“Halloo, Betty!” was Miss Mosely’s response and greeting; “how like a whirlwind you are! What is the matter? What have you got to do?”
“Beat Mr. Granton at tennis in the tournament.”
“You and Mr. Bradford, you mean?”
“No; I mean all by myself,—in a single. I sha’n’t play in the double at all, if I can get out of it without sneaking.”
“What in the world has happened to bring you to this desperate frame of mind?”
“Well, Dolly, the fact is, Mr. Granton has been making himself particularly odious because I wouldn’t throw over Frank Bradford to play with him, and—”
“I told you,” her friend interrupted judicially, examining the toe of her slipper with much interest and satisfaction, “that you’d be sorry you agreed to play with Frank.”
“But I’m not sorry,” protested the other, with spirit. “Do you think I’m so bound up in Nat Granton that I can’t get on without him? If he wanted me to play with him why didn’t he ask me, instead of taking it for granted, in that insufferably conceited way of his, that I’d stand about and wait on his lordship’s leisure? Oh, I’ll pay him off! I shall go over to grandmother’s every blessed day from now until the tournament and practise, so as to take down his top-loftical airs.”
At which exhibition of spite and determination Miss Mosely fell to laughing, and said Betty’s manner suggested pickled limes, which in turn reminded her of the chocolate-creams they had at boarding-school, and that brought to mind some particularly delicious marshmallows which had been saved until Betty should come over; and she added that it would be a very good plan to go into the house and devour them.
Over the flabby and inane confection with which the two friends regaled themselves, it was arranged that Dora should devote herself with Machiavelian shrewdness to bringing about a reconciliation between Frank Bradford and his betrothed, Flora Sturtevant, whose quarrel had led to the invitation which had involved Betty in her present difficulties. In the meantime, Mistress Mork was to give herself with great assiduity to the practice of cutting, volleying, and such devices of skill or cunning as would make possible the realization of her bold plan of conquering Mr. Granton in the tennis tournament, over which all the young people were just then much excited.