bouquets upon them and exchanged laughing banter with them. 

 "Dreadful!" agreed the shocked thin one. "Those are the very wiles by which doll-faced stage women insnare our most desirable young men." 

 Constance looked about just then in search of Polly, and her eyes lighted as they saw Johnny standing with her. 

 "Oh, Polly!" she called. 

 "Coming, Constance!" returned the hearty and cheery voice of Polly from just behind the critics. 

 The ladies in lavender and orange were still gasping when Johnny Gamble passed them with Polly. He had made up his mind about the river-front property. 

 Loud acclaim hailed Polly and Johnny, for where they went there was zest of life; and the boys, knowing well that Johnny never wore flowers, made instant way for him at the violet booth. 

 "I'll take some blue ones, lady," announced Johnny gamely, intending to wear them with defiance. 

 "I'll give you the nearest we have, mister," laughed Constance, and promptly decorated him. 

 Since this was the closest her face and eyes had ever been to him, he forgot to pay her and had to be reminded of that important duty by Polly and all the boys in unison. There was a faint evasive trace of perfume about her, more like the freshness of morning or the delicacy of starlight than an actual essence, he vaguely thought with a groping return to his poetic inclination. He felt the warmth of her velvet cheek, even at its distance of a foot away, and there seemed to be a pulsing thrill in the very air which intervened. For a startled instant he found himself gazing deep down into her brown eyes. In that instant her red lips curved in a fleeting smile—a smile of the type which needs moist eyes to carry its tenderness. It was all over in a flash, only a fragment of a second, which seemed a blissful pulsing eternity; and at its conclusion he thought that her finger quivered as it brushed his own, where he held out the lapel of his coat, and her cheek paled ever so slightly—but these were dreams, he knew. 

 "I'm next, I think," grated a usually suave voice which now had a decided tinge of unpleasantness; and Paul Gresham, selecting a bunch of violets from the tray, held them out toward Constance, impatient to end the all too pretty tableau. 

 "Next and served," Polly briskly told 

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