But she was anxious, for Patty was conservative by nature, and a close observer of the conventions. She was unacquainted at this Club, and if Mona shouldn’t come, she felt a grave uncertainty as to what she could do. She and Helen couldn’t stay the day there without Mona, and the storm was gaining in force.
“I wish you’d telephone,” she said to Van Reypen, “and see if they’ve started.”
“All right, my liege lady, I will. Just wait a minute, till I get this numbness from my digits.”
“Do let him get warm, Patty,” Helen remonstrated; “the poor man is almost frozen, and you send him to telephone about nothing!”
“’Deed it isn’t nothing! If for any reason Mona doesn’t come, we must go right home, Helen.”
“But don’t cross the bridge before you come to it. At least, let me have a look around. I want to see that sun-parlour and that other palmy nook, over there! Oh, I think this the most fascinating place I ever saw!”
“It is charming. And I’m glad to be here, but I want things right.”
“Patty, you’re not unlike Friend Hamlet. You’re always setting the world right.”
“I know, Phil, but you don’t stop to think. You know we two girls can’t stay here without Mona or some married woman as a chaperon. It doesn’t matter what you think; that’s society’s law and must be obeyed.”
Patty’s pink cheeks took on an added flush and her blue eyes grew violet, as they did when she was very much in earnest.