"Where did you go to school?"

"At Elm Court School, near New York. For just a year."

He shook his head with an air of relief. "Never was engaged to
anybody's roommate there.... But if you'd rather not have my
background painted----"

"_Much_ rather not," said the girl gaily. "Why, half the romance, I
mean the fun, of meeting people abroad is _not_ knowing anything
about them beforehand."

The music was beginning again. Unwillingly the remembrance of the
outer world beat back into Billy's mind. Unhappily he became aware
that the room appeared blackened with young men in evening clothes,
staring ominously his way.

Squarely he stood in front of the girl. "I think this is the encore
to our dance," he told her with a little smile.

She shook her pretty head laughingly at him--and then yielded to his
clasping hands. "But we must dance back to the Evershams," she
demurred. "It is time for us to go to our concert."

But Billy had no intention of relinquishing her before the music
ceased. It was a one step, and it carried them with it in a gaiety
of rhythm to which the girl gave herself with the light-hearted
abandon of a romping child. Her light feet seemed scarcely to brush
the floor; the delicate flush of her cheeks deepened with the
stirring blood; her lips parted breathlessly over white little