It may have been the liquid refreshment which finally gave him courage to propose to Joan that she stroll with him around the ring, as she had strolled with others. At any rate, he shortly found himself part of that meandering show of débutantes and others, which rivaled, if it did not eclipse, the exhibit on the tanbark. He, Archie Blair, in a high silk topper, escorting a vision in a picture-hat with a plume, and a long gray velvet coat, and silvery furs around her neck, the price of which would almost have bought him an education! He felt that at any moment a bouncer might discover him, and walk up to murmur sinisterly in his ear, "Out this way!" But none did. Now and then Joan stopped and introduced him to other visions, who gushed and babbled, asking whether she was going to So-and-so's luncheon, and who was taking her to such-and-such a cotillion, and what she was going to wear to the next costume ball. He noticed that she neither gushed nor babbled in return, but seemed pleasantly aloof, a little _distrait_, as if she were an older woman listening to children. "Business of being a society girl," he commented once, half to himself. She gave him a smiling glance. "Yes," she said, "it has a lingo like any other trade." "But _you_ don't speak it." "I think perhaps it's not my trade." He asked, greatly daring, "What is, then?" "I don't know," said Joan, "yet." Just then a rather dissipated-looking boy with his hat on the back of his head passed them, and paused. "Oh, Blair!" he said, lifting his hat to Joan. "Hello, Carmichael!" Archie greeted him. "My sister told me to tell you you'd better come to our box and apologize. She says you were to take supper with her at some ball or other, and never turned up." "Oh, gee!" exclaimed Archie, remorsefully, "I forgot it; clean as a whistle!" "Better come and grovel, then," grinned the other, and passed on. Joan looked at him in amusement. "Do you mean to say you never took Emily Carmichael out to supper after she had asked you to? What are you going to say to her?" "That I forgot," said Archie simply. He certainly could not explain that the cause of his forgetfulness was the _contretemps_ of having requested his hostess under a misapprehension to leave her own entertainment! Joan chuckled. "Well! I'm certainly glad I didn't ask you to have supper with me!" "I wouldn't have forgotten that," said Archibald. She looked at him out of the corner of her eyes. It was said neither shyly not gallantly nor boldly, simply as a statement of fact. Joan was very tired of flirtation just then. She shied away from any hint of the personal like a burnt child in the vicinity of fire. She had no desire for further victims of her bow and spear; but she did want friends. It occurred to her that this frank, tactless, simple young man might do very well in that capacity.