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CHAPTER XXII
"IT^ROM came early in May, and Hugh looki i—** forward to it joyously, partly because JL would be his first Prom and partly becau Cynthia was coming. Cynthia! He thought her constantly, dreamed of her, wrote poems abo her and to her. At times his longing for her swell into an ecstasy of desire that racked and tore hir He was lost in love, his moods sweeping him fro lyric happiness to black despair. He wrote to h several times a week, and between letters he to< long walks composing dithyrambic epistles thi fortunately were never written.

When he received her letter saying that si would come to Prom, he yelled like a lunati pounded the astonished Vinton on the back, ar raced down-stairs to the living-room.

“She’s coming!” he shouted.

There were several men in the room, and they £ turned and looked at him, some of them grinnir broadly.

“What th’ hell, Hugh?” Leonard Gates ask< amiably. “Who’s coming ? Who ’$ she ?”

Hugh blushed and shuffled his feet. He kne that he had laid himself open to a “royal razzing Rh