hen he
danced with Ella Dowling, gave Ella the same genial look, and said,
"That's splendid!"

When the "encore" was over, Alice spoke to him for the first time.

"Mildred will be looking for you," she said. "I think you'd better take
me back to where you found me."

He looked surprised. "Oh, if you----"

"I'm sure Mildred will be needing you," Alice said, and as she took his
arm and they walked toward Mrs. Dresser, she thought it might be just
possible to make a further use of the loan. "Oh, I wonder if you----"
she began.

"Yes?" he said, quickly.

"You don't know my brother, Walter Adams," she said. "But he's somewhere
I think possibly he's in a smoking-room or some place where girls aren't
expected, and if you wouldn't think it too much trouble to inquire----"

"I'll find him," Russell said, promptly. "Thank you so much for that
dance. I'll bring your brother in a moment."

It was to be a long moment, Alice decided, presently. Mrs. Dresser had
grown restive; and her nods and vague responses to her young dependent's
gaieties were as meager as they could well be. Evidently the matron had
no intention of appearing to her world in the light of a chaperone for
Alice Adams; and she finally made this clear. With a word or two of
excuse, breaking into something Alice was saying, she rose and went to
sit next to Mildred's mother, who had become the nucleus of the cluster.
So Alice was left very much against the wall, with short stretches
of vacant chairs on each side of her. She had come to the end of her
picture-making, and could only pretend that there was something amusing
the matter with the arm of her chair.

She supposed that Mildred's Mr. Russell had forgotten Walter by this
time. "I'm not even an intimate enough friend of Mildred's for him to
have thought he ought to bother to tell me he couldn't find him," she
thought. And then she saw Russell coming across the room toward her,
with Walter beside him. She jumped up gaily.

"Oh, thank you!" she cried. "I know this naughty boy must have been
terribly hard to find. Mildred'll NEVER forgive me! I've put you to so
much----"

"Not at all," he said, amiably, and went away, leaving the brother and
sister together.

"Walter, let's dance just once more," Alice said, touching his arm
placatively. "I thought--well, perhaps we might go home then."

But Walter's expression was that of a person upon whom an outrage has
just been perpetrated. "No," he said. "We've