protect. And she wanted someone she had known a long while, someone
who had loved her a long while. She was a little tired; she wanted to
get married. Out of a pile of letters, half a dozen pictures and as
many memories, and this weariness, she had decided that next time she
saw Gordon their relations were going to be changed. She would say
something that would change them. There was this evening. This was her
evening. All evenings were her evenings.

Then her thoughts were interrupted by a solemn undergraduate with a
hurt look and an air of strained formality who presented himself
before her and bowed unusually low. It was the man she had come with,
Peter Himmel. He was tall and humorous, with horned-rimmed glasses and
an air of attractive whimsicality. She suddenly rather disliked
him--probably because he had not succeeded in kissing her.

"Well," she began, "are you still furious at me?"

"Not at all."

She stepped forward and took his arm.

"I'm sorry," she said softly. "I don't know why I snapped out that
way. I'm in a bum humor to-night for some strange reason. I'm sorry."

"S'all right," he mumbled, "don't mention it."

He felt disagreeably embarrassed. Was she rubbing in the fact of his
late failure?

"It was a mistake," she continued, on the same consciously gentle key.