The poor youth sat staring at her, unable to believe his ears. And so, of course, Sylvia began to feel sorry for him. “I can see,” she said, “that there might be something in you to like—if only you had the courage to be yourself. But you’re so terrorized by your aunts and uncles, you’ve let them make you into such a dreadful snob——” She paused. “You really think I am a snob?” he cried. “The worst I ever met. I couldn’t bring myself to discuss it with you. Let me give you this one piece of advice, though; if you think you’re too good to marry a girl, pray find it out before you tell her that you love her. Of course, I’m not sorry that it happened this time, for you won’t break Harriet’s heart, and she’s a thousand times too good for you. So I’m not sorry that you’ve lost her.” “You—you think that I’ve lost her, Miss Sylvia?” gasped the other. “Lost her?” echoed Sylvia. “Why, you don’t mean—” But then she stopped. She must not make it impossible for him to think of Harriet again. “You’ve lost her, unless she’s a great deal more generous than I’d ever be.” Beauregard took his drubbing very well. He persuaded Sylvia to discuss his snobbery with him, and confessed the offence, and got up quite a fire of indignation against his banded relatives. Also he admitted that Harriet was too good for him, and that he had treated her like a cad. His speeches grew shorter and his manner more anxious, and Sylvia could see that his main thought was to get back and find out if he’d really lost Harriet. So she called her friend up on the ’phone and announced, “He’s coming. Get on your prettiest dress without delay!” And then Sylvia went away and had a cry—first, because she had said such cruel things, and second, because her mother and father would be unhappy when they learned that Beauregard had escaped her. An hour later Harriet called up to say that it was all over. “Did you accept him?” asked Sylvia. To which the other answered, “You may trust me now, Sunny! You have made him into a soft dough, and I’ll knead him.” And sure enough, the new Beauregard Dabney sent his aunts and uncles flying, and followed Harriet to her summer home on the Gulf, and was hardly to be induced to wait for a conventional wedding—so eager was he to prove to himself and to Sylvia Castleman that he was really not a coward and a snob! § 31 It was in the midst of these adventures that Frank Shirley made his unexpected return from the North. On the day when he came to see her first, she naturally forgot about the existence of Beauregard Dabney—until Beauregard suddenly appeared and flew into a fit of jealousy. Then the imp of mischievousness got hold of Sylvia; she found herself wondering, “Would it be possible for Frank to be jealous of Beauregard? And if he was, how would he behave?”