ed himself to his cigarette with maddening
deliberation. Then he smiled. "Through sleeping?"

"Wayne--I'm in earnest. Please don't get yourself into a hateful mood!"

He laughed in real amusement at sight of Katie's puckered face. "I am
conscious that feminine wiles are being exercised upon me. I
wonder--why?"

"Because I am so anxious you should like Ann, Wayne, and--be nice to
her."

"Why?" Again it was that probing, provoking why.

"Because of what she means to me, I suppose."

Something in her voice made him look at her differently. "And what does
she mean to you, Katie?"

"Ann is different from all the other girls I've known. She
means--something different."

"Strange I've never heard you speak of her."

"I think you have, and have forgotten. Though possibly not--just because
of the way I feel about her." She paused, seeking to express how she felt
about her. Unable to do so, she concluded simply: "I have a very tender
feeling for Ann."

"I see you have," he replied quietly. He looked at her meditatively, and
then asked, humorously but gently: "Well Katie, what were you expecting
me to do? Order her out of the house?"

"But I want you to be more than civil, Wayne; I want you to be
sympathetic."

"I'll be civil and you can bring Prescott on for the sympathetic," he
laughed. "You know I haven't great founts of sympathy gushing up in my
heart for the _jeune fille_."

"Ann's not the _jeune fille_, Wayne. She's something far more interesting
and worth while than that." She paused, again trying to get it, but could
do no better than: "I sometimes think of Ann as sitting a little apart,
listening to beautiful music."

He smiled. "I can only reply to that, Katie, that I trust she is more
inviting than your pictures of her. A young woman who looked as though
sitting apart listening to beautiful music should certainly be left
sitting apart."

"I'll bring her down," laughed Kate, rising; "then you can get your
own picture."

"I'll be decent, Katie," he called after her in laughing but
reassuring voice.

The meeting had been accomplished. Dinner had reached the salad, and all
was well. Yes, and a little more than well.

From the moment she stood in the doorway of Ann's room and the girl
rose at her suggestion of dinner, Katie's courage had gone up. Ann's
whole bearing told that she was on her mettle. And what Katie found
most reassuring was less the results of the effort Ann was making
than her unmist