“I can’t believe it! But Leila just telephoned for us to come out to Deer Trail and bring any of Dale’s crowd who look amusing. That includes you, of course, Mr. Storrs. Everyone’s gone but Helen Torrence and Fred Thomas and Arthur Carroll. Mr. Mills is at the farm; it’s a fad of his to have Sunday supper in the country. Leila hates it and sent out an S. O. S., so we can’t desert her. No, Mr. Storrs, you can’t duck! Millicent is there--that may add to the attractions!” This with a meaningful glance at Bruce prompted him to say that Miss Harden’s presence hardly diminished the attractions of the farm. There was real comedy in his inability to extricate himself from the net in which he constantly found himself enmeshed with the members of the house of Mills. In discussing who had a car and who hadn’t, Freeman said his machine was working badly, to which Shepherd replied that there was plenty of room in his limousine for the Freemans and any others who were carless. “Mr. Storrs will want to take his car,” said Constance. “He oughtn’t really to drive out alone----” “Not alone, certainly not!” Bruce replied. “I shall be honored if you will drive with me!” II “You didn’t mind?” asked Constance when Bruce got his car under way. “You mean do I mind driving you out? Please don’t make me say how great the pleasure is!” “You’re poking fun at me; you always do!” “Never! Why, if I followed my inclinations I’d come trotting up to your house every day. But it wouldn’t do. You know that!” “But I wouldn’t want you to do that--not unless you----” There was a bridge to cross and the pressure of traffic at the moment called for care in negotiating it. “What were you saying?” he asked as they turned off the brilliantly lighted boulevard. The town lay behind and they moved through open country. “You know,” she said, “I gave you the sign that I wanted to be friends. I had a feeling you knew I needed----” “What?” he demanded, curious as to the development of her technic. “Oh, just a little attention! I’ve tried in every way to tell you that I’m horribly lonely.” “But you oughtn’t to be!” he said, vaguely conscious that they were repeating themselves. “Oh, I know what you think! You think I ought to be very content and happy. But happiness isn’t so easy! We don’t get it just by wishing.” “I suppose it’s the hardest thing in the world to find,” he assented. It was now quite dark and the stars hung brilliant in the cloudless heavens. In her fur coat, with a smart toque to match, Constance had not before seemed so beguiling. His meeting with her in the lonely road with George Whitford and her evident wish not to be seen that day by Franklin Mills or the members of his riding party had rather shaken his first assumption that she could be classified as a harmless flirt. Tonight he didn’t care particularly. If Franklin Mills’s daughter-in-law wanted to flirt with him he was ready to meet her halfway.