he forgot to pay her and had to be reminded of that important duty
by Polly and all the boys in unison. There was a faint evasive trace
of perfume about her, more like the freshness of morning or the
delicacy of starlight than an actual essence, he vaguely thought
with a groping return to his poetic inclination. He felt the warmth
of her velvet cheek, even at its distance of a foot away, and there
seemed to be a pulsing thrill in the very air which intervened. For
a startled instant he found himself gazing deep down into her brown
eyes. In that instant her red lips curved in a fleeting smile--a
smile of the type which needs moist eyes to carry its tenderness. It
was all over in a flash, only a fragment of a second, which seemed a
blissful pulsing eternity; and at its conclusion he thought that her
finger quivered as it brushed his own, where he held out the lapel
of his coat, and her cheek paled ever so slightly--but these were
dreams, he knew.

"I'm next, I think," grated a usually suave voice which now had a
decided tinge of unpleasantness; and Paul Gresham, selecting a bunch
of violets from the tray, held them out toward Constance, impatient
to end the all too pretty tableau.

"Next and served," Polly briskly told him; and, taking the
boutonniere from his fingers, she whisked it into place and pinned
it and extracted his money--all apparently in one deft operation.

"Thanks," said Gresham, blinking with the suddenness of it all and
sweeping with a glance of gloomy dissatisfaction, Polly, the
bouquet, Constance and Johnny. "I thought you were to be in the
caramel booth, Constance."