The bitter appropriativeness of Lizzie feeding me on lemon pie pierced through my anguish—I laughed. I laughed with a loud strident note, leaning my head back against the wall and looking at the smoke mark on the ceiling. Lizzie, pie in hand, stood looking at me in majestic surprise.
“What are you laughing at?”
“My thoughts. They’re very funny—you and I, sitting up here alone and carousing on lemon pie.”
“We’re not going to be alone. Mr. Clements is coming. I asked him to supper and when he looked uncertain tempted him by saying you’d be here.”
Roger and I eating lemon pie, dispensed by Lizzie—now the gods were laughing, too.
“I can’t come,” I said sulkily.
She looked utterly dismayed, as if she had heard a piece of news too direful to believe. If it had been any one but Lizzie Harris I should have said she was going to cry.
“Not come! Why not?”
“Mightn’t I have an engagement?”
“You haven’t. I asked you if you had this morning.”