He was so evidently pleased and relieved with his arrangement that Miss Ronald hadn’t the heart to offer any objections. They got up to the Thorndyke and secured a delightful table by an open window, and by the time they had ordered a rather elaborate dinner, Miss Ronald’s righteous indignation at her abandonment by the chaperon had stifled any feelings of remorse at her consent to Cunningham’s “scheme.” So they ate in peace and talked about the operetta and their friends, and she was enjoying it all immensely, and had quite forgotten her anxiety to get back to College and her keen doubts about the propriety of the adventure, when her eyes happened to fall upon a bronze clock on the mantel at the other end of the room, and she gave a little cry of dismay. Cunningham followed the direction of her gaze and said “by Jove” under his breath in a very forcible sort of way. He pulled out his watch and found it tallied uncompromisingly with the clock. He beckoned sharply to the waiter. “Is that clock _exactly_ right?” he demanded, excitedly. The waiter assured him that the clock’s record was unimpeachable. “There is simply no use trying to make that 7.30 in three minutes, Miss Ronald,” remarked the youth, mournfully. “It’s all my fault. I was enjoying myself so much that I never noticed how late it was,” he went on, remorsefully. “Now I suppose you’ll be in no end of a scrape. What do they do to you when you come in late? Send you to the dean?” His evident anxiety and utter ignorance of the rules of the College would have amused Miss Ronald if she had not been so hopelessly dejected. As it was, she made an heroic effort to brighten up and smiled sadly at Cunningham. “No--they only put us on bread and water for a week,” she said, at which feeble attempt at a joke they both laughed miserably. Cunningham called the waiter again. “Bring me a Boston and Albany time-table,” he said. When the man came back with the precious bit of paper, the girl and the youth bent anxiously over it. “There’s a train at nine o’clock and one at nine-thirty,” he said. “The nine o’clock is a slow train, stops everywhere, and only gets you to the College ten minutes sooner than the other.” Miss Ronald looked so miserable that Cunningham began to feel very desperate indeed. He determined to do something to lighten her despair. “Suppose we go up-town and see Sothern in ‘Sheridan?’” he suggested. “We can get down to the station for the nine-thirty, and we can see the first two acts. It’s a charming play--ever seen it?”