CHAPTER XXVII[ToC]
As by the girls' cabins, so before the Graham house, Lee perceived a motor car. He brought his own machine to a stop near it and cut off his engine. At the same instant the door opened in the house, where by the light shining through the portal he saw Louise's and Charlie Menocal's figures. Menocal stepped forth.
"You will please go now," Louise was saying. "When you telephoned I told you then that I shouldn't go with you, or go to the dance at all."
Bryant had alighted and was arranging the blankets about Imogene. Charlie's voice spoke, rather truculently:
"I told you I was coming for you, didn't I? Now see what a position that leaves me in! People think you're coming. I promised to bring you."
"Then you were too presumptuous," Louise said. "Now go. You're only making a bad matter worse."
"See here, Louise——"
"You had my refusal and I've repeated it a dozen times," she interrupted, indignantly. "Must I shut the door in your face to silence you? And here's another car. Have some regard for my personal feelings, sir."
Lee by now had lifted Imogene into his arms and started toward the speakers.
"Be a good sport, Louise," Menocal pursued, in a tone intended to be wheedling. "Run upstairs and put on a party dress while I wait for you. You don't understand how much I want you to come along to this dance." His words were a little thick and stumbling.