Suddenly the mirth died out of him.  He lay still, conscious of a pain in his head and in his ankle and somewhere else—­an indeterminate spot deep in his being.  He had been forbidden to see the girl who ran away out into the night to look at the stars, the girl who had not laughed at his attempt to describe the white ecstasy of the winter moon.  He had frightened her—­disgusted her.  He must have been more drunk than he imagined.  It was disgusting—­and so hopeless.  Perhaps it would be better to leave Millings.

He sat up on the edge of his bed and let his hands hang limply down between his knees.  It seemed to him that his thoughts were like a wheel, half-submerged in running water.  The wheel went round rapidly, plunging in and out of his consciousness.  Hardly had he grasped the meaning of one half when it went under and another blur of moving spokes emerged.  Something his father had said, for instance, now began to pass through his mind....  “I’ve got my plans for her"....  Dickie tried to stop the turning wheel because this speech gave him a distinct feeling of anger and alarm.  By an effort of his will, he held it before his contemplation....  What possible plans could Sylvester have for Sheila?  Did she understand his plans?  Did she approve of them?  She was so young and small, with that sad, soft mouth and those shining, misty eyes.  Dickie, with almost a paternal air, shook his ruffled head.  He shut his eyes so that the long lashes stood out in little points.  A vision of those two faces—­Sheila’s so gleaming fair and open, Sylvester’s so dark and shut—­stood there to be compared.  Her guardian, indeed!

Dickie dressed slowly and dragged himself down to the desk, where very soberly and sadly he gave the key of the linen room to Mary.  Then he sat down, turned on the Victor, and lit a cigarette.  The “Duluth folks” had gone without any assistance from him.  There was nothing to do.  It occurred to Dickie, all at once, that in Millings there was always nothing to do.  Nothing, that is, for him to do.  Perhaps, after all, he didn’t like Millings.  Perhaps that was what was wrong with him.

The Victor was playing: 

“Here comes Tootsie,
Play a little music on the band. 
Here comes Tootsie,
Tootsie, you are looking simply grand. 
Play a little tune on the piccolo and flutes,
The man who wrote the rag wrote it especially for Toots. 
Here comes Tootsie—­play a little music on the band.”

On the last nasal note, the door of The Aura flew open and a resplendent figure crossed the chocolate-colored varnish of the floor.  Tootsie herself was not more “simply grand.”  This was a young man, perhaps it would be more descriptive to say the young man that accompanies the young woman on the cover of the average American magazine.  He had—­a nose, a chin, a beautiful mouth, large brown eyes, wavy chestnut hair, a ruddy complexion, and, what is not always given to the young man on the