The two boys stood waiting, having in mind to go with Patty as far as her own gate. "That's a pretty way to speak to company!" Herbert addressed his cousin with heavily marked severity. "Next time you do anything like that I'll march straight in the house and inform your mother of the fact."
Florence still swung her foot and looked dreamily away. She sang, to the air of "Rock of Ages":
"Henry Rooter, Herbert, too—they make me sick, they make me sick, that's what they do."
However, they were only too well prepared with their annihilating response.
"Oh, say not so! Florence, say not so! Florence! Say not so!"
They even sent this same odious refrain back to her from the street, as they departed with their lovely companion; and, so tenuous is feminine loyalty sometimes, under these stresses, Miss Fairchild mingled her sweet, tantalizing young soprano with their changing and cackling falsetto.
"Say not so, Florence! Oh, say not so! Say not so!"
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
They went satirically down the street, their chumminess with one another bountifully increased by their common derision of the outsider on the porch; and even at a distance they still contrived to make themselves intolerable; looking back over their shoulders, at intervals, with say-not-so expressions on their faces. Even when these faces were far enough away to be but yellowish oval planes, their say-not-so expressions were still bitingly eloquent.