“And why should you refuse?” demanded Dr. Hale. “Look here, Babs,” he spoke a little sharply. “Do you know this won’t do? I won’t have folks talking about you as if I—as if I were depriving you of—of everything.”
“Dadykins!” Barbara burst out, and all the pallor of her face was now dyed with an angry flush. “Who has said that? Whose business is it what we do or how we live? Just because I want to keep to myself more than other girls do, they think I’m being deprived of—of what?” she ended bitterly, and it was easy to see now that she was very much her father’s daughter.
“There now, don’t get excited,” placated the doctor. “I’m sure no one was talking about us, dear. Do hurry your packing,” he urged anxiously. “Dora has lunch ready and we must not get her wrought up,” he ended wearily. “Dora’s our stand-by,” he pointed out emphatically.
“But it does make me so mad, Dad,” Barbara echoed. “To have folks always slurring——”
“But they were not, dear.” He raised his voice irritably. “I merely guessed that they might.”
Still in her bungalow apron and with her arms bare, Barbara answered Dora’s call to lunch. She was excited. Not on account of her father’s words, which really had amounted to nothing unusual, but because she had to go to that party. And she hadn’t the right things to wear.
The little meal was not, apparently, being much appreciated, for both Barbara and her father were entirely preoccupied, as Dora passed from one to the other the slighted food.
Suddenly the jangling telephone startled them.
“I’ll go,” offered Barbara. “Take your tea, Dads.”
It was Cara Burke calling.