neither bold nor rude nor self-assertive, but
it was unconscious, inquiring, and unabashed. For Claude it was a new
experience, calling out in him a new response.

It was a rule with Claude never to take the initiative with girls of his
own class, or with those who--because they lived in the city while he
lived in the village--felt themselves geographically his superiors. He
found it wise policy to wait to be sought, and therefore fell back
toward his hostess with compliments for her scheme of decoration. He got
the reward he hoped for when Mrs. Darling called to her daughter,
saying:

"Elsie dear, come here. I want to introduce Mr. Claude Masterman."

So it happened that when the nineteenth century was putting forth a
further effort with the swooning phrases of the barcarolle from the
"Contes d'Hoffmann," adapted to the Boston, Claude found himself swaying
with the twentieth.

They had not much to say. Whatever interest they felt in each other was
guarded, taciturn. When they talked it was in disjointed sentences on
fragmentary subjects.

"You've been abroad, haven't you?"

"Yes; for the last five years."

"Do you like being back?"

The answer was doubtful. "Rather. For some things." Then, as though to
explain this lack of enthusiasm, "Everybody looks alike." She qualified
this by adding, "You don't."

"Neither do you," he stated, in the matter-of-fact tone which he felt to
be suited to the piquantly matter-of-fact in her style.

It was a minute or two before either of them spoke again. "You've got a
brother, haven't you? My father's his guardian or something."

Assenting to these statements, Claude said further, "He couldn't come
to-night because he's going to be married on Thursday."

"To that Miss Willoughby, isn't it?" A jerky pause was followed by a
jerky addition: "I think she's nice."

"Yes, she is; top-hole. So's my brother."

She threw back her head to fling him up a smile that struck him as
adorably straightforward. "I like to hear one brother speak of another
like that. You don't often."

"Oh, well, every brother couldn't, you know."

They had circled and reversed more than once before she sighed: "I wish
I had a brother--or a sister. It's an awful bore being the only one."

"Better to be the only one than one of too many."

More minutes had gone by in the suave swinging of their steps to
Offenbach's somnolent measures when she asked, abruptly, "Do you skate?"

"Sometimes. Do you?"