"Yes, I see you do. And you remember how, with my usual sweetness, I finally gave way? Well, Dad, you never knew the reason. The Yale Glee Club came to Westfield that year just before the holidays began, and Miss Jane let everybody go to the concert whose deportment had been above eighty--that of course included me. "Well, we all went, and we all fell in love--in a body--with a sophomore who played the banjo and sang negro songs. He had lovely dark gazelle-like eyes and he sang funny songs without smiling. The whole school raved about him all the way home; we cut his picture out of the program and pasted in the front of our watches. His name, Father--" she paused dramatically, "was Jerymn Hilliard Junior!" "I sat up half the night writing diplomatic letters to you and Mrs. Hilliard; and the next day when it got around that I was actually going to visit in his house--well, I was the most popular girl in school. I was sixteen years old then; I wore sailor suits and my hair was braided down my back. Probably I did look young; and then Nannie, whom I was supposedly visiting, was only fifteen. There were a lot of cousins in the house besides all the little Hilliards, and what do you think? They made the children eat in the schoolroom! I never saw him until Christmas night; then when we were introduced, he shook my hand in a listless sort of way, said 'How d' y' do?' and forgot all about me. He went off with the Glee Club the next day, and I only saw him once more. "We were playing blind man's buff in the school-room; I had just been caught by the hair. It hurt and I was squealing. Everybody else was clapping and laughing, when suddenly the door burst open and there stood Jerry Junior! He looked straight at me and growled: "'What are you kids making such an infernal racket about?'" She shut her eyes. "Aunt Hazel, Dad, just think. He was my first love. His picture was at that moment in a locket around my neck. And he called me a _kid_!" "And you've never seen him since?" Miss Hazel's smile expressed amused indulgence. Constance shook her head. "He's always been away when I've visited Nan--and for six years I've been waiting." She straightened up with an air of determination. "But now, if he's on the continent of Europe, I'll get him!" "And what shall you do with him?" her father mildly inquired. "Do with him? I'll make him take it back; I'll make him eat that word kid!" "H'm!" said her father. "I hope you'll get him; he might act as an antidote to some of these officers." They had run in under the shadow of the mountain and the keel grated on the shore. Constance raised her eyes and studied the towering crag above their heads; when she lowered them again, her gaze for an instant met Tony's. There was a new light in his eyes--amusement, triumph, something entirely baffling. He gave her the intangible feeling of having at last got the mastery of the situation. CHAPTER XI