might possibly have been only the table leg. It was so hard to tell.
Still it thrilled him. He wondered quickly if there would be any
difficulty in securing the little den up-stairs.

* * * *

BABES IN THE WOODS

Isabelle and Amory were distinctly not innocent, nor were they
particularly brazen. Moreover, amateur standing had very little value in
the game they were playing, a game that would presumably be her principal
study for years to come. She had begun as he had, with good looks and an
excitable temperament, and the rest was the result of accessible popular
novels and dressing-room conversation culled from a slightly older set.
Isabelle had walked with an artificial gait at nine and a half, and
when her eyes, wide and starry, proclaimed the ingenue most. Amory was
proportionately less deceived. He waited for the mask to drop off,
but at the same time he did not question her right to wear it.
She, on her part, was not impressed by his studied air of blasé
sophistication. She had lived in a larger city and had slightly an
advantage in range. But she accepted his pose--it was one of the dozen
little conventions of this kind of affair. He was aware that he was
getting this particular favor now because she had been coached; he knew
that he stood for merely the best game in sight, and that he would
have to improve his opportunity before he lost his advantage. So they
proceeded with an infinite guile that would have horrified her parents.

After the dinner the dance began . . . smoothly. Smoothly?--boys cut
in on Isabelle every few feet and then squabbled in the corners with:
"You might let me get more than an inch!" and "She didn't like it either--