"Oh, well," observed Garrison, "I dare say any number of girls loved
Billy Garrison. Popular idol, you know----"

"I dare say," she echoed dryly. "Possibly the dark, clinging kind."

He eyed her wonderingly, but she was looking very innocently at the
peregrinating chipmunk.

"And it was so funny," she ran on, as if she had not heard his
observation nor made one herself. "Coming home in the train from the
Aqueduct the evening of the handicap, father left me for a moment to go
into the smoking-car. And who do you think should be sitting opposite
me, two seats ahead, but--Who do you think?" Again she turned and held
his eyes.

"Why--some long-lost girl-chum, I suppose," said Garrison candidly.

She laughed; a laugh that died and was reborn and died again in a
throaty gurgle. "Why, no, it was Billy Garrison himself. And I was being
annoyed by a beast of a man, when Mr. Garrison got up, ordered the beast
out of the seat beside me, and occupied it himself, saying it was his.
It was done so beautifully. And he did not try to take advantage of his
courtesy in the least. And then guess what happened." Still her eyes
held his.

"Why," answered Garrison vaguely, "er--let me see. It seems as if I had
heard of that before somewhere. Let me see. Probably it got into the
papers--No, I cannot remember. It has gone. I have forgotten. And what
did happen next?"