mpathetic quality that was decidedly pleasant. In a song like this,
his voice came out well. There was a high note at the end to be taken
pianissimo with something else that signified "as though you meant it."
Smith could make it sound so, at any rate. One girl at the back of the
chorus always said, "Ah," under her breath when the song was ended at
rehearsal.

Lillian Arnold, who played opposite Smith in the opera, did not conceal
from herself the pleasure she took in the part. Long before rehearsals
began, she had spent her smiles upon Connor with a view to that very
role. Miss Arnold was a young person who knew the things she wanted;
one of them was Smith. 'Varsity end, champion pole-vaulter, Glee Club
tenor and Sophomore president, which means principally leading the
cotillion, he was well worth a girl's trouble. There was the more glory
in the winning of this capital prize because he was not very
enthusiastic about Roble. There was somebody up in town who took a great
deal of his blue fraternity-paper. Lillian Arnold knew about the girl in
town, so she accepted gracefully what the gods gave and was outwardly
content.

The gift of the gods was Ted Perkins, whose vest was decorated like
Cap's and who had no entanglements. When the approach of the Sophomore
cotillion set Roble agog with a pleasant but hardly strong-minded
excitement, he "asked her." Peace of mind comes naturally after such an
invitation is given and accepted; on rare occasions this does not last.

The first thing that occurred to ruffle Miss Arnold's complacency was a
chance remark dropped one noon by Perkins as they were strolling home
obliquely from the Quad.

"Cap isn't going to lead with Miss Martin, after all," said he.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Lillian. For some remote feminine reason the
announcement was interesting.

"Her family has gone South suddenly, a death or something. Cap is all
broken up about it. He was going to show her off in style that night."

"I wonder whom he will ask, now," she said, as though it didn't matter
the least bit in the world.

Down somewhere in a girl's heart lies the gambler's instinct. Lillian
would have thrown away then and there the certainty of Ned Perkins'
timely invitation for the torturing suspense, the alluring chance, that
attended the Sophomore president's second choice. Perkins, in his simple
masculine dullness, never guessed this.

"I don't believe he knows yet; he wouldn't tell over at the house if