"Astounding kind—amazingly so. There is much to tell. If you will allow me, at an early date, I will do myself the pleasure of calling upon you, and—ah—going into detail. I believe you will be much interested in recent discoveries in a hitherto unexplored region of the Canadian northwest, where I am convinced the largest number of fossils of the post pliocene and quaternary period are to be found. I had the pleasure of assisting in bringing back to the United States the full-sized skeleton of a dinornis. You no doubt have heard of the aspersions regarding its authenticity, but I believe we have made our—er—opponents appear pretty small, thanks to the aid of your father and other friends. In point of fact, I may say, I am indebted to your father for an undeserved recommendation, and a liberal donation, which will make possible the fullest research, and establish beyond question the—ah——"
Miss Holliwell, smiling and most efficiently and inconspicuously managing the occasion, noting the congestion about Sunny, and the undisguised expressions of deepening disgust and impatience on the faces of Sunny's other friends, here interposed. She slipped her hand through the Professor's arm, and with a murmured:
"Oh, Professor Barrowes, do try this waltz with me. It's one of the old ones, and this is Leap Year, so I am going to ask you."
Now Miss Holliwell had had charge of all the matters pertaining to the dinornis; her association with Professor Barrowes had been both pleasant and gratifying to the man of science.
If anyone imagines that sixty-year-old legs cannot move with the expedition and grace of youth, he should have witnessed the gyrations and motions of the legs of Professor Barrowes as he guided the Senator's secretary through the mazes of the waltz.
Came then Monty, upright and rosy, and as shamelessly young as when over four years before, at seventeen, he imagined himself wise and aged-looking with his bone-ribbed glasses. The down was still on Monty's cheek, and the adoration of the puppy still in his eyes.
"Sunny! It does my soul good to see you. You look perfectly great—yum-yum. Jove, you gave us a fright, all right. Haven't got over it yet. Looked for you in the morgue, Sunny, and here you are shining like—like a star."
"Monty! That face of you will make me always shine like star. What you are doing these day?"
"Oh, just a few little things. Nothing to mention," returned Monty, with elaborate carelessness, his heart thumping with pride and yearning to pour out the full tale into the sympathetic pink ear of Sunny. "I got a year or two still to put in—going up to Johns Hopkins; then, Sunny, I've a great job for next summer—between the postgraduate work. I'll get great, practical training from a field that—well——I'm going to Panama, Sunny. Connection with fever and sanitary work. Greatest opportunity of lifetime. I'm to be first assistant—it's the literal truth, to——" He whispered a name in Sunny's ear which caused her to start back, gasping with admiration.
"Monty; how I am proud of you!"