"No," said the downright girl, "I didn't mean that. I mean will you come and criticise our drawings?"
"Fiddle," said Miss Voscoe luminously. "Mr. Vernon's too big for that."
"Oh, well," said Vernon, "if you don't think I should be competent!"
"You don't mean to say you would?"
"Who wouldn't jump at the chance of playing Apollo to the fairest set of muses in the Quartier?" said Temple; "but after all, I had the refusal of the situation--I won't renounce--"
"Bobby, you unman me," interrupted Vernon, putting down his cup, "you shall not renounce the altruistic pleasure which you promise to yourself in yielding this professorship to me. I accept it."
"I'm hanged if you do!" said Temple. "You proposed me yourself, and I'm elected--aren't I, Miss Voscoe?"
"That's so," said she; "but Mr. Vernon's president too."
"I've long been struggling with the conviction that Temple and I were as brothers. Now I yield--Temple, to my arms!"
They embraced, elegantly, enthusiastically, almost as Frenchmen use; and the room applauded the faithful burlesque.
"What's come to me that I should play the goat like this?" Vernon asked himself, as he raised his head from Temple's broad shoulder. Then he met Betty's laughing eyes, and no longer regretted his assumption of that difficult role.
"It's settled then. Tuesdays and Fridays, four to six," he said. "At last I am to be--"
"The light of the harem," said Miss Voscoe.
"Can there be two lights?" asked Temple anxiously. "If not, consider the fraternal embrace withdrawn."
"No, you're the light, of course," said Betty. "Mr. Vernon's the Ancient Light. He's older than you are, isn't he?"
The roar of appreciation of her little joke surprised Betty, and, a little, pleased her--till Miss Voscoe whispered under cover of it: "Ancient light? Then he was the three-polite-word man?"
Betty explained her little jest.
"All the same," said the other, "it wasn't any old blank walls you were thinking about. I believe he is the one."
"It's a great thing to be able to believe anything," said Betty; and the talk broke up into duets. She found that Temple was speaking to her.
"I came here to-day because I wanted to meet you, Miss Desmond," he was saying. "I hope you don't think it's cheek of me to say it, but there's something about you that reminds me of the country at home."