"I suppose," Mrs. Dowling interrupted, piteously, "I suppose it
doesn't matter what _I_ think!"

"Oh, gracious!"

Alice interfered; she perceived that the ruthless Mrs. Dowling
meant to have her way. "I think you'd better go, Frank.
Really."

"There!" his mother cried. "Miss Adams says so, herself! What
more do you want?"

"Oh, gracious!" he lamented again, and, with a sick look over his
shoulder at Alice, permitted his mother to take his arm and
propel him away. Mrs. Dowling's spirits had strikingly
recovered even before the pair passed from the corridor: she
moved almost bouncingly beside her embittered son, and her eyes
and all the convolutions of her abundant face were blithe.

Alice went in search of Walter, but without much hope of finding
him. What he did with himself at frozen-face dances was one of
his most successful mysteries, and her present excursion gave her
no clue leading to its solution. When the musicians again
lowered their instruments for an interval she had returned,
alone, to her former seat within the partial shelter of the
box-trees.

She had now to practice an art that affords but a limited variety
of methods, even to the expert: the art of seeming to have an
escort or partner when there is none. The practitioner must