But after dinner, when the girls were alone in Patty’s boudoir, she said to Mona, seriously, “You know I didn’t want to take that box from Mr. Lansing.”
“Of course I know it, Patty,” and Mona smiled, complacently. “But I made you do it, didn’t I? I knew I should in the end, but your father helped me unexpectedly, by offering a second box. Now, Pattikins, you may as well stop disliking Mr. Lansing. He’s my friend, and he’s going to stay my friend. He may have some faults, but everybody has.”
“But, Mona, he isn’t our sort at all. I don’t see why you like him.”
“He mayn’t be your sort, but he’s mine; and I like him because I like him! That’s the only reason that anybody likes anybody. You think nobody’s any good unless they have all sorts of aristocratic ancestry! Like that Van Reypen man who’s always dangling after you.”
“He isn’t dangling now,” said Patty. “I haven’t seen him since my party.”
“You haven’t! Is he mad at you?”
“Yes; he and Roger are both mad at me; and all on account of your old Mr. Lansing!”
“Yes, Roger’s mad at me, too, on account of that same poor, misunderstood young gentleman. But they’ll get over it. Don’t worry, Patty.”
“Mona, I’d like to shake you! I might just as well reason with the Rock of Gibraltar as to try to influence you. Don’t you know that your father asked me to try to persuade you to drop that Lansing man?”
Patty had not intended to divulge this confidence of Mr. Galbraith, but she was at her wit’s end to find some argument that would carry any weight with her headstrong friend.