actually
quarrel with anybody, however obstinate he might be; so the hours sped
happily by, and the pitfalls were somehow avoided.

"Doesn't Timothy look just perfectly heavenly when he has on a dress
suit?"

Arethusa asked this pointed question very proudly of her parents when
she led him into the library that evening after dinner, to show them
how nice he looked, just before the Party came. She held him by one
hand, quite as if she had been a fond mother exhibiting an only child
whose toilette was solely of her personal making. One could easily have
imagined her actually responsible for the cut and fit of Timothy's
suit.

But he did look well, undeniably. Ross said that Baldur the Beautiful
might have looked just like him, if they had ever worn dress suits in
Valhalla, with his wavy blonde head and his sea blue eyes, and his
splendid bigness. Although Arethusa knew no myths of the Northland,
something about Ross's compliment to Timothy pleased her; she was proud
to show him off as such a handsome creature.

But Timothy very nearly spoiled matters by inquiring who sent her the
flowers she wore at her belt, as they stood together in front of the
library fire, in such an "I-have-a-right-to-know" manner, that she
slapped him and told him to mind his own business. And so the Party,
after all, began for Timothy with unhappiness.

Arethusa was wearing a white dress on this Occasion, but it was a
glorified White Dress, of such beauty, that some other name would
surely have to be found for Miss Letitia's loving effort; it would be
clearly impossible to speak of them both as "white dresses." Her hair
was piled high on her head in a way that Timothy had never seen her
wear it, and that he vaguely did not like, because it made her look so
much older. And in her low-necked gown and wearing the flowers another
man had sent her, she seemed to Timothy more than ever of a world
apart. She was like an Arethusa met for the first time. He wished
intensely that he could gather her up and carry her back to the country
where he considered she so indisputably belonged, to be the old
Arethusa once more. He looked gloomily down the length of the library,
which had been cleared for dancing of all its furniture, and that
presented an expanse of shining floor on which the firelight danced and
gleamed enticingly, and wished another wish. He wished that he himself
had stayed at home. Why had he gone contrary to the dictates of his
common se