Page:Three speeds forward.djvu/87

 ing I had fought his battles and got licked, and hoped some day that I'd be able to tell him so. It is strange how liking a man grows and grows, till finally you can't think of anything else. It must have been because he was thinking of me, and breaking his poor, lonely heart. It's all very well to make fun of affinity, but I never felt like that about Charlie Lepperts, even when I used to believe I loved him.

I was to go as Mary Queen of Scots, and it seemed a good idea to tag papa along as Bothwell, and do up mamma for Queen Elizabeth. She was willing enough—mamma is a darling when my pleasure is at stake; but papa resisted and resisted, till finally it came out he wanted to be a bandit. He had been to three fancy-dress balls in his whole life, and each time as a bandit, and he seemed to think it was original and striking. He said that anybody could tell a bandit was a bandit a mile off, and that for an elderly man making a fool of himself, a bandit always seemed to him the