ot more than fifteen miles. He was
interested, but he had no idea, even if the Planters were there for
Thanksgiving, that he would see any of them.

At Blodgett's bachelor enormity people came and went. At times the huge,
over-decorated rooms were filled, yet to George they seemed depressingly
empty because he knew they didn't enclose the men and the women Blodgett
wanted. Mr. and Mrs. Sinclair, indeed, motored out for Thanksgiving
dinner--a reluctant concession, George gathered, to a profitable
partnership. Blodgett brought him forth as a specimen, and the specimen
impressed, for it isn't given to everyone to sit down at the close of
the season with the year's most famous football player. It puzzled
George that in the precious qualities he craved he knew himself superior
to everyone in the house except these two who made him feel depressingly
inferior. Would he some day reach the point where he would react
unconsciously, as they did, to every social emergency?

When the dinner party had scattered, Blodgett and he walked alone on the
terrace in an ashen twilight. There the surprise was sprung. It was
clearly no surprise to his host, who beamed at George, pointing to the
drive.

"I 'phoned him he would find an old football friend here if he'd take
the trouble to drive over."

"But you didn't tell him my name?" George gasped.

"No, but why----"

Blodgett broke off and hurried his heavy body to the terrace edge to
greet these important arrivals.

Lambert sprang from the runabout he had driven up and helped Sylvia
down. She was bundled in becoming furs. The sharp air had heightened her
rich colouring. How beautiful she was--lovelier than George had
remembered! Here was the tonic to kill the distracting doubts raised by
Betty. Here was the very spring of his wilful ambition. Glancing at
Sylvia, Betty's tranquil influence lost its power.

At her first recognition of him she stopped abruptly, but Lambert ran
across and grasped his hand.

"How do, Morton. Never guessed Blodgett's message referred to you."

George disapproved of Blodgett's methods. Why had the man made him a
mystery at the very moment he used him as a bait to attract Lambert and
Sylvia? Wasn't he important enough, or was it only because he was a
Princeton man and Blodgett had feared some enmity might linger?

Lambert's manner, at least, was proof that he had, indeed, meant to give
George a message that night in the dressing-room at New Haven. George