cularly?"

The face of the Glee Club's comedian had assumed just the right
seriousness.

"Because I'm more than susceptible and I don't want to run risks."

"Your time has come at last, then," put in his captor, Smith, with a
gallant look at Miss Meiggs.

"Not at all," retorted Pellams, whose combative sense was less rusty
than his skill in compliment. "If I'd been afraid of one exposure like
this, do you think I'd have suggested being on deck to-night?"

Smith, with a fresh memory of their struggle, laughed at this blocking
move. Katharine Graham, although she did not laugh, enjoyed Pellams's
unconscious "like this." She was a Theta Gamma with Miss Meiggs, and of
late there had been a little rift in their sisterly love.

The older girl was not disconcerted. She had her estimate of Pellams
Chase, and he was not disproving it. There were certain things she had
long wanted the chance to say to him.

"I admire your self-restraint under temptation," she said; "it is
characteristic of you in other circumstances, I believe"--this with
discreet emphasis--"but, really, why should you dread letting _this_
susceptibility get the better of you?"

Pellams caught the faint sneer in the words. He hoped that Mrs. Perkins
had been talking just then to her Faculty partner. Increasing his
affected earnestness, he replied:

"Because, when you get gone, it is bound to knock scholarship."

Here Smith giggled audibly, for Katharine and he were really feigning
talk, being more entertained by the couple across the cloth. Katharine
knew that by this last statement Pellams had sounded a dominant note in
the soul of her opinionated sister. She was not surprised, then, when
Miss Meiggs turned more fully toward the woman-hater.

"Tell me, are you one of these people who think co-education an evil?"

"I'm afraid I am." The speech gave Pellams a certain pleasure. There was
nothing about this partner they had given him that tended toward
converting him to the Chapter's point of view as to the advantage of
girls at college.

"Of course," continued she, "I do not take your remark about scholarship
as worthy of consideration in your case, because I am in one or two of
your classes, when you attend them," and Pellams, listening, gave thanks
that he and Professor Grind opposite had no such relation; "but
monopolized time is really the cry of a good many who would wish to
work, and it is all wrong. There is no reason why we should not come
h