet and a subdued roar of
conversation like the noise of a great mill; mingled with these were the
purring of distant machinery, the splashing of a temporary fountain and
the rhythmic clamour of a brass band, while in the piano exhibit the
hired performer was playing a concert-grand with a great flourish.
Nearer at hand one could catch ends of conversation and notes of
laughter, the creaking of boots, and the rustle of moving dresses and
stiff skirts. Here and there groups of school children elbowed their way
through the crowd, crying shrilly, their hands full of advertisement
pamphlets, fans, picture cards, and toy whips with pewter whistles on
the butts, while the air itself was full of the smell of fresh popcorn.

Ellis and Bessie were in the Art Ga