“You’re one of these men—who the clinging vines say are ‘so big and strong and yet so kind and gentle’—aren’t you?” “Kind—and—gentle?” he laughed. “No one ever told me that.” This time he compelled her to look at him, and under his smiling eyes she suddenly shivered. An irrelevant thought had drifted in—that, when people were as wonderful as he, they always seemed to get everything they wanted, and—they always were wanting something else. But the thought wandered out again at his next words. “You are the prettiest girl I have ever seen. No—don’t speak! What do _you_ know about it? Last night I suspected—this morning, I know. Morning’s the acid test, you see.” There was a clatter on the stairs and Jerry bounced into the room. She was chewing gum again. After her came Sarah, evenly pink and white, superbly arrayed, and walking with the carriage of an empress. Jerry walked into the group of men, chewing in long, steady rolls. “Gum, gum, nothing but gum,” she chanted, then looked at them piteously. “Nothing for breakfast but gum! Can’t anyone bring coffee and rolls to the gum-chewer? Anyone?” “Not unless you let me hold your gum while you have breakfast,” one romantic youth threw at her. Joy watched with breathless interest. “I have never seen such a girl!” “She’s a marvel,” conceded Barnett. “Gets younger all the time—and I gather she isn’t as young as she looks.” The appearance of Tom in the doorway cut short further revelations. “I have a feeling that I’m going to trail you to-day,” Barnett said, rising. “And as for to-night at Prom—words are futile!” His eyes caressed her. It was no moment for Tom to join them. She felt as if something within her were singing. And Tom came over to her—Tom, with his chubby red face and eyes that could never look tenderly at anything! “Well, Joy, what’s doing along the Rialto?” “N-nothing much, so early in the day; what does one expect at this hour?” she managed to bring out, hoping that Tom did not notice anything unusual in her manner. “You’ve made a dent on Jack Barnett—I can see those.” He gave her a look of appraisal. “Hang it, Joy, I knew you’d put a crimp in all the gold diggers and hundredth anniversaries around.” “Speaking of hundredth anniversaries, my roommates—they’re—well, I’ve never seen anything like them before.” He looked over to where Sarah was sitting with her hand on the coat-sleeve of a dazzled youth, gazing up at him with her shadowed, speaking eyes. Then his eyes wandered to where Jerry was singing a song for her breakfast— “Come to my home in the sewer Said the cock-roach to his mate— Where the air is so foul and impew-er And the swimming’s simply great!” “That’s because this is your first Prom,” he said.