[Illustration: Turning, I beheld an exquisite Columbine.]
"Pax vobiscum!" I replied solemnly.
"Pax … What does that mean?"
"It means, do not believe all you see in the newspapers."
Columbine laughed gaily. "I did not know that you were a Latin scholar; and besides, you gave me to understand you were coming as a Jesuit, Billy."
Billy? Here was one who thought she knew me. I hastened to disillusion her.
"My dear Columbine, you do not know me, not the least bit. My name is not Billy, it is Dicky."
"Oh, you can not fool me," she returned. "I heard you call out to Teddy Hamilton that your card was the ten of hearts; and you wrote me, saying that would be your card."
Complications already, and I hadn't yet put a foot inside the ball-room!