“Use your brain,” Leslie impatiently advised. “London and Paris are like a couple of villages to you because you know ’em. New York would be a howling wilderness to you. Why? Because you don’t know it. Simmer down, Goldie. I’ll take you to New York with me the week after Christmas. Our town house is closed this winter but I have an apartment in New York and a chaperon whom I’ve taught to mind her own business. You can help me here a good deal on Thanksgiving Day by wearing that new costume of yours that matches the Dazzler. I want to make a splurge at the Colonial, for reasons of my own.”
“Of course I wish to help you, Leslie.” Doris was somewhat mollified by the Christmas prospect. She flushed hotly at Leslie’s pointed reminder concerning her new costume and the car. Leslie had presented her with the white fur hat and coat, an exquisite white silk gold-embroidered gown and slippers and hose which made up the “costume.”
“Then look pleasant, and listen to me,” Leslie curtly directed, her eyes fixed on the other girl’s rapidly clearing features. “Drive the Dazzler to the Hamilton House for me at exactly eleven o’clock, on Thanksgiving Day. We’ll go for a drive and stop at the Colonial at two o’clock for dinner. After dinner we’ll go for another drive. Then back to supper at the Colonial. There’s a good movie theatre in Hamilton. We might go to it in the evening. You can easily run up to the campus and put the car away before the ten-thirty bell rings.”
“Why not go to Orchard Inn for supper instead of the Colonial? Since there’s been so little snow the roads are fine.” Doris made a last desperate effort to have matters arranged partly as she wished.
“Too far away from the campus. My main idea is to be seen with you in all your glory on Gobbler Day. I shan’t tell you why. Don’t ask me. You’ve said you wanted to help me. Prove it by doing just as I tell you when I ask you to do something for me.” Leslie leaned back in her chair and surveyed Doris with the air of a dictator. She was giving a faithful imitation of a favorite pose of her father.
“Very well.” Doris relapsed into displeased silence. She allowed Leslie to order the luncheon and continued mute after the waitress had left them.
Leslie pretended not to notice Doris’s frigidity. She busied herself with the menu, hunting a dessert to her taste. When she had selected it she cast the card on the table with impatient force.
“Don’t meet me at all Thanksgiving Day, if it will be too much of a strain,” she sarcastically told Doris. She knew that Doris was too deeply obligated to her to make such a course of action probable.
Doris viewed her with the cold, measuring glance which Leslie had more than once privately admired in Goldie.
“I don’t mind meeting you and doing as you ask me Thanksgiving Day, Leslie,” she said coolly. “What I do mind is your dictatorial manner. And sometimes you’re really insulting.”