he urged cordially; “I pretend I buy ’em for the girls, but I’m crazy about ’em myself,” He bit into one with an air of prodigious gusto, took off his hat, wiped his forehead, and looked at Sylvia with a relish as frank as his enjoyment of the bonbon.  “That’s a corking hat you got on,” he commented.  “Most girls would look like the old Harry with that dangling thing in their eyes, but you can carry it off all right.”

Sylvia’s face assumed a provocative expression.  “Did you ever make that remark to any other girl, I wonder?” she said reflectively.

He laughed aloud, eyeing her with appreciation, and clapping another large black chocolate into his mouth.  “You’re the prompt article, aren’t you?” he said.  He hitched himself over and leaned towards her.  “Something tells me I’m goin’ to have a good time at this house-party, what?”

Sylvia stiffened.  She did not like his sitting so close to her, she detected now on his breath a faint odor of alcohol, and she was afraid that Eleanor Hubert would think her lacking in dignity.  She regretted having succumbed to the temptation to answer him in his own tone; but, under her bravado, she was really somewhat apprehensive about this expedition, and she welcomed a diversion.  Besides, the voluble young man showed not the slightest sign of noting her attempt to rebuff him, and she found quite unavailing all her efforts to change the current of the talk, the loud, free-and-easy, personally admiring note of which had the effect on her nerves of a draught of raw spirits.  She did not enjoy the taste while it was being administered, but the effect was certainly stimulating, not to say exciting, and absorbed her attention so entirely that uncomfortable self-questionings were impossible.  She was also relieved to note that, although the young man flung himself about in the public conveyance with the same unceremonious self-assurance that he would have shown in a lady’s drawing-room, Eleanor Hubert, at the other end of the car, was apparently unaware of his presence.  Perhaps she too had some grounds for uncomfortable thought, for throughout the hour’s journey she continued to stare unseeingly out of the window, or to look down fixedly and rather sadly at her gloved hands.

Even through the confusion of her own ideas and plans, and the need for constant verbal self-defense against the encroaching familiarity of her companion, the notion flitted across Sylvia’s mind that probably Eleanor was thinking of the young assistant in chemistry.  How queer and topsy-turvy everything was, she reflected, as she bandied lively words with the lively young man at her side, continuing to eat his candies, although their rich, cloying taste had already palled on her palate—­here was Mrs. Hubert throwing Eleanor at Jerry’s head, when what Eleanor wanted was that queer, rough-neck freak of an assistant prof; and here were Jerry’s parents making such overtures to Sylvia, when what she wanted—­she didn’t know what she did want.  Yes, she did, she wanted a good time, which was somehow paradoxically hard to attain.  Something always kept spoiling it,—­half the time something intangible inside her own mind.  She gave the candy-box a petulant push.  “Oh, take it away!” she said impatiently; “I’ve eaten so many now, it makes me sick to look at them!”