“Mr. Carroll,” she said sweetly, “I want to introduce you to my friends.”  She called them by name.  “Girls, this is Mr. Carroll, the famous detective!”

Carroll bowed in his most courtly manner, and assured them that he was delighted to make their acquaintance.  He insisted that it was always a pleasure to meet any friends of his very dear friend, Miss Rogers.  The girls at the table giggled with embarrassment, and one or two of them made rather pallid attempts at repartee.  Then Carroll and the seventeen-year-old found a table in the very center of the floor, even as a boy, recognizing Carroll, appeared at their elbow.

The detective studied the list intently.  Apparently there was no subject in the world more vital at that moment than the selection of just the proper concoction.  Finally he looked up and shook his head.

“I can’t decide,” he announced gravely.  “They all sound so good!  Walnut banana sundae; strawberry glory; peach Melba; chocolate parfait, with whipped cream and cracked walnuts; elegantine fizz—­Help me out, please.”

She, too, plunged into the labyrinth of toothsome titles.  Finally she emerged smiling.

“Have you ever tasted a chocolate fudge-sundae?”

“No-o, I’m afraid not.”

“Well, it’s just the elegantest thing—­vanilla ice-cream with hot fudge poured over it, and as soon as they pour the fudge—­it’s steaming hot, you know—­simply scalding—­it forms into a sort of candy, and then when they serve it—­”

“I fancy you want one, too, don’t you?”

“Oh, goodness me, yes!  I always eat chocolate fudge sundaes.  They’re simply scrumptious—­but they do take the edge off one’s dinner appetite.  Personally, I don’t care so very much.  I believe we eat too much anyway, don’t you, Mr. Carroll?  I read in a book once that after you reach a certain point in eating—­that is, after you’ve swallowed just the right number of calories—­the rest don’t do you a single particle of good.  And besides, ice-cream is healthy, and certainly there’s nothing with more nourishment in it than chocolate—­unless it is raisins.  I like raisins well enough—­”

Carroll turned to the boy.

“Two chocolate fudge sundaes,” he ordered; “and put a few raisins on one of them.”

He found the large eyes of the girl turned upon him adoringly.

“Do you know,” she said, “that when I said the other day that you were the most wonderful, the most marvelous man in the world, I didn’t even know half how wonderful or marvelous you really were?”

“Thanks!  And what caused the discovery?”

“The way you acted just now.  Why, I’m sure those girls think that you’ve known me all your life—­or that we’re engaged, or something!”

Carroll was a trifle startled.

“Engaged?”

“Why not?  You don’t look like an old man.”

The detective chuckled.

“Nor do I feel like one when I’m with you.  You’re deliciously refreshing.”