“You’re getting to be quite a swell, aren’t you, Fliss? I see your name in the papers all the time—running around to dances and all kinds of didoes with real society folks. Must cost a lot to keep that up. How does pa like footing the bills?”
Fliss flushed an angry red and stood, biting her lip. She had to stand still because Mrs. Ellis had a friendly hold on her dress.
“Got your eye on some swell fellow, too, Flissy? No one’s going to be too good for that girl I always said when you were growing up. I knew you’d fly high.”
“Please, Mrs. Ellis.” Fliss detached her dress and marched away, but Mrs. Ellis only laughed.
“Guess I was treading on somebody’s toes then,” she said to Mrs. Horton. “Fliss always was touchy. Has she really got her eye on somebody?”
Her own eye on the kitchen door, Mrs. Horton answered with caution. “Oh, Fliss has lots of beaux. Always has had, since she was a little thing, you know.”
They turned the talk to the excellence of the salad dressing. But when the cakes came in, Fliss did not reappear. It was Ellen who passed them. “I won’t go in there again!” Fliss had declared. “Not for anything on earth. No, I won’t, Ellen, I couldn’t stand it.”
She was on the point of tears and Ellen’s quick sympathy saw how overwrought she was. So she passed the cakes herself. Fliss was grateful enough to wipe the dishes, and as she and Ellen worked they heard the voices of the departing guests raised in high cordiality to their hostess and the door shutting on one after another.
Mrs. Horton came out, her face beaming. “Your salad was elegant, Ellen, and they had a real nice time, though I must say I was surprised at Mrs. Hyland’s getting the prize because she doesn’t play a very good game. However, she said a cake plate was the thing of all things she wanted. Where’d you go to, Fliss?”
“I couldn’t stand that old Mrs. Ellis.”