“It was just to invite you to join our dinner party tonight. I had a girl for you, but she backed out when we couldn’t find you. But I see you have a dame of your own, so come on. What do we call your girlfriend?”

“Excuse me. This is Miss Culbertson, Miss Chalmers. Sorry, but I don’t know the names of your friends.”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. We’ll soon get acquainted at dinner. Do come on. We’re half an hour late now.”

“You’ll have to excuse us,” said Paige haughtily. “We have other plans for the evening.”

“Oh, you have? Indeed!” And Reva turned and gave June the benefit of the most prolonged appraising stare one could imagine, taking in the rumpled gingham frock, the gorgeous gardenias, puzzled to know just how to interpret them. Then she turned to her own crowd.

“Just like that, they’ve turned us down flat! Can you imagine it? Tra la la! But they don’t know what they’re missing, do they, Bunny Faro? Well, come on!” And the giddy young cavalcade marched down the room to the great closed doors that shut off the private dining rooms from the main one, and left the two young people at the sheltered table to go back, relieved, to their interrupted dinner.

“Now will you be good?” giggled June. “I hope you understand fully what a terrible thing you did, bringing a soiled nursemaid in a gingham dress to such a place as this, to meet your boss’s daughter in an imported frock with real jewels around her neck. If it hadn’t been for your gardenias, I should have sunk right through the floor and died of shame. I hope you’ll take a little advice another time and look out what kind of a girl you take to these swell places with your noble friends. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if you lose your job for this performance.”

Paige grinned back at her and gave her a look of real admiration.

“If my job depends upon what that giggly-goo can do, I should worry. You needn’t say another word like that!” he said. “I was proud of my girl, and I shall certainly take her again, if she will go. For I thought she was better looking than any girl in that dazzling crowd. Now, shall we have some hot coffee and begin again?”

“My coffee is plenty hot enough,” said June pleasantly, “but I do feel troubled that I should have been along and hindered you from going to that other gathering. If I hadn’t been here and made a fuss about not being dressed up, you would have gone.”

“I certainly would not have gone. I know what their parties would be like, and they are not my style, but I didn’t even ask you if you would like to go. Perhaps I should have done so.”

June laughed. “I certainly was thankful you didn’t put it up to me.”

“Well, that’s all right then. We’re both happy,” said Paige. “And now, suppose you tell me about the little sick girl. Was she really dying, or did the mother only think so?”

“Yes, her mother thought so, but the child was frightened, too. She had heard so much about dying, and in Sunday school we talked about getting ready to die. She had been too shy to ask questions.”

“I’d like to have been there to hear how you quieted a fear like that,” said Paige gravely. “I’m afraid I wouldn’t know how. I’ve faced death myself a good many times, and it took a lot of courage.”

“It isn’t courage one needs,” said the girl earnestly.