The two men shook hands.
“Hold on a minute,” Dick said, “that paragraph is replete with interest, but I want to get it assimilated. Sure, Betty was going driving with me. I told her to ask you if she thought it would be any use, but she allowed it wouldn’t. I am delighted to meet Mr. Pratt, and pleased to know that his daughter is coming to live with you, but isn’t that rather sudden? Also, what’s this about there not being any dinner?”
“There isn’t,” Nancy was beginning, when she realized that Caroline and Betty, who had followed closely on Dick’s footsteps, were looking at her with faces pale with consternation and alarm. She could see the anticipatory collapse of Outside Inn writ large on Caroline’s expressive countenance. Caroline was the type of girl who believed that in the very nature of things the undertakings of her most intimate friends were doomed to failure. “There isn’t any dinner yet,” Nancy corrected herself, “but you go up to my place, Dick, and get Hitty. Tell her she’s got to cook dinner for this restaurant 144 to-night. She can cook three courses of anything she likes, and have carte blanche in the kitchen. You have more influence with her than anybody, so, no matter what she says, make her do it. Then when she decides what she wants to cook, drive her around until she collects her ingredients. She won’t let anybody do the marketing for her.”
“All right,” Dick said, “I’ll do my best.”
“You’ll have to do more than that,” Betty laughed as he started off, “but you’re perfectly capable of it. How do you do, Mr. Pratt? This is Miss Eustace, pale with apprehension about the way things are going, but still recognizable and answering to her name.” Betty always enjoyed introducing Caroline with an audacious flourish, since Caroline always suffered so much in the process.
“And this is little Miss Sheila Pratt,” Nancy supplemented.
“Enchanté,” the little girl said, “I mean, I am very pleased to meet you. I was very sick, but I am better now, and I am going to live with Miss Dear.”
“It seems to be settled,” her father said, shrugging.
“Would you mind it so very much?” Nancy asked.