"Great!" he exclaimed, mechanically. "Now let's get out of
here--out of THIS room, anyhow."

"Why? What's the matter with----"

"My mother," Mr. Dowling explained. "But don't look at her.
She keeps motioning me to come and see after Ella, and I'm simply
NOT going to do it, you see!"

Alice laughed. "I don't believe it's so much that," she said,
and consented to walk with him to a point in the next room from
which Mrs. Dowling's continuous signalling could not be seen.
"Your mother hates me."

"Oh, no; I wouldn't say that. No, she don't," he protested,
innocently. "She don't know you more than just to speak to, you
see. So how could she?"

"Well, she does. I can tell."

A frown appeared upon his rounded brow. "No; I'll tell you the
way she feels. It's like this: Ella isn't TOO popular, you
know--it's hard to see why, because she's a right nice girl, in
her way--and mother thinks I ought to look after her, you see.
She thinks I ought to dance a whole lot with her myself, and stir
up other fellows to dance with her--it's simply impossible to
make mother understand you CAN'T do that, you see. And then
about me, you see, if she had her way I wouldn't get to dance
with anybody at all except girls like Mildred Palmer and