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Rh heard the same form if not actually the same substance of address at other dinners that winter; it was therefore embarrassing when the Colonel plumed himself on his social aplomb—he used the word—and bade Floyd take notice of the way in which a host could put his guests at their ease.

Late that evening when all the guests had gone, Mrs. Halket called Floyd into her sitting-room.

"Floyd," she said, looking at him, as he thought, queerly, "tell me about Mabel Dinsmore."

"Tell you about her?" he asked, puzzled. "What is there to tell? Why?"

"You have been seeing her a good deal this winter?"

"Yes, at dances and so on."

"She was one of the girls that you devoted yourself to out of chivalry?"

Floyd laughed. "If you want to call it that. She never had many partners, and some of the girls even did n't seem friendly to her;—do you remember my telling you of how afraid she was of Tom Gary, because he had n't put her into the Hundred and Fifty? She's a timid, nice little thing. Why?"

"And because she has had so few partners, you've been filling in the gaps—devoting yourself to her more than to any other girl?"

"For a while I did. But it's a funny thing. When you devote yourself to a girl that way, by and by other fellows begin to think there must be something in her and come up to investigate; and so gradually Miss Dinsmore's got quite popular and has n't needed my special care for some time."

"So you've given it to some other unfortunate?"

"Yes," said Floyd, with an uncomfortable laugh. "What's the trouble?"

"Oh, a tiresome woman," said Mrs. Halket. "I don't know that it's worth while to bother you with it—but to