"Who's left for us?" queried Phil. "Let me see the list a minute. Nannie Mason," he read, slowly. "No wonder she was left to the last; she's such a silly little thing and does nothing but giggle. Alida Gooding! Jarvis, you haven't left me much choice. Alida's the homeliest girl in town. It is a pity that she is so ugly when her sister May is such a beauty. Now if it were only May who was one of the left-overs, I'd jump at the chance. Any fellow would be proud to take her."
"But you see," interrupted Charley, with a tantalising drawl, "May is my valentine. Come on, now, which do you choose—Nannie or Alida? Ben is good-natured; he'll take whoever is left."
"Well, then—Nannie," said Phil, in a martyrlike tone. "Ben can escort the comic valentine."
"Oh, I say, Bently," exclaimed his friend, "you needn't talk about the girl that way! She can't help being so plain!"
"That's so. It's brutal of me, and I'm sorry I said that. But she might at least be jolly," answered Phil. "You wouldn't want to take a girl that wasn't even—"
Alida did not hear the rest of the sentence. The moment that she realised they were talking about her, she had begun to struggle into her coat in order to leave. Without looking into the mirror,—her eyes were too full of tears to see, even if she had done so,—she pinned on her hat and hurried out into the hall. The coupé had just drawn up at the curbstone, and with a curt order to the coachman to drive home as rapidly as possible, she sank down on the cushions, shrinking back from the carriage windows.
Mortified by the cruelly careless speech that she had overheard, she gave herself up to an uncontrollable fit of crying. "I know that I've always been uh-uh-ugly," she sobbed, "but I never knew before that people felt and talked that way about me! I'll never show my face outside of the house again, and Ben Fuller shall certainly be spared the mortification of escorting a 'comic valentine' to Mrs. Lancaster's party. Oh, I would rather be dead than so homely and unattractive!"
She was still sobbing when she reached the house, and stood shivering on the steps in the chill February wind while she waited for the front door to open. A cheerful wood fire blazed in the fireplace in the wide reception hall. A bowl of hothouse violets greeted her with their fragrant springlike odour; but heedless of the luxurious warmth and cheer that pervaded the house, she hurried up-stairs, with the gloom of the cloudy winter day in her tear-stained face.
"Lunch is served, Miss Alida," said the maid, meeting her in the upper hall.
"Tell mamma that I don't want any," she answered, passing into her own room. "I'm going to lie down. My head aches, and I do not wish to be disturbed by any one."