"Probably you haven't, Miss Jealousy," she sneered. "I fail to see anything simple about Miss Walbert. She has three times as much sense as certain persons I could name."
"Meaning me, I suppose." Natalie's tone was equally sneering. She was white with anger, principally at having been called "Miss Jealousy." Leslie had often privately accused her of being jealous-hearted. This was the first time she had ever taunted her so openly of it.
"Won't you two please stop scrapping?" begged Margaret Wayne in a tired voice. "I thought we came to the Colonial for a pleasant evening. It has been anything but that, with you two snarling back and forth at each other like a couple of tigers at the Zoo."
"Much obliged for the compliment," flung back Natalie in frost-bitten accents.
"Oh, you are entirely welcome." Margaret laid provoking stress on the "welcome."
"Looks as if the scrap might be trusted to you, Wayne. You certainly can hold up your end of it." Leslie called her friends by their last names merely to be insolent. "Anyone can fuss with Nat, you know. She has the sweet disposition of a very sour pickle most of the time."
"Since that is your opinion of me, I am surprised you ever cared to be friends with me at all." Very near to tears, Natalie managed to preserve an offended dignity which had more effect upon Leslie than any sarcastic retort might have had. Nor was Natalie unaware of this. Momentarily angered, she had made a strenuous effort to choke back the biting words just behind her lips. She always remembered one cold fact in time. It never paid in the long run to quarrel with Leslie.
"Oh, you are not so bad when one has grown used to you," Leslie patronizingly conceded. "Excuse me for losing my temper and telling you the plain truth about yourself."
Natalie's color rose. She hated Leslie's patronizing insolence more than she hated her open vituperation. She would have liked to say that she was amazed to learn that Leslie ever told the plain truth about anything. Prudence warned her to let the quarrel drop.
"I accept your apology, Leslie," she said with great sweetness, entirely ignoring the sting of Leslie's remarks.