"Hello, Esther, what are you up to?" said Herbert.
"Hello, Herb."
"Come on in the other room. I want to talk to you," said Herbert.
He closed the door and I heard them talking hard.
"Gee!" said Gabry. "Esther sounds mad, doesn't she?"
"Herbert's telling her what he thinks of the party," I said.
"He doesn't want us to go, does he?" said Gabry.
"Oh, he's not breaking up the party. Not a bit of it. He only says that seeing nobody of your crowd knows French and seeing that your mother made us promise to look after you, he wants to know what café and theatre you're going to."
Just as a rather mad-looking Esther and a smiling Herbert appeared, there was a ring at the bell, and in came the boys, two rosy-cheeked American youngsters. They came into the kitchen to talk to me a moment, and then Herbert took them into the dining-room to explain things. I heard him talking with them, nice American chaps they were, not looking for trouble a bit. Not the type out for the booze, just bright youngsters who were going on the boulevards out of curiosity.
We lighted up the candles in the bedroom-study. Herbert put some new ones in the candlesticks on the piano and we soon got things going. One of the boys was taken into the bedroom-study to play a tune on the piano, and soon Esther cheered up with a face more or less of an April one.