"It's really a pity the woman's so well connected," said Mrs. Fabian. "She is insolently daring. Did you tell her you were taking me?"
"I told her you were asking her to be so good as to accept an impromptu invitation; that you had but just found that you could go, yourself."
Mrs. Fabian sighed again. "Well, Edgar, then I have earned a few minutes of your time. I'm going to give a dinner for you and Kathleen while she is at home for the holidays. I thought of Christmas night, with a little informal dance afterward; and I want you to help me decide on the list."
"Mrs. Larrabee?" suggested Edgar, twisting his mustache complacently.
"Certainly not," returned his mother, with energy. "This is to be just for your and Kathleen's young friends—a simple Christmas merry-making."
"Couldn't you let me off?" asked Edgar, with his most blasé, man-of-the-world air.
"Don't be absurd, Edgar Fabian. Have you no interest in helping to make your sister's holidays pleasant?"
"My dear mother," protested the young man, "in order to make Kath's holidays pleasant, all you need to do is to give her a pair of blue spectacles for a Christmas gift, and invite a few Columbia professors to engage her in light conversation. If I should send her roses, she would only analyze them and reel off the learned names of their innards."
"Very well; I am giving you an opportunity to suggest some names if you care to. Of course I shall ask Philip Sidney."
Edgar shrugged again. "Do you suppose he has any evening clothes?"