Page:Stewart Edward White--The Rose Dawn.djvu/145

Rh "If you're a real Kap Sister," said Kenneth, "you ought to wear it night and day. It ought never to leave you."

"I'll pin it on my night gown," said Pearl, impressed.

Kenneth fastened the jewelled emblem with hands that trembled slightly, for he was about to make a very daring proposition.

"Of course you know," he said, trying in vain to steady his voice, "that when you become a Kap Sister I ought to teach you the secret grip."

He leaned forward suddenly and kissed her.

"You—you—what do you mean by that!" she demanded in a choking voice, her face scarlet.

"It's the grip—the Sister's grip," Kenneth hastened to explain. "If you're a Kap Sister, that's the secret grip."

"Secret grip!" she repeated scornfully.

"Yes, it is. Truly! Listen here," and Kenneth hummed to the tune of the Last Cigar those gay and disarming verselets written in a moment of inspiration by some questing college Lothario:

Pearl pretended to be convinced.

Of course they plucked petals to the tune of loves-me, loves-me-not; and crossed the similar letters from their names to some sort of the amatory count.

Their meetings gained a certain fictitious element of the clandestine due to the fact that Pearl would never allow him to discover her home. She met him always either at the beach or the park. Pearl's father and mother were decidedly plain folk who sat about in shirt sleeves and dressing sacks respectively: