The pianist struck a chord, and the children lined up, the girls on one side, the boys on the other, a long line, with Mrs. Van Buren in the center.  Another chord, rather a long one.  Mrs. Van Buren curtsied to the girls.  The line dipped, wavered, recovered itself.  Mrs. Van Buren turned.  Another chord.  The boys bent, rather too much, from the waist, while Mrs. Van Buren swept another deep curtsey.  The music now, very definite as to time.  Glide and short step to the right.  Glide and short step to the left.  Dancing school had commenced.  Outside were long lines of motors waiting.  The governesses chatted, and sometimes embroidered.  Mademoiselle tatted.

Alton Denslow was generally known as Pink, but the origin of the name was shrouded in mystery.  As “Pink” he had learned to waltz at the dancing class, at a time when he was more attentive to the step than to the music that accompanied it.  As Pink Denslow he had played on a scrub team at Harvard, and got two broken ribs for his trouble, and as Pink he now paid intermittent visits to the Denslow Bank, between the hunting season in October and polo at eastern fields and in California.  At twenty-three he was still the boy of the dancing class, very careful at parties to ask his hostess to dance, and not noticeably upset when she did, having arranged to be cut in on at the end of the second round.

Pink could not remember when he had not been in love with Lily Cardew.  There had been other girls, of course, times when Lily seemed far away from Cambridge, and some other fair charmer was near.  But he had always known there was only Lily.  Once or twice he would have become engaged, had it not been for that.  He was a blond boy, squarely built, good-looking without being handsome, and on rainy Sundays when there was no golf he went quite cheerfully to St. Peter’s with his mother, and watched a pretty girl in the choir.

He wished at those times that he could sing.

A pleasant cumberer of the earth, he had wrapped his talents in a napkin and buried them by the wayside, and promptly forgotten where they were.  He was to find them later on, however, not particularly rusty, and he increased them rather considerably before he got through.

It was this pleasant cumberer of the earth, then, who on the morning after Lily’s return, stopped his car before the Cardew house and got out.  Immediately following his descent he turned, took a square white box from the car, ascended the steps, settled his neck in his collar and his tie around it, and rang the bell.

The second man, hastily buttoned into his coat and with a faint odor of silver polish about him, opened the door.  Pink gave him his hat, but retained the box firmly.

“Mrs. Cardew and Miss Cardew at home?” he asked.  “Yes?  Then you might tell Grayson I’m here to luncheon—­unless the family is lunching out.”

“Yes, sir,” said the footman.  “No, sir, they are lunching at home.”