"Pop is going to bring us a piece of pie and a bottle of milk from the automat," answered Mr. Vandeford, as he began putting busy stabs with the press pencil on a pile of papers. "I ought to send him to get Denny to motor you for a real feed in the cool somewhere, but I want you here." With perfect unconcern, he went on checking the list the property-man had left him. He had ceased trying to decide the meaning of the flutter which he was not sure Miss Adair really gave when she was pleased. He was too busy to think about anything but the rush and roar of the machinery of "The Purple Slipper," so he just kept Miss Adair so near him for all the waking hours of the day that he could have no occasion to have his thoughts distracted by worrying over just what might be befalling her. Day after day he extracted her from the Y. W. C. A. at ten o'clock A. M., fed her and Miss Lindsey coffee and rolls and berries just any place that they happened to see (often he even ate with the two girls in the big empty cafeteria at the institution), lunched with her in the same haphazard fashion, sought a cool and quiet spot to give her dinner, and a ride on a country road, turned her into the big safety at about eleven o'clock, and went to bed to sleep the sleep of the interestedly absorbed. The few evenings that Miss Adair spent with Mr. Gerald Height Mr. Vandeford did not find repose so early or with such ease. Also, his awakening on those mornings after was not so joyous, and he arrived at the Y. W. C. A. fifteen and twenty minutes too early upon each occasion. However, his time was well spent in chatting with the brisk young secretary, and his anxiety was entirely relieved each time by finding the look intact in the gray eyes raised to his in eager greeting after the prolonged absence of fourteen hours, when the usual separation was about ten. "We went out to a place called the Beach Inn last night, and whom do you suppose we saw there?" she demanded on one of the mornings after, over her bowl of halved peaches. "Mr. and Mrs. Devil?" he asked, with a sparkle breaking through the frown with which he had instantly greeted her mention of that gay beach resort. "No; Miss Hawtry and Mr. Farraday. She wasn't nice to us at all, but Mr. Height says she always treats him badly when they are rehearsing together. I think Mr. Height is perfectly wonderful to her on the stage. He's so gentle and kind; but then he's that in real life, isn't he?" "Is he?" growled Mr. Vandeford over his corn-flakes. "Yes, and he's so just and fine in the way he speaks about everybody. He told me how poor Miss Hawtry used to be and how you pushed her along until she could buy that lovely house we passed, in which the Trevors are staying while she is in town. It is hard on you, too, not to be out there boarding with them and her instead of in this heat." "Did Height say that I--I boarded--out there?" demanded Mr. Vandeford, pushing his coffee-cup away from him with a sudden snap.