he did not dare to ask for a ride, for fear of encountering some agent
of the Doctor's secret police. For, perhaps, his absence was already
discovered and the alarm had gone out.

The heat and the discomfort somewhat interfered with the free play of
his imagination, but the quality of romance still kept with him.

"When I'm twenty-one," he said to himself again and again, in a vague
defiance of all the hostile powers of Society. Only five years and six
weeks intervened before the glowing horizon of liberty. Did she care?
Even that did not matter. She knew what the future held for him. The
main thing, the thing to cling to, was that her heart was kind. Of that
there could be no question. How gentle and how understanding she had
been! He could come to her and tell her anything--absolutely anything!

"Good Lord, what a difference it makes to have some one you can trust,"
he said solemnly to the night. "Some one to work for!"

At nine o'clock he reached the outskirts of Trenton, and having cooled
off, put on his collar and necktie. Then he stopped at a stationer's to
ask his way. A large florid young woman, chewing gum, was behind the
counter, patting down her oily chestnut curls.

"Say, can you tell me where the Lafontaines live?" he said with an extra
polite bow.

Fortunately she knew and directed him.

"You're one of them Lawrenceville boys, ain't you?" she said, eyeing
with curiosity the oozy ruffle of his hair.

Skippy was shocked at this easy discovery of his youth.

"Come off. I'm a member of the Princeton faculty," he said loftily.

"Well, I think you're one of them Lawrenceville boys," she said,
following him to the door.

He waved back gaily and went skipping up the street. He arrived before
the Lafontaine mansion with exactly five minutes to spare. The old
Colonial house was set back in a wide plot and masked by convenient
foliage. Skippy, passing down the side wall, sheltered himself behind a
bush, his heart pumping with excitement, and drew on the gloves which he
had borrowed from Butcher Stevens. Then extracting the shoebrush and
cloth from his pocket, he busied himself hurriedly with removing from
his trousers and shoes all traces of the dusty way he had come. This
done, he hid the brush and cloth under the bush and straightened up.
Unfortunately either the last preparations or the terrific sentimental
strain of facing his first call upon a member of the opposite sex had so
increased his temperat