"The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders!" quoted the Colonel
good-humoredly.

"The next question is, on whose shoulders shall the task of beguilement
fall?" Travers went on, glancing at Stafford. "I suppose you, O, wise
young judge--?"

"It is out of the question," Stafford answered at once. "I consider I have
done enough damage already."

"What about your serpent's tongue, Travers?" suggested Webb. "When I think
of the follies you have tempted me to commit, I feel that you should be
unanimously elected."

Travers bowed his acknowledgments with mock gravity.

"Since there are no other candidates, I accept the onerous task," he said,
"but I can not go about it single-handed. The serpent's tongue may be
mine, but I lack, I fear, the grace and personal charm necessary for
complete conquest. I need the help of Circe, herself." His bright,
bird-like eye passed over the laughing group, resting on Lois an instant
with an expression of woebegone regret. Beatrice Cary was the next in
line, and his search went no farther than her flushed, eager face. "Ah!"
he exclaimed, "I have found the enchantress herself! Miss----" He
hesitated, for an instant unaccountably shaken out of his debonair
self-possession. Webb sprang to the rescue with a formal introduction, and
Travers proceeded, if not entirely with his old equanimity. "I beg your
pardon, Miss Cary," he apologized. "Your face is, strangely enough, so
familiar to me that I took you for an old acquaintance--perhaps, indeed,