Carl returned from the arduous task of dancing with his own sister (a task only to her brother; she, too, held court), and found Tommy marooned in the stag line. He introduced him to other girls, in whom Tommy found varying charm. Carl’s sister, a mature child of seventeen, wanted to know, “_Honestly_ now,” whether Carl drank at school. Tommy lied like a good roommate. He reflected philosophically on the oddness of sisters who went out constantly with men who drank, and yet expected total abstinence from their brothers. It was a reversal of the older custom of brothers who demanded impeccable behavior of their sisters; and yet-- Millicent passed. He cut-in. When they had danced half a dozen steps he lost her to another stag. She was annoyed, and the pressure of her hand as they parted was a little more than casual artifice. Millicent had early finished her appraisal of the men at the party. She knew that she was destined to meet most of them night after night for the next two weeks, and she planned eventualities. She planned to have half a dozen affairs; the holiday-loves, more evanescent even than summer-loves, that dwindled, after the two weeks, from special-delivery letters into abrupt silence. There would be one or two proposals, perhaps, in the last days--there had been three, at the end of the summer at Minnetonka. She catalogued the men, slowly: Eddie Pearson, nice enough--too nice, insipid; Orme Waldon, whom no amount of snubbing would rebuff; Stewart Holmes, whose egotism was such that he believed all girls secretly longed for his attentions; and so on. These were the last three of the summer’s garnerings. She wanted some one _new_. Tommy Squire. He seemed worth thinking about. Rather wise--he’d need angling to draw in. Idly she planned manoeuvres. Tommy cut-in again. She used the old effective artifice of asking him to keep her tiny handkerchief and vanity-case in his pocket. When she caught his eye, he was to understand that they were needed. Tommy smiled to himself. He understood. But Millicent did not need to use her vanity-case very often. Tommy kept on cutting-in. However, his manner was not gratifying. He was pleasant, impersonal, quizzical. He told her that she was rather the most attractive girl there--and added, thoughtfully, that there were lots more beautiful girls, in Richmond. “You’re absolutely _rude_, Mr. Squire!” Millicent wanted to be placated. He drew her out, and with skillful questions, sped with occasional compliments, he exposed her vanity. When she realized that, she retaliated--they understood one another, distantly still, and far beneath the surface of conversation. As he continued to cut in--alternating, rather from politeness, with Carl’s sister Joan--the stags, in a tacit agreement, let him have her more and more to himself. Joan did not like that. It was ahead of her plans.