st use my own judgment even where it clashes with your admirations."

Lambert stared at him.

"You'll never cease being headstrong," he said. "It's rather safer to
have any man for a friend."

George had an uncomfortable sense of having received a warning, but
Blodgett blundered in just then with news from the feminine side of the
house.

"Some people downstairs already, and I've just had word--from one of
those little angels that talk like the devil--that Betty's got all her
war-paint on."

"You have the ring?" Lambert asked George.

George laughed.

"Yes, I have the ring, and I shan't lose it, or drop it; and I'll keep
you out of people's way, and tell you what to answer, and see generally
you don't make an idiot of yourself. Josiah, if he faints, help me pick
him up."

Blodgett's gardenia bobbed.

"Weddings make Josiah feel old. Say, George, you're no spring chicken
yourself. I know lots of little girls who cry their eyes out for you."

"Shut up," George said. "How about a reconnaissance, Lambert?"

But they were summoned then, and crept down a side staircase, and heard
music, and found themselves involved in Betty's great moment.

At first George could only think of Betty as she had stood long ago in
the doorway of Bailly's study, and it was difficult to find in this
white-clothed, veiled, and stately woman the girl he had seen first of
all that night. This, after a fashion, was his last glimpse of her. She
appeared to share that conception, for she carried to the improvised
altar in the drawing-room an air of facing far places, divided by
boundaries she couldn't possibly define from all that she had ever
known. After the ceremony she smiled wonderingly at George while she
absorbed the vapid and pattered remarks of, perhaps, a hundred old
friends of the family. George, who knew most of them, resented their
sympathy and curiosity.

"If they don't stop asking me about the war," he whispered to Blodgett
during a lull, "I'm going to call for help."

Some, however, managed to interest him with remarks about the rebirth of
football. Green had been at Princeton all along, Stringham was coming
back in the fall, and there were brilliant team prospects. Would George
be able to help with the coaching? He indicated his injured leg. He
hadn't the time, anyway. He was going to stick closer than ever to Wall
Street. He fancied that Sylvia, who stood near him, resented the lively
interest of these people. She spok