"But you do ask the favour. Is that what I'm to understand?"
"Yes. I do ask that."
"You don't think you'd better wait and hear what I want for my reward before you decide?"
"No. Because whatever you want I will do rather than have Mr. Storm hurt for life, when it was I who persuaded him to come." (I think she said "me," but that's a detail. I adore her little slips!) "He objected, because there were some good reasons he couldn't tell me for him not to go to a big fashionable dance, but I thought that was just because he was modest. I wanted to show him how I felt—how Molly Winston and all of us feel, except you, the Socialist"—(I wish you could have heard how she hissed that word at me!)—"so I begged him to come, to please me. Then he told me he would, and now it seems I bring him to humiliation. It is terrible! Yes, I will do anything to save him. And now what is it you want?"
Poor little tragedy queen, I was almost sorry for her, in spite of her tricks! But I was punishing her for her own future good. Think of the difference for a girl between being Mrs. Edward Caspian and Mrs. Peter Storm!
"Can you guess?" I asked.
"Perhaps I can; perhaps I can't. You had better put it into words, and see how it sounds."
"Well, I only want you to say what your father wants you to say, and what you let me think you might be willing to say, if you weren't so young. I want you to be engaged to me. Once you've promised, I shall feel safe, and won't press you too much or too soon for the rest. We can talk the future over with Mr. Moore when we get back to Kidd's Pines."
"Soit!" said Patty, which sounded like slang for a slap, but I happened to remember it was French for something or other. (I asked Mrs. Sam later, and she thought it meant "So be it.") "Soit! Now go this instant and make everything perfectly right for Mr Storm, because here he comes, and if any one is rude, nothing I have said counts."
I bounded away from her, as if she'd shot me out of a gun, and crossed the room to meet Storm. It was the first time I had ever been cordial, and he let me see he was surprised. Such was his manner that it was all I could do to keep up the show of friendliness, but I knew Patty was in a mood to come down on me like a thousand of brick if the least detail went wrong. My only fear was that Mrs. Sam might have said something to somebody prematurely; but apparently she hadn't. I explained to Storm I must definitely introduce him as my guest, because all the other names had been mentioned, and not his. You could have knocked me down with a feather when he said, "Oh, I'm not your guest. I'm here on the invitation of Mr. James Strickland of New York, and Huntington, Long Island, who is one of the oldest members of this club, as I dare say you know. But he doesn't come to the dances."