“I positively decline to even discuss the Van Ploon eugenics,” stated Gail, pushing aside her chocolates, while a red spot began to appear on her cheeks. “I shall not, as I stated before, be at home to Houston Van Ploon this evening—or any other evening.”
“I shall not deliver that message,” announced Mrs. Davies, setting her lips. “As your present sponsor, I shall insist that you take more time to consider a matter so important.”
“I shall insist on refusing to consider it for one second,” returned Gail quietly. “I am very fond of Houston Van Ploon, and I hope to remain so, but I wouldn’t marry him under any circumstances. This is firm, flat, and final.”
Mrs. Helen Davies dropped patient reason instantly. She was aware of an impulsive wish that Gail were in pinafores, and her own child, so she could box her ears.
“Gail, you compel me to lose my patience!” she declared. “When you came, I strained every influence I possessed to have you meet the most desirable eligibles this big city could offer, just as if you were my own daughter! I have succeeded in working miracles! I have given you an opportunity to interest the very best! You have interested them, but I have never seen such extravagance in the waste of opportunities! You have refused men whom thousands in the highest circles have sought; and now you refuse the very choice of them all! What or whom do you want?”
Gail’s red spots were deepening, but she only clasped her knee in her interlocked fingers, her brown hair waving about her face, and her chin uptilted.
“You can’t always expect to retain your youth, and beauty and charm!” went on her Aunt Helen. “You can’t expect to come to New York every year and look over the eligibles until you find one to suit your fastidious taste! You’re capricious, you’re ungrateful, and you’re unsatisfactory!”
Gail’s eyes turned suddenly moist, and the red flashed out of her cheeks.
“Oh, Aunt Helen!” she exclaimed in instant contrition. “I’m so very, very sorry that I am such a disappointment to you! But if I just can’t marry Mr. Van Ploon, I can’t, can I? Don’t you see?” She was up now and down again, sitting on a hassock in front of Mrs. Davies, and the face which she upturned had in it so much of beautiful appeal that even her chaperon and sponsor was softened. “I was nasty a while ago, and I had no excuse for it, for you have been loving and sincere in your desire to make my future happy. I’m so very, very sorry! I’ll tell you what I’ll do! You may go down and tell Mr. Van Ploon and his daughter that I will see Houston this evening,” and then she smiled; “but you mustn’t say ‘with pleasure.’”