"Yes," she said again, laughing. Meanwhile Miss Normaine's niece was pursuing her own ends with that directness which, though lacking the evasive subtlety of maturer years, is at once effective and commendable. "It was nothing but a box of chocolate peppermints," she insisted. "I'd never be so reckless as to wager anything more without thinking it over. I have an allowance, and I'm obliged to be careful what I spend." He looked her over with approval. "You spend it well," he asserted. "I have to," she returned, "or else boys like you would never look at me twice." "I don't know about that." He spoke as one who, though convinced, is not a bigot. "It's fortunate that I do," she replied decidedly. "I'm mortifyingly dependent on my clothes. There's my Aunt Katharine now,--she has an air in anything." "I like you better than your aunt," he confessed. "Of course you do. I've taken pains to have you. But it was just as much as ever that you looked at me twice last night." "I was afraid of making you too conspicuous." "A lot you were!" she retorted rudely. "Who was that girl you danced with?" He smiled wearily. "Tommy Renwick's cousin from the West." "She is pretty." "Very good goods." "Is she as nice as Tommy?" "No. There are not many girls as nearly right as Tommy." "Except me." "Well, perhaps, except you." "But then, I'm not many." "No, separate wrapper, only one in a box," he admitted handsomely. Miss Normaine's niece had dark eyes, brown hair that curled in small inadvertent rings, and a rich warm complexion through which the crimson glowed in her round cheeks. She was so pretty that she ought to have been suppressed, and had a way of speaking that made her charming all over again. "It was not chocolate peppermints, and you know quite well it wasn't," he said, with the finished boldness compatible with hair parted exactly in the middle and a wide experience. Miss Normaine's niece opened her eyes wide. "What was it?" "Nothing but your heart." She considered the matter seriously. "Was it really?" "It was really." "And I've lost," she pondered aloud. "And you've lost." She raised her eyes with a glance in which he could read perfect faith, glad acknowledgment, and entire surrender. "Do you want me to keep telling you?" she demanded with adorable petulance. "There is Henry Donald!" exclaimed Miss Normaine. "I didn't see him before. He has grown stout, hasn't he?" "Yes, and bald." "Isn't he young to be bald and stout too? Do tell me that he is," urged Miss Normaine with pathos. "He seems just out of college to me, and I don't like to think that I've lost all sense of proportion." "Oh, no, you haven't," said Arnold, consolingly. "It's only he that has lost his. He doesn't take exercise enough. He's coming this way to speak to you. You had better think of something more flattering to say."