"Honey boy," cried Marcia, laughing, "is it that you want to kiss
me?"

"Yes," Horace almost shouted. "I'll kiss you if you want me to."

The elevator man was looking at them reproachfully. Marcia edged
toward the grated door.

"I'll drop you a post-card," she said.

Horace's eyes were quite wild.

"Send me a post-card! I'll come up any time after January first.
I'll be eighteen then."

And as she stepped into the elevator he coughed enigmatically,
yet with a vague challenge, at the calling, and walked quickly
away.



III


He was there again. She saw him when she took her first glance
at the restless Manhattan audience--down in the front row with
his head bent a bit forward and his gray eyes fixed on her. And
she knew that to him they were alone together in a world where
the high-rouged row of ballet faces and the massed whines of the