.

For half an hour Harry paced at the foot of the stairs.

"I wonder if she's ever coming," he fumed to himself. "It takes 'em so
long to do it that they drive you crazy, and when it's done they're so
wonderful that they drive you crazy."

"Did you--did you wish anything, sir?" asked the butler, entering.

"No--just waiting for Miss Pauline, Jenkins--just waiting," sighed
Harry.

"Why--if I may presume to tell you, sir--Miss, Marvin has gone to
the reception," said Jenkins.

"Gone!" Harry cried abruptly, hotly, then remembered that he was
speaking to a servant and swung into the reception room.

He put on his hat and coat and rang for Jenkins again.

"How long ago was it that Miss Pauline went out?"

"Almost an hour ago, sir."

Harry slammed his way out of the door. It was not until he was in the
car on his way to the Courtelyous that he began to think--began to
think with utterly wrong deductions, as lovers always do.

"I must have said too much," he told himself. "She's crazy about these
wild pranks and she thinks I'm a stupid goody-goody. What a fool I was
to try to prevent her!"

"You aren't very nice, Mr. Marvin, to snub my pet musician--my very
newest pet musician," Mrs. Courtelyou rebuked him, as he entered.

"I didn't mean it. I was waiting for--why, my car went to pieces,"
he explained. "Is Pauline here?"

"Here? She is the only person present. Baskinelli hasn't spoken a
word to any one else. He won't play anything unless she suggests the
subject. I am glad Mr. Owen is here to protect her."

From the scintillant, filmy mist of women around the piano Lucille
emerged. She came swiftly to Harry's side.

"What is the matter?" she asked.

"What is? Tell me." he replied. "What did you say to her?"

"I didn't see her, Harry. She sent word that she was not at home."

"You don't mean--not after you started upstairs."

"Yes--and she hasn't spoken to me all evening."

"And she left me waiting at home for half an hour. It's outrageous."

Harry strode across the floor just as the music ceased, and Baskinelli
arose, bowing to the applause of his feminine admirers.

"May I ask the honor to show to you Madame Courtelyou's portrait of
myself? It is called 'The Glorification of Imbecility,'" he said as he
proffered his arm to Pauline.

He was a small man, with sharp features shadowed by a mass of flowing,
curling hair--the kind of hair that has come to be called "musical"
by the irr