"Well, well!" he said. "Well, well, well!" And she sighed out again through her smile that he could fall so short of what he looked to be. "I used to say, when I was a little girl, Mr. Penny, that I wished my father were in a more romantic business than rope and twine. I wanted him to be a florist or a wood carver or a music publisher or some of the perfectly silly things that girls get into their heads." "I always say of myself that I must have been born with a wooden spoon in my mouth. Took to hardware from the very start. Left my stepfather's farm and general store at fifteen and made a bee line for the hardware business before I hardly knew what hardware meant. I suppose I'll die with my nose to one of those very grindstones we carry in stock and be buried with one of those same wooden spoons in my mouth. Although I always say, no burial for mine. Burn me up--cremate me when I'm finished here." "Papa is that way, too, about his business, I mean. Tied up in twine, I tell him." "Just ask your father if he knows Albert Penny, Miss Becker. Queer how things happen. This very day I turned over a memorandum to the head of my department, advising a certain buy in hemp rope, Becker and Co. in the back of my head all the time." At eleven o'clock the first guest rose to go, Lilly following immediate suit. His state of eagerness rose redly to his ears. "Will you permit me to escort you home, Miss Becker?" "Why, yes, if it won't upset Flora's plans for me. I only live two blocks over on Page." "I wish you lived as far as Carondalet," he said, choking over words too strange to be his. They walked home through quiet streets that smelled sweetly and moistly. He was scrupulously careful of her at crossings, his tingling fingers closing over the roundest part of her arm, the warmth of her shining through to the fabric of her eider-down-bordered cape, lending it a vibrant living quality that thrilled him. "I certainly have enjoyed a perfect evening, Miss Becker." The magic of youth stole out of the citified night upon her. "See!" she cried, her arm darting out of her cape, "that's Taurus up there. I can always tell him. He's green. See how he glitters to-night. Sometimes I feel sorry for Taurus. It's as if his little emerald soul is bursting to twinkle itself out of the monotony of all the white ones. That's what they were at the party to-night, all white. All of a color." "Except you." "Oh! Do you know the names of the stars, Mr. Penny?" "I know the Dipper. It's our trade-mark, you know. That's how I happened to work out our nest of aluminum dippers. Wonder if you wouldn't permit me to bring you out a set of those dippers, Miss Becker. All sizes fitted into one another. Just a little kitchen novelty you might enjoy." They were at her front steps now, the hall light flickering out over them. "I just certainly have enjoyed this evening, Miss Becker."