window-panes across the way. For some reason this exceedingly nice-
looking young man was in a state of extreme nervousness, a condition
which, luckily for him, he was able to keep within himself.

And this was what Mrs. Scudaway was saying in an urgent undertone to
the half dozen who leaned across the big table: "Joe is a mighty good
sort, and I'm sorry for him. He's been good enough for Eleanor
Thursdale ever since she came out two years ago, and I don't see why
he should cease being good enough for her now. This Englishman hasn't
any more money and he isn't half as good looking. He's English, that's
all. Her mother's crazy to have a look in at some of those London
functions she's read so much about. She's an awful ass, don't you
think, Tommy?"

"Ya-as," said the blase man; "such as she is."

"Mighty hard lines, this thing of being an ordinary American,"
lamented the placid bore.

"One might just as well be called Abraham or Isaac," reflected Carter.

"No romantic young lover would live through the first chapter with
either of those names," said pretty Miss Ratliff, who read every novel
that came out.

"Dauntless has been terribly out of humour for the past week or two,"
said Carter. "He's horribly cut up over the affair,--grouchy as
blazes, and flocks by himself all the time. That's not like him,
either."