“And you recognized me here in the box and that’s why—Dar-rling—” the endearment was drawled with a brief glance toward her relative—“isn’t that just too utterly romantic?”

“I hope, Irene, not too utterly.”

Jane’s quiet reply started a smile wreathing around the little circle, evidently of amusement over the child-vamp’s personal assumption of all honors.

Samuel Allen interposed in a tone of butter-melting benignity: “Any friend of Miss Lauderdale is more than welcome to our city so far as I am concerned.”

“Rawther! And welcome—thrice welcome to our midst,” the madcap again interpolated, seizing one of his large, brown hands in both her white, bejeweled, small ones.

“Dee-lighted!” Pape breathed, returning the extra shake.

Indeed, he felt delighted. She was Miss Jane Lauderdale, the reserved, long-haired relative of this short-haired enthusiast. And she wore no engagement ring—not any ring on any finger. He could only hope that she had no “understanding” with the good-looking chap ranged beside her. If so, she’d have to be made to mis-understand. She was more flustered over his acceptance of the unconscious invitation of that long, strange, magnified look than she had at first appeared. That showed in the tight clutch of her fingers on her feather fan. And she was taller than he had calculated—just enough shorter than he for ideal dancing. One thing about her he needed to decide, but couldn’t. Did she or did she not know that she didn’t know him?

But he must pay attention. Irene, continuing to baby-vamp him, waved him into the chair beside that into which she had sunk. Although of necessity she had dropped his hand she released neither his interest nor his eyes.

“You must be just a terribly important person to be flashed all over Broadway in that rosy wreath. I don’t blame your friends, though, for feeling a bit extravagant over you. We were talking about the sign before you came in—were guessing what kingdom you belong to, animal, vegetable or mineral. Millsy Harford here held out that you were more likely some manufactured product than anti-fat. Isn’t it all quite too funny for anything?”

“My folks used to say, from the rate of speed at which I grew up—” Pape applied to his ready store of persiflage—“that I was more like a vegetable than a boy. I always thought I was animal, judging by my appetite, you know. But my 

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