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 upon young Alcie, who's so blond you imagine she doesn't know a thing till she springs something, piped up and said he was Janvier's biological escape from reality and a natural phenomenon. 'Every old tart,' said Alcie, 'has some good-looking boy around as a sort of personal maid. Look at George Sand!

"Why bore us with Alcie's profundities!" Grover exploded. George Sand evoked de Musset, and the allusion was singularly infuriating because this very afternoon the Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle had flashed into his own mind.

Rhoda's expression changed. She got up cajolingly and went over to take his arm. "If it's the stupid exam that makes you so touchy, forget it, old top. What difference does a degree make? It can't be worth much if Pep can get one. Your mother won't mind, really. She thinks Harvard has gone steadily downhill since your father dropped out of it, and she'll blame it all on the faculty,—I can just hear her! Which reminds me that I had a letter from her last week beseeching me to take you by the hand and get you a pair of horn-rimmed spectacles, the kind that don't break when you drop them; she underlined it twice. But I didn't, partly because I forgot and partly because I was sure that whatever you might be straining it wasn't your eyes."

She had dropped his arm, having failed to dispel his moroseness, A little perplexed she left his side.

"Do change your mind, Sophie. We can always