at are you studying? How
do you live? Do you really cook your own meals? Do you begin to get your
teeth into the engineering? Oh, do tell me everything. I want to know,
so much!"

"There isn't a whole lot to tell. Mostly I'm getting back into math.
Been out of touch with it. I find that I know more about motors than
most of the fellows. That helps. And about living--oh, I keep
conservative. Did you know I'd sold my garage?"

"Oh, I didn't, I didn't!"

He wondered why she said it with such stooping shame, but he went on
mildly, "Well, I got a pretty good price, but of course I don't want to
take any chances on running short of coin, so I'm not splurging much.
And----" He looked at his nails, and whistled a bar or two, and turned
his head away, and looked back with a shy, "And I'm learning to play
bridge and tennis and stuff!"

"Oh, my dear!" It was a cry of pain. She beat her hands for a moment
before she murmured, "When are we going to have our lessons in
dancing--and in making an impression on sun-specks like Dolly Ransome?"

"I don't know," he parried. Then, looking at her honestly, he confessed,
"I don't believe we're ever going to. Claire, I can't do it. I'm no good
for this tea game. You know how clumsy I was. I spilled some tea, and I
darn near tripped over some woman's dress and---- Oh, I'm not afraid of
them. Now that I get a good close look at this bunch, they seem pretty
much like other folks, except maybe that one old dame says 'cawn't.' But
I can't do the manners stunt. I can't get myself to give enough thought
to how you ought to hold a tea-cup."

"Oh, those things don't matter--they don't _matter_! Besides, everybody
likes you--only you're so terribly cautious that you never let them see
the force and courage and all that wonderful sweet dear goodness that's
in you. And as for your manners--heaven knows I'm no P. G. Wodehouse
valet. But I'll teach you all I know."

"Claire, I appreciate it a lot but---- I'm not so darn sure I want to
learn. I'm getting scared. I watched that bird named Riggs here today.
He's a regular fellow, or he was, but now he's simply lost in the
shuffle. I don't want to be one of the million ghosts in a city. Seattle
is bad enough--it's so big that I feel like a no-see-um in a Norway pine
reserve. But New York would be a lot worse. I don't want to be a Mr.
Riggs."

"Yes, but--I'm not a Mrs. Riggs!"

"What do you----"

He did not finish asking her what she meant. She was