"Good!" cried Patty, "Mona has begun training you already. When is your Bachelor dinner, Roger?" "Not till Wednesday night. I put it off so Farnsworth could get here." "Oh, is he coming? I didn't know he was East." "He wasn't. He's coming on on purpose for the event. I wanted him especially. At least, Mona did." "All the same," said Mona. "Oh, yes, of course I wanted Big Bill here. We've been friends for years, and he must dance at my wedding." It was the first time Patty had seen Van Reypen since her return from Lakewood, and, during the evening, he drew her away from the others and leading her to the semi-privacy of a big davenport in the library, he announced he was going to talk to her. "Talk away," said Patty, "but I warn you, I've no time or attention for anything not connected with wedding bells." "But this is connected with wedding bells," and Philip's dark eyes smiled into her own, "only, not Mona's chimes. Our own." "Don't, Phil," said Patty, gently, noting his serious look and tone. "I've got four days yet till the fifteenth, and,--oh, pshaw, I might as well tell you now, that I'm not going to be engaged to you." "Patty!" and Van Reypen's face went white. "You don't mean that." "Yes, I do. I've had so much wedding doings for Mona, I'm sick and tired of it. I don't want to be engaged myself, or hear of anybody else being engaged, until I forget all about all this fuss and feathers." "There does seem to be an awful lot of fussy feathers, or whatever you call it, about the affair, doesn't there?" "Yes; and I'm glad to do all I can for Mona. I'm enjoying it, too, but I don't want any wedding of my own for years and years and years." "By that time you'll be a pretty old bird. You ticked off a goodly number of years just then. But, seriously, Patty, I don't want to bother you----" "Well, you _do_ bother me. Why, Phil, every single chance you get, you talk about----" "About my love for you? I mean to, Patty, but you don't give me a chance. When I try to tell you of my love and devotion, you break loose about not wanting to be engaged----" "Well, of course I do. A girl doesn't want to hear of love and devotion from a man she isn't engaged to, does she?" "I don't know. I hope so, in this case. That is, I hope I'm the man you're going to be engaged to, and soon, so I can tell you of my love and devotion. They're deep, Patty, deep and true, and----" "Then why did you treat me so horridly down at Lakewood, just because I enjoyed having to do with people who had some brains and weren't of the silly, addle-pated type we meet mostly in our own class of society?" "But, Patty, dearest, those Blaneys aren't the real things. They haven't education and genius,--they only pretend they have." "Phil, I think you're horrid. They have so. Why, Sam Blaney wrote a poem that's the most beautiful thing I ever read!" "Let me see it." "I can't. I promised I wouldn't. It's--it's sort of sacred----"