“Truly, Leslie Cairns, you make me tired!” Natalie Weyman clasped her bare arms behind her head with a jerk so petulant as to plainly convey her complete dissatisfaction. She surveyed Leslie, who lay stretched at ease on a brocaded chaise longue, with cold, displeased eyes.
“So you’ve often said,” was the laconic return. Leslie did not even trouble to look toward Natalie. She was not in the least concerned at the ungracious opinion of her chum.—“Well, I mean it,” scolded Natalie. “Why must you go running off to Hamilton in the very middle of the summer when we’re having a good time here at Newport?”
“Glad you hail it as a good time,” Leslie’s plain, roughly hewed features relaxed from the stoical expression she carefully cultivated to a half satiric grin. “I think Newport’s a dead burg this summer. Never saw such a collection of stupids gathered in one village before.”
“You only say that,” derided Natalie. “You’ve simply taken a notion to go to Hamilton. Goodness knows why. You’re the most stubborn, obdurate girl!”
“I haven’t asked you to go there with me, have I?” The questioned bordered on a sneer.
“I wouldn’t go if you were to beg me to,” Natalie flashed back.
“You’d go if I made a point of it,” Leslie contradicted with assured insolence. She raised herself from the couch on one elbow and eyed her friend disdainfully.
“No, Leslie, I would not.” Natalie seemed very certain on this point. “I’d not go within fifty miles of Hamilton College again after the way we left it. I really wonder at your nerve in doing it.”
“Going to weep over one small flivver?” Leslie grew more ironical. “Forget it. You know how much I love to talk of it.”
“I don’t mention it very often,” Natalie said bitterly.