“Oh, but really,” Arthur Maxwell began.
But Mr. Copley had a detaining hand upon the young man’s arm.
“We couldn’t really let you go this way, you know,” said the father. “We couldn’t think of it. We haven’t any very grand hospitality to offer you, but we can’t let you go away without being thanked. Cornie!”
Mr. Copley threw wide the door of the living room. “Cornie, here’s Mr. Maxwell. He’s brought you some ferns, and he’s going to stay to dinner with us. Put on another plate.”
It was just at this instant that Carey Copley, humming his jazzy tune and fumbling with a refractory cuff-link, started down the front stairs, and paused in wild dismay.
CHAPTER XVIII
Cornelia, alert to make everything pass off smoothly, and aware that Carey was coming down the stairs, had slipped off her apron and entered the living room exactly as her father flung open the front door. Now she came forward easily, brightly, as if strange guests flung at her feast at the last moment were a common occurrence in her life, and greeted this tall, handsome stranger.
“The plate’s all on,” she answered gayly, putting out a welcoming hand and meeting a pair of very nice, very curious, wholly interested eyes that for the moment she wasn’t aware of ever having seen before. She was aware only of the eight plates back in the oven keeping piping hot, and the eight places at the pretty table, and the awful thing that her father had done to her already incongruous party, and wondering what she should do. Then suddenly she recognized the young man; and a pretty color flew into her cheeks, and a brightness into her eyes. The room with its strange guests, Grace Kendall trying to interest Brand and Clytie in her lapful of photographs, Carey standing on the stair-landing, even her young brother and sister peeping curiously in at the dining-room door, fell away, and she put out her hand in real welcome to this stranger. An instant more, and her pulses swept wildly back into frightened array again, and her thoughts bustled around with troubles and fears. What should she do now? How would he ever mix? That awful girl with her face all flour! That slam-bang Brand with his slang and bold indifference! How could she ever make the party a success, the party over which she had so worked and prayed and hoped? And Carey! Would he vanish out the back door? The birthday candles around the cake were all lighted. Harry had lighted them as she came in. If Carey should bolt, how could they ever go out into that dining-room, into the flicker of those foolish pink candles, and have a birthday dinner without the chief guest?
“Oh, but, indeed, I couldn’t think of intruding,” the young man’s words interrupted her anxious thoughts. “I merely dropped in on my way to dinner to leave this box of ferns that my mother sent with very explicit directions to be delivered to you at once before they died. As I’m not much of a florist myself, and as they have already had to wait all day without water, I’m ashamed to say, I wouldn’t answer for the consequences if I hadn’t got them here tonight. Mother is very particular about having her directions carried out. I hope the ferns will live and be worthy of this most beautiful setting”; his glance went appreciatively about the pretty room. “You certainly look cozy here, and I know you’re going to have a beautiful time. I won’t keep you a minute longer.”
There was something wistful in his tone even as he lifted his hat to put it on and began backing out the door. Cornelia’s resolve to let him go was fast weakening even before her father spoke up.