“Yes, if we have any. Look in my trunk, top tray. If you can’t find them, we’ll just use the paper ones.” But Beth kept laughing at the girls, for when Sarita suggested that Mr. Tudor was probably about forty, Leslie corrected her to “I should say thirty, just right for Beth, and poor Jim writes that they can’t come yet!”
“I don’t blame him for taking that case, do you, Leslie?”
“No, Sarita, of course not, but what is it that Shakespeare says about opportunity?”
“Perhaps Mr. Tudor is not as good as Jim.”
“He is much more attractive, though I’d vote for Jim now because he is such a good friend.”
“Well you can’t help whom you fall in love with or don’t.”
“Yes, you can. At least you can keep away from people you don’t want to fall in love with, like some fascinating bad man; but I suppose that you can’t very well make yourself fall in love with everybody that likes you.”
“I’m so glad that I have you girls’ wisdom and experience to guide me,” demurely said Beth, and Leslie was just thinking up some brilliant reply when they saw Dalton and their guest. But Leslie managed to whisper to Sarita before real introductions took place, “There’s where Jim will have to do his best, because Beth doesn’t care enough for him, if I’m any judge.”
Courteously Evan Tudor met the two girls, but he actually seemed almost embarrassed about having accepted the invitation to supper. “Really I think that it is enough to let me camp here, Miss Secrest,” he said.
“I finally persuaded him,” said Dalton, “by telling him that his ‘name was already in the pot’ and that it would upset all your arrangements if he didn’t show up.”