But,--should old acquaintance be forgot?" she hummed. He was still a spoilt boy who had to be coaxed into good humor. "You know what I mean, Evelyn. I feel a particular interest in having you start right here, now that you've come home to stay. People will be surprised to hear of your taking a part like that; they want to take you seriously. You've been to college--" "Oh, Warry!" she cried appealingly. "And are you to throw this at me? A few minutes ago you were complaining that people wouldn't take you seriously, but I'm afraid they want to take me much too seriously. I don't like it! In fact, I don't intend to have it!" "But you don't mean to get down to a level with these girls who've been ground out of boarding schools, and who don't know anything? The kind that play badly on the piano, or sing worse, and come home to mix Fifth Avenue boarding school with Missouri River every-day life!" "I'm really disappointed in you. I supposed you weren't like the others. A few days ago some estimable women called here to get me to become a candidate for school commissioner. They talked beautifully to me. There was one of them, a Miss Morris--" Raridan extended his arms to Heaven, as if imploring mercy--"who told me that I was a bachelor of arts and that all kinds of things were therefore to be expected of me." "But I don't mean that! It's just that sort of thing I think you ought to keep free from,--it's this awful publicity; it's making yourself public property! Women must keep out of such things. School commissioner!" His spirits were rising again and he laughed aloud. "Wouldn't you vote for me?" He stared. "You're not going to--" "Decidedly not. I want you to understand, and everybody to find out that I'm a very ordinary being. I hope if I've learned anything in college it's common sense. I don't feel a bit interested in regulating the universe, or in getting more rights for women, or in politics of any kind, any more than every sane woman is interested in such things. About this carnival and the ball, I don't mind telling you that I dislike it particularly. But I'm going to do it for two reasons, to be much franker with you than you deserve; to please father, for whom I can do very little, and to set at rest this idea about my being a divinely gifted individual who has come home from college to rub up the universe with a witch cloth. And now, Warrick Raridan, we will, if you please, consider the incident closed; and if you are very good you may dance with me at the ball." "Oh, the noble king will have first place there." "Well, if you're the king you can't object," she said. "I'm sure I don't know who the king's to be--" "Well, I do--" "Then you needn't tell me, please. I want to be surprised."