“Oh, we used to have all kinds of sport,” Guy replied, feeling the difficulty of explaining to the feminine mind matters exclusively masculine. “And didn’t you do any work at all in college?” Fanny cried, petulantly, with the exaction of serious accomplishment that all women make from men. “Ye-e-s,” Guy replied. “I used to work pretty hard at examination times. But I wasn’t a grind, you know,” he added, quickly, as if defending himself from a reproach. “What’s a grind?” “Why, a fellow that does nothing but study--just grubs. It’s awful to be like that!” Fanny sat upright again. “Well, I declare!” she said. Then she sighed. “You’re the funniest thing!” “There were some fellows I knew,” Guy conceded, “who could do a lot of work and yet go in for all the society things; but they were wonders. I never pretended to be much at study, you know. If I got through my ‘exams’ by the skin of my teeth I considered myself lucky.” Fanny looked at him thoughtfully. “Well, you’re kind of a nice boy, just the same.” She cuddled in the corner of the chair and crossed her arms, her hands clasping her shoulders. “I never was much at lessons myself,” she admitted. Then she turned quickly toward the door. “_’Sh!_ I see some people coming.” From the hall they heard a woman’s voice. “Well, I declare! I feel played out. I’ve done nothing but bump against people all the evening; all kinds of people, too. I never saw so many nationalities in all my life.” “It’s Mrs. Burrell,” Fanny whispered. “You know her, don’t you?--that queer old woman from Maine, with the three daughters. Let’s go out.” Mrs. Burrell had entered the room, and started on discovering Guy. Fanny was hidden behind the back of her chair. “Excuse me, if we’re intruding,” she said to Guy, with effusive politeness and a bow that somehow suggested an intended curtsey. Fanny lifted her head like a Jack-in-the-box. “Oh, not at all, Mrs. Burrell. How d’you do?” The old woman started. “How you scared me!” Three young girls had come into the room, followed by a youth whose deep black and carefully curled mustache at once revealed his race. A shriveled little man with thin white hair and beardless, wrinkled face, enlivened by a pair of keen eyes, walked loosely behind. Fanny nodded to the girls and rose from her seat. The Frenchman greeted her with an elaborate bow. Guy looked uncomfortable, but Fanny did not try to relieve his embarrassment by introducing him. It was Mrs. Burrell who broke the silence. “Ain’t it fine here to-night?” she said. “Well, Washington’s a wonderful place! Here’s Emeline’s been speakin’ French to Musseer de Lange on one side, and Gladys has been talking German to--” She looked round at the girls. “Where is he?” she asked. “I think we have lost ’eem in the crowd,” the Frenchman explained, with a look of distress on his face. He had evidently been having a hard time. “I guess Gladys’s German was too much for him,” said the tallest and the least pretty of the girls.