Page:Vance--The rass bowl.djvu/84

 But this was crude melodrama. Realizing which, he strove to smile: a sorry failure.

"'Handsome Dan,'" quoted he; and cocking his head to one side eyed the road inquiringly. "Where in thunder d'you suppose she got hold of that name?"

Bestowed upon him in callow college days, it had stuck burr-like for many a weary year. Of late, however, its use had lapsed among his acquaintances; he had begun to congratulate himself upon having lived it down. And now it was resurrected, flung at him in sincerest mockery by a woman whom, to his knowledge, he had never before laid eyes upon. Odious appellation, hateful invention of an ingenious enemy!

"'Handsome Dan!' She must have known me all the time—all the time I was making an exhibition of myself. … 'Wentworth'? I know no one of that name. Who the dickens can she be?"

If it had not been contrary to his code of ethics, he would gladly have raved, gnashed his teeth, footed the dance of rage with his shadow. Indeed, his re-