"Won't you stay--won't you wait just for this one, Sissy?" begged Fred. "Why--certainly," acquiesced the gentle Sissy. Split gasped with amazement. But she wasted no time, throwing off her jacket with a quick twist of her wrist. Later she might fathom the tortuosities of her tyrant's mind. All she knew now was that she might dance. With whom was a small matter to Split Madigan. Sissy watched her dance away, delight and malice in her eye. She was watching till Mr. Morrow from the city should behold her revenge. But Crosby did not know this, and he had plans of his own. "Come and play a game over in the corner, just till this dance's over, won't you, Sissy?" "What kind of a game?" she demanded, following him mechanically. "Oh, a new game. It's lots of fun. I'll show you." Sissy consented. She could play a game--and she knew she was clever at all games--without fear of betrayal from that red sham which she had been fiercely sitting upon half the afternoon. Before long, her emulative spirit got her so interested in this particular game that she forgot not only the sham skirt but the sham pretense upon which she had bullied Irene. And she played so well that there was only one forfeit against her name, though Crosby, who had named himself treasurer, held half the bangle bracelets and pins and handkerchiefs of the little circle as evidence of dereliction in others. He called her name first, as he stood with her little turquoise ring in his hand and an odd light in his eye that might have enlightened her; but she was looking toward the door, where the young gentleman from San Francisco, in a Byronic pose, was staring gloomily at Irene dancing with a rival, and so joying in the dance that she had forgotten all about him. "Open your mouth and shut your eyes, And I'll give you something to make you wise," chanted Crosby, holding out the ring and beckoning to her. Closing her eyes upon the spectacle of Mr. Morrow's suffering, Sissy opened a mouth about which the malicious smile still lingered. Crosby hesitated a moment. He was very much afraid of her, but as she stood, docile and innocent, before him, with her eyes shut and her tiny red mouth open, he could not fancy consequences nearly so well as he could picture the thing his wish painted. In a moment he had realized it, and Sissy, overwhelmed by astonishment, dumb and impotent with the audacity of the unexpected, felt his arms close about her and his greedy lips upon hers. Oh, the rage and shame of the proper Sissy! Her mouth fell shut and her eyes flew open. And then, if she could, she would have closed them forever; for, before her in the sudden silence, towering above the triumphant and unrepentant Crosby, stood Mrs. Pemberton, a portentous figure of shocked matronly disapproval. And she promptly placed the blame where mothers of sons have placed it since the first similar impropriety was discovered.