"Oh, well," Dolly retreated rapidly, "this house is so full of uninteresting children like Antonia and Durland—under your feet all day long; but when Allen said himself, telling how he didn't want to go to the Temples, 'Why don't you ask me?'——"
Her voice softened over the remembered tones; of course she had asked him.
Pearl's heart sank at this news. She wondered if she were vain to attach a dread significance to his initiative. She remembered that peculiar fierce stare from those pale eyes. Well, she wouldn't speak to him—that was all there was to that.
Presently she left Dolly and went to knock on Antonia's door, which was suspiciously shut; usually Antonia lived and dressed open to corridors.
Yes, as Pearl feared, Antonia was lying on her bed, crumpled as to clothes and damp about the cheeks. Miss Exeter could see now, she said; she was treated like a step-child. Her mother didn't love her as she loved Dolly, and how could anyone love Dolly?—that's what she couldn't understand.
Pearl had not thought it worth while to try to argue Antonia's case with Dolly, but the child was so clear-minded she did try to put Dolly's side of the case to her. Antonia admitted it all, but impatiently.
"And why is he willing to come," she said—"a man like him? He's just making a convenience of Dolly, or something. He doesn't think anything about her at all."
It was exactly Pearl's own impression. Then why was he coming?
He came on Friday afternoon by the fast train, and Dolly in her new pink hat and her white motoring coat—just back from the cleaner and smelling a little bit of gasoline, but so much more becoming than her gray one—went to meet him. She and Allen and Mrs. Conway were all dining out that evening, and Pearl had organized a picnic for herself and Antonia and Durland, far up the beach, with the moon and a fire of driftwood and a great deal of excellent food. They did not see the house guest that evening.