Well, she would go, but she was going to hate everything. Cara was lovely and not really a “goody-goody,” patronizing kind of girl. She did like Cara. And her brother too, was splendid. He could play tennis; perhaps they would have a game after dinner.
But the other girls probably wouldn’t want to play. And she, Barbara, must not ignore all the conventions.
“I’ll be down in one moment!” she called again.
Nicky was already out in the car. What a little fighter he was! How the children of the poor do learn to fight for their own! He was bound to go for little Vicky and to bring her home himself. No auto ride would lure him from what he believed was his duty; not Nicky.
Another little squeezing hug for her father and a call to Dora and Barbara sprang into the rumble seat of Dudley’s car.
“We’re going for little sister,” he told her, tossing his red head to one side in that characteristic gesture with which she was already familiar. “Guess she’ll have her ice-cream finished now. But Nicky must have some too.”
“I couldn’t wait. I gotta hurry up. Never mind the ice-cream,” bravely renounced the boy.
“We’ll put it in a—a pail,” declared Dudley laughingly. “You’ve got to have some ice-cream after all your trouble, boy. We’ll see to that.”
“’T’aint no trouble. Don’t hurt hardly a bit,” he protested again, as if ashamed of the trouble he was making for others.
“And I’ll bet you didn’t get the half-dollar?” Dudley pressed further.