"It is too bad," sympathized Claire, passing the candy. "My father doesn't understand—"
"I think a parent's place is in the home," Mabel interrupted. She was not at all interested in Claire or her father. Like all selfish people, she talked for the pleasure of hearing herself. "But mother has changed. I suspect it is old age. She will be thirty-five her next birthday. I have three more days for my experiment, and then if I cannot live my own life at home I shall ask mother to arrange something different. I have always wanted to be a bachelor girl. I read a story about one. She wrote for the papers and made enormous sums and had a sweet apartment, and was so happy because she felt her soul was free. My, I must go! It is nearly supper time, and I think mother is going to have Parker House rolls. I adore them. I had no idea I had stayed so long, but you are so entertaining and it is so nice to think we feel alike about leading our own lives our own way, and all that."
Claire murmured a faint good-bye after her departing guest and flopped heavily down on the divan where she had so recently thrown herself in tears.
She lay staring at the ceiling, deep in thought. A hazy question flitted through her mind. "Am I like that?" she asked herself. Then she laughed and dismissed the silly idea.
"What a dreadful girl!" she concluded. "Too dreadful! And father wants me to bother with people like that!"
CHAPTER IV
Having met Colonel Maslin in the hotel lobby, Mabel found herself riding home in the beautiful Maslin limousine. She sat exactly in the center of the softly cushioned seat and stared haughtily at the passersby. She inclined her head a trifle in condescending acknowledgment of the traffic police who waved them on as they turned from Broadway into Third Street. Mabel was sorry that he did not seem to notice her. He lived three doors from Mabel on the side street and it seemed a pity not to impress him, especially as he was forever bringing home the Brewster dog when he ran away without his tag.
But luck was with Mabel when the big car rolled noiselessly up to the curb before her home, for her mother was standing at the window, and her brother and three other boys were having a last confab before separating for the night. Mabel crossed the sidewalk and went up the steps in her most stately manner. She did not notice the boys at all.
"Well," said her mother as she entered the house, "did you get a ride home? How do you like the Maslin girl?