The two girls and Francis protested that their mothers would be worried; whereupon Compton let loose their arrested joy by assuring them that he would telephone each proper home and make himself responsible for the whole party.
The breakfast was a success, an abundance of watermelon and cream cakes being large factors, and off they hopped and danced, light as birds and immeasurably gayer, to the last rehearsal.
Miss Bernadette Vivian had preceded them. She too had had a white night. The day before she had confided to the amicable clerk who kept the visitor’s gate and answered the telephone at the Lantry Studio the story of her great romance. She had made it clear to that amiable young lady that her engagement was as good as settled, that her Romeo, in addition to a personal pulchritude beyond power of words to describe, was as wealthy as Colossus—meaning, no doubt, Crœsus—that he had four automobiles and a country villa in addition to a home worth at least thirty thousand dollars: to all of which the gentle and sympathetic young lady, discounting each of these statements by at least fifty per cent, lent an attentive ear. Now it occurred to Vivian that, since there was no secrecy enjoined, the young lady might make her romance known. Hence it was that, unable to sleep, she hastened down to the studio bright and early with her revised version of love’s young dream.
“Do you know,” she said, after an affectionate exchange of greetings, “that I am thinking seriously of entering a convent?”
“That would be very sweet of you,” said Miss Cortland. “But you don’t want to break the heart of that young man, do you?”
“That young man,” said Miss Vivian darkly, “has no heart to break!”
“Dear me! Aren’t you going to be engaged to him?”
“We were engaged.”
“But you didn’t tell me that.”
“It only happened last night. We were engaged for over ten minutes.”