“He hasn’t been near me—for a week. Not that I care!” Mellicent turned with flashing eyes. “I don’t care a bit—not a bit—about that!”
“Of course you don’t! It’s not worth even thinking of either. What does it matter if she did say it, dear? Forget it!”
“But I can’t bear to have them all talk—and notice,” choked Mellicent. “And we were together such a lot before; and now—I tell you I can’t go to that dance to-morrow night!”
“And you shan’t, if you don’t want to,” Mr. Smith assured her. “Right here and now I invite you and your Aunt Maggie to drive with me to-morrow to Hubbardville. There are some records there that I want to look up. We’ll get dinner at the hotel. It will take all day, and we shan’t be home till late in the evening. You’ll go?”
“Oh, Mr. Smith, you—you dear! Of course we’ll go! I’ll go straight now and telephone to somebody—everybody—that I shan’t be there; that I’m going to be out of town!” She sprang joyously to her feet—but Miss Maggie held out a restraining hand.
“Just a minute, dear. You don’t care—you said you didn’t care—that Carl Pennock doesn’t come to see you any more?”
“Indeed I don’t!”
“Then you wouldn’t want others to think you did, would you?”
“Of course not!” The red dyed Mellicent’s forehead.
“You have said that you’d go to this party, haven’t you? That is, you accepted the invitation, didn’t you, and people know that you did, don’t they?”