"Oh, he's going to the ball. But he has changed his mind about coming here first. I suppose he doesn't want any of you to know him by his costume."
Mazie's irritation was unbounded.
"None of our crowd are keeping each other in the dark," she said. "What's struck him? There'll be plenty of strangers to play the devil with. If Claude has backed out, who's to take us, old girl?"
"Well, Robert's here."
"Robert! He can't keep Hutchins Burley from persecuting me."
"Or you from persecuting Hutchins Burley."
"Don't be nasty, Cornelia," said Mazie, jumping angrily down. "You take the cinnamon bun, anyway. Why didn't you pipe up sooner with the news that Claude had rung up?"
"I quite forgot to," said her friend, calmly.
"Forgot to!" said Mazie, not concealing either her incredulity or her vexation. "A fat lot you did. It's your spite. Your refusing to come to the ball is spite, too. Just spite. I suppose you think that since you can't have Claude, nobody else shall have him, either."
"I don't think about Lothario at all," said Cornelia, demurely placid, as she could afford to be in view of the infuriated state in which Mazie burst from the room.