the pantomime, or if I like golf!"

"I promise that those topics shall be utterly and absolutely taboo. I'm
sick of them myself."

Quenrede's shyness, which was only an outer casing, had suddenly
disappeared in the presence of a fellow-victim of social conventions,
and conversation came easily, all the more so after being pent-up all
the evening. Henry Desmond, wandering into the conservatory presently,
remarked to his partner, sotto voce:

"That Saxon girl's chattering sixteen to the dozen now! Couldn't get a
word out of her myself!"

When Quenrede, sometime about five o'clock in the morning, tried to
creep stealthily to bed without disturbing her sister, Ingred, refreshed
by half a night's sleep, sat up wide awake and demanded details.

"Sh! Sh! Mother said we weren't to talk now, and I must tell you
everything afterwards. Oh, I got on better than I expected, though most
of the people were rather starchy. How did my dress look?
Well--_promise_ you won't breathe a word to darling Mother--it was just
passable, and that's all. Some girls had _lovely_ things. I didn't care.
The second part of the evening was far nicer than the first, and I
enjoyed the dances that I sat out the most. The conservatory was all
hung with lanterns. There; I'm dead tired and I want to go to sleep.
Good-night, dear!"

"But you've 'come out!'" said Ingred with satisfaction as she subsided
under her eiderdown.

"Oh yes, I'm most decidedly 'out,'" murmured Quenrede.

CHAPTER XIV

The Peep-hole

The Foursome League met in Dormitory 2 after the holidays with much
clattering of tongues. Each wanted to tell her own experience, and they
all talked at once. Fil had a new way of doing her hair, and gave the
others no peace till they had duly realized and appreciated it. Verity
had been bridesmaid to a cousin, and wished to give full details of the
wedding; Nora had played hockey in a Scotch team against a Ladies' Club,
and had been promised ten minutes in an aeroplane, but the weather had
been too stormy for the flight; the disappointment--when she happened to
remember it--quite weighed down her spirits.

"If there's one thing on earth--or rather on air--I'd like to be, it's a
flying woman!" she told her friends emphatically. "I'm hoping aeroplanes
will get a little cheaper some day, and rich people will keep them
instead of motor cars. Then I'll go out as an aviatress. It's a new
career for women."

"I wouldn't trust myself to _yo