Miss Barrons after several long breaths.

Skippy apportioned the compliment to his manly air and the magnificent
lines of the dress suit.

"No, I'm Yale. That is I'm preparing," he said carelessly, and hoping
that Snorky wasn't listening he added: "Family didn't want me to go in
too young, you know."

"Oh yes, I know," said Miss Barrons with an appreciative glance at his
precocious brow. "I think that's much better too. You don't have half as
good a time if you go to college too young."

"Eighteen's about right," said Skippy in a more mature manner.

The subject being exhausted Skippy counted up the forks while his
companion, to appear at ease, asked for the salt to put in her soup.

"Do you know Jim Fisher?" she said suddenly. "He's going to Yale next
year."

Skippy did not know Jim Fisher.

"I wonder if you know a perfectly dandy girl?"

"Who's that?"

"Alice Parks."

Skippy did not know Alice Parks, though she lived in New York City.
Likewise with a growing feeling of his profound social ignorance, he
successively admitted that he did not know Cornelia Baxter, Frances
Bowen or Harry Fall. Whereupon Miss Barrons abandoned him to converse
with Charles who did know Alice Parks who was so attractive and Harry
Fall who had such a strong character.

"What the devil is there to talk about," said Skippy to himself as he
fidgeted with the soup. "What an awful bore society is."

There was Maude Adams, but how was he to get to her?

"I'm just crazy about harps," said Miss Cantillon, who was clever. "I
think they're wonderful."

"Harps--oh yes," said Charles Balou.

Miss Cantillon appealed to the table.

"Do you like them better than violins?" said Miss Barrons doubtfully.

"Oh much better!"

"They're too big," said Snorky wisely.

"Yes, that is the trouble. It's a perfect shame too. They are too big to
carry round but they are so melodious. I don't like the piano--it's so
cold--"

While the conversation raged on the proper classification of musical
instruments, Miss Balou turned from Snorky to Skippy and looked him once
more in the eyes with her interested glance.

"Yes, I've heard a lot about you," she said with a knowing look.

"Really now?"

"You're a perfectly ghastly flirt," she said, lowering her voice. "You
give a girl a terrific rush for a week or two and then pop off without
even saying good-bye. Never mind though. I'm warned."

Again the look, the interested look of trying to discover