of that old fossil of a Boskirk. Show your
independence. Bojo, please do it for me!"

She clung to him, coquetting with her eyes and smile with the dangerous
inconscient coquetry of a child, and this radiance and rosy youth, so
close to him, so intimately offered, brought him a disturbing emotion.
He turned away so as not to meet the sparkling, pleading glance.

"Young lady," he said with assumed gruffness, "I see you are learning
entirely too fast. I believe you are actually flirting with me."

"Then you will!" she cried gleefully. "Hooray!" She flung her arms about
him in a rapturous squeeze and fled like a wild animal in light,
graceful bounds up the stairs, before he could qualify his
acquiescence.

When he came down dressed for dinner, Doris was flitting about the
library, waiting his coming. She glanced correctly around to forestall
eavesdroppers, and offered him her cheek.

"Is this a skating costume?" he said, glancing quizzically at the
trailing, mysterious silken ballgown of lavender and gold, which
enfolded her graceful figure like fragrant petals. "By the way, why
didn't you let me know I was to have a rival?"

"Don't be silly," she said, brushing the powder from his sleeve. "I was
furious. It was all mother's doings."

"Yes, you look furious!" he said to tease her. "Never mind, Doris,
General Managers must calculate on all possibilities."

She closed his lips with an indignant movement of her scented fingers,
looking at him reproachfully.

"Bojo, don't be horrid. Marry Boskirk? I'd just as soon marry a mummy. I
should be petrified with boredom in a week."

"He's in love with you."

"He? He couldn't love anything. How ridiculous! Heavens, just to think
I'll have to talk his dreary talk sends creeping things up and down my
back."

Bojo professed to be unconvinced, playing the offended and jealous
lover, not perhaps without an ulterior motive, and they were in the
midst of a little tiff when the others arrived. Mrs. Drake did not dare
to isolate him completely, but she placed Boskirk on Doris's right, and
to carry out his assumed irritation Bojo devoted himself to Patsie, who
rattled away heedless of where her chatter hit.

Dinner over, Bojo, relenting a little, sought to organize a general
party, but meeting with no success went off, heedless of reproachful
glances, to array himself in sweater and boots.

Twenty minutes later they were on the toboggan, Patsie tucked in front,
laughing back