“Oh! Gertrude,” she cried, “I’m so glad to see you. My family is trying to cut me up in neat little quarters and send me north, south, east and west, for the Christmas holidays, and I want to stay home and have Eleanor. How did I ever come to be born into a family of giants, tell me that, Gertrude?”
“The choice of parents is thrust upon us at an unfortunately immature period, I’ll admit,” Gertrude laughed. “My parents are dears, but they’ve never forgiven me for being an artist instead of 168 a dubby bud. Shall we have tea right away or shall we sit down and discuss life?”
“Both,” Margaret said. “I don’t know which is the hungrier—flesh or spirit.”
But as they turned toward the dining-room a familiar figure blocked their progress.
“I thought that was Gertrude’s insatiable hat,” David exclaimed delightedly. “I’ve phoned for you both until your families have given instructions that I’m not to be indulged any more. I’ve got a surprise for you.—Taxi,” he said to the man at the door.
“Not till we’ve had our tea,” Margaret wailed. “You couldn’t be so cruel, David.”
“You shall have your tea, my dear, and one of the happiest surprises of your life into the bargain,” David assured her as he led the way to the waiting cab.
“I wouldn’t leave this place unfed for anybody but you, David, not if it were ever so, and then some, as Jimmie says.”
“What’s the matter with Jimmie, anyhow?” David inquired as the taxi turned down the Avenue and immediately entangled itself in a hopeless mesh of traffic. 169
“I don’t know; why?” Gertrude answered, though she had not been the one addressed at the moment. “What’s the matter with this hat?” she rattled on without waiting for an answer. “I thought it was good-looking myself, and Madam Paran robbed me for it.”