"Well, it's a long sad story," she temporized. "Perhaps I had better not begin on it now that our time is so short. You wouldn't like to hold my hand, would you, Dicky?" "I'm not going to, at any rate." "I thought you'd say that," she sighed. "Have you seen Nancy lately?" "Yesterday." "She's looking better, don't you think so?" "Yes." "Preston Eustace is back." "Is that so? I didn't know he was here yet. I knew he was coming." "He's to be here six months, or so." "Have you seen him?" "No, Caroline told me." Her voice was carefully steadied but Dick noticed for the first time the shadows etched under the big brown eyes, and the flush of excitement splotched high on her cheek-bones. She had been engaged to Preston Eustace for three months succeeding her twentieth birthday. "On second thoughts I think I will hold your hand, Betty," he said, covering that childlike member with his own rather brawny one. "You are not a very big little girl, are you, Betty?" "My mother used to tell me that I was a very destructive child." "I shouldn't wonder if you were that yet." "Don't let's talk about me. Let's talk about you, Dicky." "About me?" "Yes, please. I think you're a very interesting subject." Having arrived at some conclusion concerning this unprecedented attack upon his privacy, Dick was disposed to be kind to his unexpected visitor. The fact that Preston Eustace was in town and Betty had not seen him shed an entirely new light on her recklessness. Like every other incident in Betty's history her love-affair had been very conspicuously featured. "The interesting things about me just at present are--" he was just about to say "six shirts of imported gingham" but he bethought himself that she would be certain to demand to see them, so he finished lamely with--"my game of golf, and my new dogs." "What kind of dogs?" "Belgian police dogs." "Where do you keep them?" "I haven't taken them over yet." "I heard that you had bought a place up in Westchester, but I asked Nancy, and she said she didn't know. I don't think Nancy appreciates you, Dick." "That so often happens." "I mean that seriously." "It's a serious matter--being appreciated. The only person who I ever thought really appreciated me was Billy's old aunt. Every time she saw me she used to say to me, 'You're such a clean-looking young man I can't take my eyes off you.'" "You _are_ clean-looking, and awfully good-looking too." "Do you mind if I smoke, Betty?" Dick carefully disengaged his hand from her clinging fingers, and a look of something like intelligence passed between them, before Betty turned her ingenuous child's stare on him again. "Not if you'll give me a cigarette, too." Dick fumbled through his pockets. "It's awfully stupid, but I haven't any about me," he said, fingering what he knew that she knew to be the well filled case he always carried in his inner pocket. He did not approve of women smoking. But "Poor Dicky!" was all she said.