She mounted the stairs with a determined but bored expression and presently descended, followed by the unrepentant Bertie who winked joyously at the stony and disapproving visage of her aunt's friend. Behind them strolled the redoubtable Parham, apparently highly amused.
Mrs. Hadwell entered the ballroom and looked about for Bert. He was presently discovered in the act of fanning an indignant-looking lady who pretended to ignore his efforts at small talk. Mrs. Hadwell beckoned and he sprang to his feet with alacrity.
"Bert!" said his aunt by marriage, sternly, "there are limits to my forbearance. I am sorry to say that you have transgressed those limits. I am still sorrier that you have no better taste than to take pleasure in showing impertinence to my guests."
Bert's face worked for a moment: he said something in an aside to his sister, then spoke.
"Aunt Del," he said, humbly but with an irrepressible twinkle in his black eyes, "we have acted like a couple of demons, I must admit, but, if you'll only forgive us this once, I swear we'll straighten things out. Every one is going to supper, now; well, Bertie and I are going in together and, just as soon as the people are seated, you will see what will happen."
"I will not," was Mrs. Hadwell's unexpected rejoinder. "I have had quite enough nonsense, Bert. It must end, here."
Bert consulted his sister with his eyes; then, catching his diminutive aunt by the waist, he whirled her down the room and whispered something in her ear. She gasped, then suddenly laughed and looked relieved; and Bertie approached and entered into an animated conversation with her.
Five minutes later, when the assembled company was seated at supper, the unruly and ostracized pair walked solemnly in and stood for a moment at the head of the room. Then Bert raised his crimson-decked arm with a mute request for silence. A hush of surprise fell on the revellers. He spoke.
"My dear friends," he said, gravely, "my sister and I have acted so badly to-night and have laid ourselves open to so much well-deserved censure that we think the least we can do is to apologize, and we do it—thus!"
He deliberately laid hold of his companion's snowy locks and, with a vigorous pull, exposed a close cropped head. Then he doffed his crimson headgear and a dark tress fell athwart his nose.