"Practically all, in varying degrees, except Peter Dunlap, who has never
looked at another woman since he was lucky enough to get Lois, and Clive
Hammond, who's engaged to Polly Beale," Penny answered reluctantly, her
color high.

"Including _your_ young man?"

"I haven't a 'young man,' in the sense of being engaged," Penny
retorted, then added honestly: "I _have_ been letting Ralph
Hammond--that's Clive's brother, you know--take me about a good
deal.... Ralph and Clive have plenty of money," she defended herself
hastily. "They are architects, Clive being the head of the firm and
Ralph, who hasn't been out of college so very long, a junior partner.
It was the Hammond firm that drew up the plans for Dad's--I mean, my
father's--Primrose Meadows Addition houses. He had our house built as a
sort of show-place, you know, so that prospective builders out there
could see how artistic a home could be put up for a moderate sum of
money. But he didn't quite finish even that--left half the gabled top
story unfinished, and Nita has been teasing Hugo to finish it up for
her. It looks," she added with a shrug, "as if Nita will get what she
wants--as usual."

"And Ralph has acquired a set of slave chains?" Dundee suggested, with
just the slightest note of sympathy.

"_And how!_" Penny assured him, grimly. "A simile as out-of-date as my
clothes are going to be if I don't get some new ones soon. Not that the
crowd minds what I wear," she added loyally. "I could dress up in a
window drape--"

"And be just as charming as you are in that grand new party dress you
have on now," Dundee finished for her gallantly.

"_New!_" Penny snorted and turned back to her desk in a futile effort to
find something left undone.

Dundee ignored the rebuff. "How many suckers--I mean, how many gentlemen
with moderate incomes actually built in Primrose Meadows?"

"You are inquisitive, aren't you?... None! Our house, or rather the one
Nita Selim is living in now, is the only house on what used to be a big
farm.... Why?"

"I was just wondering," Dundee said softly, almost absent-mindedly,
"why the 'lovely Nita' chose so isolated a place in which to live,
when Hamilton has rather a large number of 'For Rent' signs out just
now.... By the way, know what time it is now?... Twenty to one! Get your
hat on, young woman. I'm going to drive you out to Breakaway Inn."

"You're not! I'm going to take a bus. One runs from the Square right
past the Inn," she to