He breathed hard and something warm went up his back like the warm ripple of the hot water when his body slowly immersed. If Snorky Green could see him now! Mimi hanging on his arm, Mimi's soft voice pleading with him, Mimi, just as she had done in the fictitious weeks, throwing herself at him, actually throwing herself at him! He tried to remember one of the dozen eloquent replies he had once evolved, but nothing came. "I say, you're not a sister, are you?" Miss Lafontaine was considerably puzzled by this but pretended that she was an only child. "Well that makes a difference; I thought you couldn't be," said Skippy unbending a little, "you act differently." "Oh I see," said Mimi, who had half expected a display of sentiment, "aren't you a funny man. So you don't approve of sisters?" She had called him a man--perhaps after all his sister had not told the age of his trousers. He straightened up and answered, "Oh, I suppose they are all right--later on." "Jack--you _are_ a woman-hater!" "Oh, I don't know," he said, beginning to be flattered, and he fell to wondering how he could call her Mimi, which of course was his right. "I'll tell you a secret, but perhaps you know it already. Perhaps after all you are only making fun of me." "Oh, I say, Mimi," he said all in a gulp and then blushed to his ears. The young lady, noticing this, smiled to herself and continued: "Well, if you are simply pretending, it's a very good way to get a lot of attention, but of course you know that." "I? What? Oh, really you don't think!" "Well, I don't know. Because of course that is what does make a man interesting. It is such a compliment when he does take notice. Now a man like Mr. Sidell who jollies every girl he meets--" "The Egghead is a terrible fusser," said Skippy with new appreciation of his own value, "you should have seen him at the Prom." "Did he have Cora Lantier down, the blonde girl with the big ears!" "She was blonde but I didn't notice the ears. She was down two weeks ago." "Oh, she was?" Miss Lafontaine glanced backward and snuggled a little closer. Skippy began to be aware of the strangest of symptoms; at one moment he felt a rush of blood to the forehead just like the beginnings of bronchitis, the next moment his throat was swollen as though it were the mumps, yet immediately there came a weakness in his knees that could only be influenza. The warm contact of the little hand penetrated through his sleeve, the sound of her voice shut out all other sounds in his ears, and when he met her eyes his glance turned hastily away and as avidly returned. Mimi Lafontaine at the age of nineteen knew very little of the school curriculum, but had a marked aptitude for the liberal intuitive arts.