“There wasn’t a possible man there, and Margot kept pairing me off with a fright of a millionaire who was always getting you into a corner and making you listen to wild tales of gigantic business ventures he’d pulled off. I detest business. Money should be seen and not heard,” ended Babbie sententiously.
But the next afternoon she rushed out of Flying Hoof’s stall, where she was being entertained at tea by some adoring freshmen, to inform Mr. Robert Thayer that his cousin Austin had sent him kind regards.
“In a note, you know.” She fluttered it before him tantalizingly. “We’re both invited to another house-party, you see. He wants to know if I’m going to accept.”
“And are you?” ventured Mr. Thayer. “That is, if I may ask, by way of showing a cousinly interest in Austin’s happiness.”
“Most certainly not,” snapped Babbie fiercely.
“Ah, I beg a thousand pardons! I was only joking, Miss Hildreth.”
“I’m most certainly not going, I mean,” Babbie explained amiably, after a moment of frowning perplexity, and swept back to her tea-party, leaving a completely bewildered young man behind her.
He relieved his feelings by telling Betty the good news about the club-house.
“I’ve bought that big, old-fashioned place across the street from the factory. We couldn’t have begun building before April, and it seemed out of the question to delay so long. Besides, this is just the thing, or it will be in a month, when the architect and his minions have finished with it. I told him that you people changed a barn into a tea-shop in ten days, and if he can’t alter a few partitions, paper a few walls, and get in the furniture in a month, he needn’t expect any more work from yours truly. So bring on your college girls, find out who wants to teach what and to whom, and tell me which ones are to go on the pay-roll and which are ready to give their services. I’ll send you a list of the prospective pupils, with ages and nationalities attached.” He paused and looked sharply at Betty. “Are you tired to-night, Miss Wales?”
Betty shook her head. “I’ve lost something, and I’m being foolish and worrying over it.”