"Can you come to tea on Saturday?"
And Lesbia, suppressing a gasp of surprise, replied:
"Oh, thanks very much! I shall have to ask my cousin, Mrs. Patterson, first."
Lesbia was very keen upon tennis at present. To go with Kitty and Joan to play at their club was her weekly treat. She did not know whether she wanted to waste a whole precious Saturday afternoon upon Regina, whom she saw every day at school. I am afraid tennis would have overbalanced friendship in the scales had she not remembered that on Saturday next was a tournament, and she would certainly have no opportunity of playing.
"It's just possible that the Websters may have a court," she ruminated. "I'll chance it, anyway."
She therefore asked and obtained permission for the outing from Mrs. Patterson, who was quite gracious and pleasant about it. She had been far more genial with Lesbia lately. The storm over her visit to Pilgrims' Inn Chambers seemed to have cleared the air.
"So you're going to tea with the Blessed Damozel," giggled Ermie, for the news leaked out somehow in Va. "Well, I suppose you'll have a sort of royal reception—flags put up in your honour, family band playing, an illuminated address presented, and all the rest of it. The younger brothers—if there are any younger brothers and sisters—will be practising court curtsies and hand kissing. Hope you'll rise to the occasion and receive it with proper dignity. Give us a specimen of your best regal manners, O Queen! Just to show us how it's done."
"Don't mock. I believe you're jealous."
"Oh yes, of course we're all jealous, aren't we, Marjorie? We want to be worshipped too, and have somebody 'Less than the Dust' grovelling at our feet. We'd get up a turn or two among ourselves, only we can't decide who's to grovel. Everyone wants to be the goddess and not the devotee. That's where we don't hit it. Is it Saturday afternoon that the royal reception is to take place? How touching! Some press representatives ought to be there for the sake of the school magazine."
"Oh, go on! Rag me as much as you like. I don't care a scrap, so there!"