“That isn’t pretty!” And Patty frowned at him.  “There ought to be another subject more interesting to you than that!”

“There is; but I don’t dare trust myself with her!”

Mr. Bell’s manner and voice were so exactly the right mixture of deferential homage and burlesque that Patty laughed in delight.

“You are the dearest man!” she cried.

He looked at her reproachfully.  “You said I might do all the talking, and now you’re doing it yourself.”

“I’ll be still now.  Avoid that subject you consider dangerous and tell me all about yourself.”

“Well, once upon a time, there was a beautiful young man who rejoiced in the poetic and musical name of Eddie Bell.  I know he was a beautiful young man, because he was said to resemble the most beautiful girl in the whole world.  Well, one evening he had the supreme good fortune to meet this girl, and he realised at once that he had met his Fate,—­his Fate with a very large F. Incidentally, the F stood for Fairfield, which made his Fate all the more certain.  And so——­”

“Patty, are you here?” and Ken Harper came through the palms toward them.  “This is our dance.”

“Good gracious, Ken, is this dance the next dance?  I mean is this dance over, or is this dance our dance.”

“You seem a little mixed, Patty, but this is our dance and I claim it.  Are you rested enough?”

Patty rose and, with a simple word of excuse to Mr. Bell, went away with Kenneth.

“That’s the first time, Ken, in all our friendship that I ever knew you to say anything horrid,” and Patty looked at him with a really hurt expression.

“I didn’t say anything horrid,” and Kenneth’s fine face wore a sulky expression.

“You did, too.  You asked me if I were rested in a horrid, sarcastic tone; and you meant it for a reproof, because I sat out that dance with Mr. Bell.”

“You had no business to go and hide behind those palms with him.”

“We didn’t hide!  That’s only a bay-window alcove,—­a part of the ballroom.  I have a perfect right to sit out a dance if I choose.”

“That young chap was too familiar, anyway.  I heard him calling you ‘Cousin Patty.’”

“Oh, fiddlestrings, Ken!  Don’t be an idiot!  We were only joking.  And I’m not so old, yet, but what I can let a boy call me by my first name if I choose.  When I’m twenty I’m going to be Miss Fairfield; but while I’m nineteen anybody can call me Patty,—­if I give him permission.”

“You’re a flirt, Patty.”

“All right, Ken.  Flirt with me, won’t you?” Patty’s roguish blue eyes looked at Kenneth with such a frank and friendly glance that he couldn’t scold her any more.

“I can’t flirt with you, Patty.  I’m not that sort.  You know very well I’ve only a plain, plodding sort of a mind, and I can’t keep up with this repartee and persiflage that you carry on with these other chaps.”