"Thanks for good advice," replied Potter airily. "But may be, when you hear what Mrs. Pitchley had to say to me, you'll change your tune."
Mrs. Ess Kay raised her eyebrows, but her eyes would look curious. "What could Cora Pitchley say that would have any particular effect on me?" she asked.
"She knows for a fact that she isn't to be asked to the Pink Ball on the twenty-third, and that Mrs. Van der Windt herself scratched your name off the list before she sailed for Europe."
Mrs. Ess Kay's face went a dull, ugly red, and she laughed a loud laugh which sounded as if it would be the same colour. "As for Cora, I can quite understand; but I don't believe the woman would have dared to try to exclude me," she said in a quivery voice.
"Why shouldn't she have dared, when you come to think of it?"
"Well, anyhow--she don't dare now."
"No, naturally, she won't dare now. You're as smart as they make 'em, Kath."
Then, for some reason, they both turned and gazed at me with a "thank-goodness-here's-a-floating-spar" sort of look, while Sally examined the grounds in her tea-cup, with that funny little three-cornered smile of hers.
"Was that the thing you thought would change me toward Cora Pitchley?" asked Mrs. Ess Kay.
"Yes, I thought it would give you a sort of fellow feeling."