gone—.”

“Yes—and not another until after ten, and not a halfpenny in my pocket to buy a ticket, and no one but a callous wretch of a porter to consult. Oh, Dan, I was wretched—I’ll bless you all my life for coming back like this!”

“Rot!” said Dan briskly. “I was the only man. Couldn’t do anything else. I say, you know, it was your doing that I came to this blessed old picnic at all, and you have let me in for a day! Eleven to eleven before we’ve done with it—twelve solid hours! I’ve had about as much picnic as I want for the rest of my natural life.”

“I’m sorry. I thought it would be so nice. I’m sorry I bothered you, Dan.” Darsie was tired and cold, in a condition of physical depression which made her peculiarly sensitive to a slighting mood. She leaned her head against the ugly wall, and shut her lids over her smarting eyes. Her cheeks were white. Her lips quivered like a wearied child’s, but she made a charming picture all the same, her inherent picturesqueness showing itself even in this moment of collapse.

Dan’s gaze grew first sympathetic, then thoughtful, as he looked. In a dim, abstract way he had been conscious that Darsie Garnett was what he would have described as “a pretty kid,” but the charm of her personality had never appealed to him until this moment. Now, as he looked at the dark eyelashes resting on the white cheek, the droop of the curved red lips, the long, slim throat that seemed to-night almost too frail to support the golden head, a feeling of tenderness stirred at his heart. She was such a tiny scrap of a thing, and she had been tired and frightened. What a brute he was to be so gruff and ungracious! “Buck up, Darsie! Only ten minutes more to wait. I’ll get you a cup of coffee when we arrive. Your mother said we were to take a cab, so all the worry’s over and nothing but luxury ahead.”

But Darsie, quick to note the soothing effect of her prostration, refused to “buck up,” and looked only more worn and pathetic than before. The opportunity of lording it over Dan was too precious to be neglected, so she blinked at him with languid eyes, and said faintly—

“I’ll try, but I’m so very tired! Do you think you could talk to me, Dan, and amuse me a little bit? That would pass the time. Tell me about yourself, and all you are going to do when you go up to Cambridge.”

And to his own astonishment Dan found himself responding to her request. His was one of the silent, reserved natures which find it difficult to 

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