"How silly!" snapped Peggy. "O, please, Priscilla, don't pull those bed-clothes up from the foot again."
Priscilla's face was white. "I see I'm in the way. That girl has spoiled our friendship. You've never been the same, Peggy, since Elaine Marshall moved to Friendly terrace."
"How silly!" exploded Peggy, angered by the injustice of the charge and momentarily abandoning her usual tactful methods. "As if anybody but our two selves could spoil our friendship." She watched Priscilla's dignified withdrawal without protest. She was tired of these scenes, she told herself. It was time Priscilla had a good lesson. She punched a pillow into place with a vehemence implying that she held it solely responsible for all that had occurred.
As for Priscilla she closed the door behind her with the feeling that she had burned her bridges, and that no retreat was possible. All was over. She had been very fond of Peggy, but Peggy's fashion of losing her head over every new girl who came to the Terrace was bound to grow tiresome. Peggy had clearly indicated on which side her sympathies lay. She had chosen Elaine in preference to the friend of many years standing. By the time Priscilla was at her own door she was ready to believe that she had been most unfairly treated.
Priscilla was not the sort of girl to rest quietly under a grievance. Her first impulse was to assert herself, to prove to all observers how little she cared. Accordingly she burst in upon her mother with the request, "May I have some of the girls to luncheon next Saturday, mother? I don't mean two or three; I'd like a dozen or so, a real party--"
"Let me see." Mrs. Combs was accustomed to these impulsive outbreaks on Priscilla's part. "What day is Saturday?"
"The thirteenth."
"I have an invitation to luncheon myself for that day; still you could manage without me, I dare say."
"O, yes. I don't want anything elaborate, only nice, you know. And Susan's cousin can come to wait on the table. She does it very nicely, and doesn't charge much of anything." Priscilla hurried to her writing desk, and pulled out her note paper. A party without Peggy! Could there be a better way of asserting herself and proving how little she was moved by the loss of Peggy's friendship. She dashed off the invitations as hastily as if she were afraid to give herself time for reflection.
Peggy was not long in hearing of Priscilla's luncheon party, and the non-appearance of her invitation was a secret she kept to herself. That she was hurt, goes without saying. The two girls had been friends for years, and, up to this time, Peggy's ground of complaint had been the excess of the other's affection, rather than any lack. It was hard to believe that Priscilla was planning so pronounced a slight. She tried to make herself believe that there was some mistake, but the passing days brought the conviction that the omission was deliberate, and that the chief purpose of the little festivity was her open humiliation.