.

I say, ought we to go away and leave Winthrop's thumb in his mouth ?" "I guess I can get it out without waking him," whispered Gerard.

A moment later he accomplished the office, leaned down and drew the bed-covers closer to Tina's dimpled chin, then grasped Selwyn above the elbow in sudden alarm: "If that trained terror, Miss Paisely, finds us in here when she comes from dinner, we'll both catch it! Come on; I'll turn off the light.

Anyway, we ought to have been dressed long ago; but you insisted on butting in here." In the hallway below they encountered a radiant and bewildering vision awaiting them: Eileen, in all her glory.
"Wonderful!" said Gerard, patting the vision's rounded bare arm as he hurried past--"fine gown! fine girl!--but I've got to dress and so has Philip--" He meant well.
"_Do_ you like it, Captain Selwyn ?" asked the girl, turning to confront him, where he had halted.

"Gerald isn't coming and--I thought perhaps you'd be interested--" The formal, half-patronising compliment on his tongue's tip remained there, unsaid.