“Wrong again, Lil! I haven’t any engagement with Mr. Richards, if that’s whom you’re referring to. I mean this ‘Horace’—” She held up her Latin book—“Shall I introduce you?”
“No, thank you,” returned Lily. “I’ve met him quite often enough—I think I can easily do without him for today. Do you honestly mean that you’re going to stay inside all this beautiful afternoon and dig?”
“If I don’t have any interruptions. Of course I may go out for a little air, if I get caught up in what I am doing. But please don’t tempt me, Lil!”
“I won’t, if you’ve made up your mind. I’m sincerely sorry for you, but I’ll leave you to your lonely fate.”
“Thanks, you’re a dear. And Lil, will you tell the other girls that might want to include me?”
“Oh, nobody would think of expecting you for Sunday afternoon. It’s a foregone conclusion that you’ll spend it with John.”
“Very kind of them, I’m sure,” muttered Marjorie.
The girls of her troop, however, were not so considerate. Early in the afternoon Gertie Reed and Mame Collins put in an appearance, and, in spite of her unwillingness to see anyone, and especially those two girls, she put her work aside and went down stairs.
“I am glad to see you, girls,” she said, with a certain reserve in her tone. “It will be better to clear up last night’s misunderstanding as soon as possible.”
“Yea—that’s why we come,” Gertie told her.