"Never mind," Alice said in a tired voice. "The maid fixed it so
that she says it isn't very noticeable."

"Well, it isn't," he returned. "You could hardly tell there'd
been anything the matter. Where do you want to go? Mother's
been interfering in my affairs some more and I've got the next
taken."

"I was sitting with Mrs. George Dresser. You might take me back
there."

He left her with the matron, and Alice returned to her
picture-making, so that once more, while two numbers passed,
whoever cared to look was offered the sketch of a jolly, clever
girl preoccupied with her elders. Then she found her friend
Mildred standing before her, presenting Mr. Arthur Russell, who
asked her to dance with him.

Alice looked uncertain, as though not sure what her engagements
were; but her perplexity cleared; she nodded, and swung
rhythmically away with the tall applicant. She was not grateful
to her hostess for this alms. What a young hostess does with a
fiance, Alice thought, is to make him dance with the unpopular
girls. She supposed that Mr. Arthur Russell had already danced
with Ella Dowling.

The loan of a lover, under these circumstances, may be painful to
the lessee, and Alice, smiling never more brightly, found nothing
to say to Mr. Russell, though she thought he might have found