“You are a great factor in my happiness, Mr. Van Reypen,” she said, saucily; “but you are not all the world to me! So, if I flock on the stairs with you, I must know what other doves will be perching there.”
“Oh, doves!” in a tone of great relief. “I thought you wanted to know what men you would find there,—you inveterate coquette, you! Well, Elise is there waiting for you, and Miss Farley.”
“And Mona Galbraith?”
“I don’t know; I didn’t see Miss Galbraith. But if you will go with me, I will accumulate for you any young ladies you desire.”
“And any men?”
“The men I shall have to fight off, not invite!”
Laughing at each other’s chaff, they sauntered across to the hall and found the stairs already pretty well occupied.
“Why is it,” Mr. Hepworth was saying, “that you young people prefer the stairs to the nice, comfortable seats at little tables in the dining-room?”
“Habit,” said Patty, laughing, as she made her way up a few steps; “I’ve always eaten my party suppers on the stairs, and I dare say I always shall. When I build a house I shall have a great, broad staircase, like they have in palaces, and then everybody can eat on the stairs.”
“I’m going to give a party,” announced Van Reypen, “and it’s going to be in the new Pennsylvania Station. There are enormous staircases there.”