Cornelia turned doubtfully. She wanted to resent this imperious tone; but perhaps Carey wouldn’t like it, and, after all, boys were—well, just boys. When they were at that age, they likely thought they were it.
“I’ll tell him,” she said pleasantly. “Won’t you step in? We don’t look very nice here yet, but we hope to be ready to offer more hospitality to our friends soon.”
The boy looked at her as if he was surprised to find her human. “Naw, thanks. I’ll stay here,” he replied, and tapped his foot impatiently. She gathered that Carey’s family meant nothing at all and less than nothing to this uninteresting youth; but she turned and went swiftly through the hall and the dining-room and down the cellar stairs rather than to call Carey through the opening in the floor. Carey might not care to see these friends of his in his present attire.
“Gosh!” said Carey, looking down at his dishevelled self when she had told him. “Well, I s’pose I’ve got to go up. Can’t keep Brand waiting. Oh, gee! I thought I’d get this up through the floor today.”
“But Carey,” cried his sister, putting out a detaining hand, “can’t I explain to him what you’re doing? Surely he will understand that you are busy and can’t come. Can’t I ask him to come down to you if he must see you now? If he sees what you are doing, you won’t look so bad.”
He stopped short in the cellar, and looked at her witheringly.
“Ask Brand Barlock to come down here? Well, I should say not!”
“Why not?” she asked with unconscious scorn. “Is he as grand as all that? Who on earth is he, anyway?”
But Carey was gone, taking the stairs three steps at a time. He was out at the car when his sister got back to her window, staying only a minute, and then tearing back and up the two flights of stairs to his room, while the car waited in front in grave importance. The sounds above stairs indicated that Carey was performing a hasty and tempestuous toilet. The water gushed in the bathroom in full force; and splashing, slamming doors, dropping shoes, hurrying footsteps, succeeded one another. The jamming of a bureau drawer, the dropping of a hairbrush, told his worried sister that Carey was “dressing up” and going somewhere.
Cornelia climbed the stairs to remonstrate, but was prevented with a snort before she spoke.