At last he saw Claire. She was dancing with a young man as decorative as

"that confounded Saxton fellow" he had met at Flathead Lake, but younger

than Saxton, a laughing young man, with curly black hair. For the first

time in his life Milt wanted to kill. He muttered, "Damn--damn--DAMN!"

as he saw the young man carelessly embracing Claire.

His fingers tingling, his whole body yearning till every cell seemed a

beating hammer, Milt longed just once to slip his hand about Claire's

waist like that. He could feel the satin of her bodice and its warmth.

Then it seemed to him, as Claire again passed the window, that he did

not know her at all. He had once talked to a girl who resembled her, but

that was long ago. He could understand a Gomez-Dep and appreciate a

brisk sports-suit, but this girl was of a world unintelligible to him.

Her hair, in its dips and convolutions, was altogether a puzzle. "How

did she ever fix it like that?" Her low evening dress--"what was it made

of--some white stuff, but was it silk or muslin or what?" Her shoulders

were startling in their bare powdery smoothness--"how dare that young

pup dance with her?" And her face, that had seemed so jolly and

friendly, floated past the window as pale and illusive as a wisp of fog.

His longing for her passed into clumsy awe. He remembered, without

resentment, that once on a hilltop in Dakota she had coldly forbidden

him to follow her.

With all the pleasure of martyrdom--to make quite sure that he should

realize how complete a fool he had been to intrude on Miss Boltwood--he

studied the other guests. He gave them, perhaps, a glory they did not

have. There were girls sleek as ivory. There was a lean stooped man,

very distinguished. There was a bulky man in a dinner coat, with a

semi-circle of mustache, and eyes that even at a distance seemed to give

impatient orders. He would be a big banker, or a lumberman.

It was the easy friendliness of all of them that most made Milt feel

like an outsider. If a servant had come out and ordered him away, he

would have gone meekly ... he fancied.

He straggled off, too solidly unhappy to think how unhappy he was. In

his clammy room he picked up the algebra. For a quarter-hour he could

not gather enough vigor to open it. In his lassitude, his elbows felt

feeble, his fingers were ready to drop off. He slowly scratched the book

open---At one o'clock he was reading algebra, his face still and grim. But

already it seemed less heartily brick-red.

He listlessly telephoned to Claire, in the morning.

"Hello? Oh! Miss Boltwood? This is Milt Daggett."




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