hurt, and I
wouldn't have that. We must have six dances, though, anyway."

This, assuredly, would show her. Unfortunately, Lillian was either dull
or desperate.

"But he released me last night."

"Did he?" said Jack. He had started all wrong.

"Yes, we settled it all very well; he didn't seem to care in the least,
he is so good-natured." She looked as serene as the sky above her,
although she was beginning to have biting suspicions. "So it's all
right."

Cap Smith's feet had become tangled in crawling; he kicked out
recklessly.

"No, it's not all right. I don't believe in a girl's treating a fellow
like that, and I won't be a party to it."

"Why did you ask me, then?" she challenged. "To tempt me because you
happened to be president and a girl loves to lead?"

"I'm not so mean as that. How could I know Perkins had asked you. He
hadn't told me."

"I suppose you told him about it?"

"Yes, I thought that I ought to."

"After telling me that I might arrange it. It was my business."

"I knew how you would do it, and I wasn't willing that Ted should be cut
that way."

"What a lovely friendship!" said Lillian. She was much vexed.

Smith did not reply at once. The beauty of his friendship with Perkins
did not strike him very heavily at the moment.

"At any rate, under the circumstances I don't feel that I can take you
to the cotillion."

"Don't flatter your--" Lillian was too angry to speak without crying, so
she went into the Hall abruptly.

With the approach of Washington's Birthday, the rage of Miss Arnold
grew. Inasmuch as everyone took it for granted that she was going with
Perkins, it was not likely that she would be asked again, instead, late
beginners, running cards for themselves and other people, asked her for
dances, and rather than admit her predicament she let them fill her
card.

The afternoon of the cotillion she went to bed and was ill for a day;
then she appeared at the final rehearsal with a smiling face and a soul
full of wrath. She had very little to say to Smith, but otherwise she
showed no resentment, and her acting was as good as ever. One wiser than
Cap Smith would have augured ill from her fair seeming, a less confident
man would have been on his guard; but he had forgotten all that he had
ever read about the fury of women scorned, and he went to his doom
unconscious.

The Gym had never held a bigger audience, and the opera, as usual, was
proving itself the greatest success i