h once I loved to see Morton chew you up."

Lambert glanced down.

"Thanks. I'd better stay here. One of my runners is off, Stringham."

"Then sit with the boys next half," Stringham said. "Coming, Morton?"

George shook his head, and urged the anxious coach away, for Wandel had
caught his eye.

"Tell them to keep their heads," George called after Stringham. "If they
keep their heads they've got Harvard beaten."

He glanced inquiringly at Wandel.

"Why not cease," Wandel said, "imagining yourself a giddy, heroic cub?
Come up and sit with mature people the last half."

The invitation startled George. Then Sylvia wasn't there?

"Is Sylvia all right?" he asked Lambert under his breath.

Lambert was a trifle ill at ease.

"Oh, quite. Betty asked us to get you. Wants to see you. Have my place.
I'm going to accept Stringham's fine invitation, and sit here with the
young--a possible Yale scout on the Princeton side-lines."

"Stringham's no fool," George laughed. "Anyway, he has you fellows
beaten right now."

Lambert thrust his hand in his pocket.

"How much you got?"

Wandel grasped George's arm.

"Come with me before you get in a college brawl."

"Plenty when we're not chaperoned, Lambert," George called, and followed
Wandel through the restless crowd and up the concrete steps.

Was Sylvia really there? Was he going to see her? The idea of finding
him had sprung from Betty, and Lambert had been ill at ease.

He saw Betty and her father and mother, then beyond them, a vacant place
between, Sylvia to whom the open air and its chill had given back all
her dark, flushed brilliancy. Wandel slid through first, and made
himself comfortable at Sylvia's farther side. George followed, stopping
to speak to the Alstons, to accept Betty's approving glance.

"Conspirator!" he whispered, and went on, and sat down close to Sylvia,
and yielded himself to the delight of her proximity. She glanced at him,
her colour deepening.

"Betty said it was all right, and I must. So many people----"

The air was sharp enough to make rugs comfortable. He couldn't see her
hands because they were beneath the rug across her knees, a covering she
shared with Wandel and him.

As he drew the rug up one of his hands touched hers, and his fingers,
beyond his control, groped for her fingers. He detected a quick, nervous
movement away; then it was stopped, and their hands met, clasped, and
clung together.

For a moment they looked at e