Then both parents were talking to her at once, one over the wire and one in her ear. Now, it is possible to listen while you talk yourself, but it is not possible to listen to two people at once.
Her father was saying: "Of course, if you don't want to go say so, but if you do, and will put the matter as I suggested—"
And her mother was whispering sibilantly, "You're giving the idea you wish to go—so unjust to me. Say straight out you won't leave me."
It was one of those minutes that epitomized her life, and her nerves were distinctly on edge as she hung up the receiver, to find that her mother was only waiting for this, to go over the whole matter more at length.
"There are times, my dear," she was saying, "when it is really necessary to speak out, even at the risk of hurting a person's feelings. I do hope you are not one of those weak natures who can never tell a disagreeable truth. It will save your father future suffering if you can make him understand once and for all he cannot come in between us—not because I forbid it, but because you won't have it."
The evening never regained its gayety.
The next morning—Saturday—was devoted entirely to clothes, and Lita now discovered a curious fact. She found she knew exactly how Dacer liked her to dress. In their few interviews they had never mentioned clothes, and yet she did not buy a hat or reject a model without a sure conviction that she was following his taste. Heretofore her main interest in the subject had been a desire to knock her schoolmates in the eye.
She thought of an epigram: "Women dress for all women—and one man."
The morning saw a triumph of her diplomacy too. She and her mother were going to the theater together that afternoon. Coming down in the train, she had learned that Dacer was taking Effie and some of her friends to the matinée to see Eugene Valentine's new play, The Winged Victory. It had not been easy to steer Mrs. Hazlitt toward this popular success; she was displeased with anything that fell short of the Comédie Française. Lita was obliged to stoop to tactics suggested by Aurelia. She intimated very gently that when her father took her to the play he never cared what it was so long as she was amused, and so she wouldn't bore her mother with the Valentine play: she'd wait until she and Pat were going on a spree—that very evening, perhaps—
Mrs. Hazlitt came to terms at once and sent for the tickets.