“Child, you know I never play golf,” responded Mrs. Courtney, with evident ill-relish.
“Oh, of course, not. How stupid of me! You must forgive me! I was thinking of Mrs. Beecher.”
Mrs. Courtney flushed and glanced sharply at Freda who, wreathed in smiles, bowed to the others and went into the house. The arrow had found its mark. In the first place, the huge figure of Mrs. Courtney playing golf would have made a screamingly funny and grotesque cartoon. But to be confused in any way whatsoever with her social enemy, Mrs. Beecher, was an unforgivable mistake.
“I do wish,” remarked Mrs. MacDowell, caustically, while she and Freda were later engaged with washing the dinner dishes, “that you would try to use a slight degree of sense. Your faux pas this afternoon offended Mrs. Courtney, visibly.”
“Dear heavens,” laughed Freda, so heartily that she had to drop into a chair; “I’m glad if it did, Mother. She’s one of the most exalted persons I ever heard of.”
“And you, my girl, are one of the most reckless,” quickly rejoined her mother.
“Do you remember,” asked Freda, “how miserable she made things for me about six years ago when she was afraid that I was going to get her darling young Teddie?”
“I do, indeed, Freda.”
“How she cut me, more than once?”