For the first time in his memory he felt a stinging at his eyes, the desire for tears. He didn't misunderstand. Her use of his first name was not a precedent. It had been balm applied to a wound that she had only been able to see was painful. Yet, as he walked away with Goodhue, he felt as if he had been baptized again. XV Wandel, quite undisturbed, joined them. "You and Dicky," the little man said, "look as if you had come out of a bad wreck. What's up? It's only a game." "Of course you're right," George answered, "but you have to play some games desperately hard if you want to win." "Now what are you driving at, great man?" Wandel wanted to know. "Come on, Spike," Goodhue said, irritably. "You're always looking for double meanings." George walked on with them, desolately aware of many factors of his life gone awry. The game; Lambert's noticeable mockery, all the more unbearable because of its unaffectedness; Dalrymple's adjacence to Sylvia--these remembrances stung, the last most of all. "Come on up, you two," Goodhue suggested as they approached the building in which he lived, "I believe Dolly's giving tea to Sylvia Planter and her mother." George wanted to see if the photograph was still there, but he couldn't risk it. He shook his head. "Not into the camp of the enemy?" Wandel laughed. Of course, George told himself as he walked off, Wandel's words couldn't possibly have held any double meaning. He fought it out that night, sleeping scarcely at all. In the rush of his progress here he had failed to realize how little he had really advanced toward his ultimate goal. Lambert had offhand, perhaps unintentionally, shown him that afternoon how wide the intervening space still stretched. Was it because of moral cowardice that he shrank from challenging a crossing? The answer to such a challenge might easily mean the destruction of all he had built up, the heavy conditioning of his future which now promised so abundantly. He faced her picture with his eyes resolute, his jaw thrust out. "I'll do it," he told the lifeless print. "I'll make you know me. I'll teach your brother not to treat me as a servant who has forgotten his place." The last, in any case, couldn't be safely put off. Lambert's manner had already aroused Betty's interest. Had she known its cause she might not have resented it so sweetly for George. There was no point in fretting any more. His mind was made up to challenge at the earliest possible moment. In furtherance of his resolution he visited his tailor the next day, and during the evening called at the Baillys'. He came straight to the point. "I want some dancing lessons," he said. "Do you know anybody?" Bailly limped up, put his hands on George's shoulder, and studied him. "Is this traceable to Wandel?" "No. To what I told you last summer." "He's going to Betty Alston's dance," Mrs. Bailly cried. "If I'm asked," George admitted, "but as a general principle----"