Frances asked what was the matter.
“Kurt was so nasty to me,” she sobbed. “I rang him up after you’d gone out, and he came. But he wouldn’t stay a minute. He just looked at the supper and went away. I tried! I had sardines and caviare and fruit, all fixed in a dainty way.... Oh, Frances!”
Her voice rose to a shriek that alarmed Frances.
“Don’t get excited!” she entreated. “Just tell me, quietly, all about it. First let me close the window.”
It was an incoherent tale; he had told her that she didn’t know how to dress, that he wouldn’t be seen in a public place with her, that at her age she shouldn’t try to wear pink. Told her she looked vulgar. That he couldn’t see a trace in her conversation of the brains he imagined were required in novel writing.
Frances was exasperated.
“Why in the world do you bother with him!” she cried. “He’s—I’m sure you’re deceived in him. Why don’t you let him go?”
Miss Eppendorfer began to weep anew.
“I love him!” she declared. And seeing Frankie’s shocked face, she added, with humane motive, “We’re going to be married!”