Enid Barr flushed and tapped angrily with her pen against the edge of the desk. “Of course, if you put it that way, I have no choice! How shall Linda address the invitation?”
“Thank you, Mother,” Sally cried, stooping swiftly to lay her lips against her mother’s golden hair. “You’ve made me awfully happy.” Her voice shook a little with awed delight as she gave her mother the only address she knew—David’s grandfather’s name and the R. F. D. route on which his farm lay.
“I suppose I’m having all this bother for nothing,” Enid brightened. “The boy would be an idiot to spend the money on the trip—even if he has it to spend!”
A beautiful light glowed in Sally’s wide, dreaming eyes. “David will come,” she said softly. “He will come if he has to walk.”
“A hiking costume would be so appropriate at a society girl’s debut,” Enid pointed out, a little maliciously, but she smiled then, a little secret, satisfied smile, as if she hoped he would look a rube among the sleek young men who would be asked to view her daughter when she was officially put “on the market.”
But Sally was too happy to notice. “May I write him, too, Mother? It would look so queer, just sending him an invitation, without a word—”
“Absolutely not!” Enid was stern. “The invitation is more than sufficient. Now run along, darling, and dress for Bobby’s luncheon. It seems to me there were never so many sub-deb parties as there are this year, but you simply must go to all of them, if your first season is to be a success. The list is going to be miles long,” she worried. “Perhaps it would have been wiser to have your party at the Ritz, as Mrs. Proctor and most of the others are doing, but there seems to be little reason to keep up an enormous establishment like this if you can’t entertain in it.”
“‘Coming out’ seems so silly,” Sally protested with sudden, unusual spirit. “Of course with me it’s different. The crowd doesn’t know me very well yet, but nearly all of the debs have been really ‘out’ for two or three years. They’ve been prom-trotting and going to the opera and the theater alone with me, even to night clubs—I can’t see what real difference it will make to most of them—”
“Of course you can’t,” Enid said with unintentional cruelty. “You haven’t been reared to this sort of thing. But you’ll learn. Run along now, and look your prettiest. And by the way, if you have a minute, won’t you stop by the photographers to choose the poses to be released for publication? The society editors are calling up frantically. All they’ve had are snapshots of you, and I want them to print a picture that will do you justice. You’re really the loveliest thing on the deb list this year, you know. But do run along! I shan’t get a blessed thing done if you stay here gossiping with me.”
Sally laughed, kissed her mother and ran from the room, bumping into Linda Rice, who was discreetly waiting outside the office until the interview between mother and daughter should be finished.