"Yes, you were! but I met Wilson, and he had lost his rubbers, and looked so forlorn, I _had_ to take him home, Bobby, when he asked me." "He didn't!" Bobby's cheek flushed. "The impudent shrimp!" "Impudent shrimpudent!" said Kitty, and then remembered that she had never played rhymes with Bobby. "I--I didn't take him quite all the way!" she began, and then broke into a peal of laughter so clear and joyous that Sarepta had to make a special errand--a stick of wood, it was, which the fire did not need--to see what was up. "Glad you didn't! of all the cheek I ever heard of! I wish I'd been there. How did you get rid of him, Kitty?" "Why--I ought not to tell, Bobby. Promise never to tell anybody! Promise, Sarepta! Well--Wilson felt a little sentimental after the party and all, and I--I--tipped him out, going round the corner!" "Ha! ha! ha!" roared Bobby Shafto. "He! he! he!" tittered Sarepta, and fled, her bread being in the oven. Kitty held out her hands with a sudden gesture, Bobby grasped them, and the two danced up and down, holding hands and laughing like two children. Kitty ought to have known better. There are so many psycho-chemical formulae; they combine so easily, especially with certain cardiac conditions. She knew perfectly well that Bobby had been sighing and looking and sighing again, ever since she came back. I am afraid she was rather used to sighs and looks. She had spoken casually of "people" in Switzerland and Italy who had been "rather foolish." She knew, or she ought to have known, that it was one thing to dance with a lad at the party, one revolving unit among many, and a wholly different thing to take hands with that lad and dance child-fashion, just the two of them in all the world. What wonder that poor Bobby Shafto was swept out to sea in good earnest? He could not know that the girl was not really thinking of him at all, that she was dancing with Tommy Lee, as she always had danced, ever since she could toddle. Kitty saw the look in Bobby's eyes, and a cold wave swept over her. She would have withdrawn her hands, but Bobby held them tight. "Kitty!" The laughter died out of his rosy face. "Kitty, dear!" "Yes, Bobby! we must stop now, and you must run along; I have my housekeeping to see to." "Kitty, dear! wait just a minute. I--I want--I wish I might hold these little hands all the time!" Kitty tried to laugh. "Can't be done, Bobby," she said, "it would interfere with my driving. Let me go, please, there's a good Bobby Shafto!" But Bobby could not be stopped now. "I must tell you!" he cried. "I _have_ to! I love you so, Kitty, I can't think of anything else. And it isn't all selfishness, dear. I want to take care of you. I won't have you exposed to insults from a miserable chump like Wilson Wibird. I shall be out of college next year, Kitty, and I have a good job promised me; won't you--won't you let me take care of you, my dear?"