"Oh, you look all right," her cousin assured her, "I wouldn't bother."
She took a small paper bag full of candy from her shopping bag and tucked it out of sight in a bureau drawer. "Here's a little sweet bite for you and me, Sue," said she, with childish, sweet slyness, "when Jinny and Ma go to the lecture to-night, we'll have OUR little party, too. Just a little secret between you and me."
They went downstairs with their arms about each other, to the big front dining-room in the basement. The lower hall was dark and draughty, and smelled of boiling vegetables. There was a telephone on a little table, close by the dining-room door, and a slender, pretty young woman was seated before it. She put her hand over the transmitter, as they came downstairs, and said in a smiling whisper, "Hello, darling!" to Susan. "Shut the door," she added, very low, "when you go into the dining-room."
Susan nodded, and Georgianna Lancaster returned at once to her telephoned conversation.
"Yes, you did!" said she, satirically, "I believe that! ... Oh, of course you did! ... And I suppose you wrote me a note, too, only I didn't get it. Now, listen, why don't you say that you forgot all about it, I wouldn't care ... Honestly, I wouldn't ... honestly, I wouldn't ... Yes, I've heard that before ... No, he didn't either, Rose was furious. ... No, I wasn't furious at all, but at the same time I didn't think it was a very gentlemanly way to act, on your part ..."
Susan and Mary Lou went into the dining-room, and the closing door shut off the rest of the conversation. The household was quite used to Georgie's quarrels with her male friends.
A large, handsome woman, who did not look her sixty years, was moving about the long table, which, spread with a limp and slightly spotted cloth, was partially laid for dinner. Knives, spoons, forks and rolled napkins were laid in a little heap at each place, the length of the table was broken by salt shakers of pink and blue glass, plates of soda crackers, and saucers of green pickles.
"Hello, Auntie!" Susan said, laying an arm about the portly figure, and giving the lady a kiss. Mrs. Lancaster's anxious eye went to her oldest daughter.
"Who's Georgie talking to?" she asked, in a low tone.
"I don't know, Ma," Mary Lou said, sympathetically, pushing a chair against the table with her knee, "Fred Persons, most likely."