Mother came round that evening about the elopement.
"Perhaps you are right, Katherine," she said. "A lot of people will send things when the announcement cards go out. And Russell can afford to buy you anything you want anyhow."
Madge was a nuisance all that week. She was always at the telephone first when it rang, and I did not like her tone when she said it was Herschenrother again. Once I could have sworn that I saw her following me, but she ducked into a shop when I turned round.
She had transferred her affections to Henry, and he took her to a cotillon or two for the school set, and played round with the youngsters generally, and showed her a sweet time, as she said.
But once when mother and I had been shut in my room, going over my clothes and making notes of what I would take with me, if the thing came to an elopement—I was pretty sure by that time, and we planned a sort of week-end outfit without riding things—I opened the door suddenly, and Madge was just outside.
Well, we got her back to school finally, and Henry took her to the train. I remember mother's watching them as they got into the car together.
"That wouldn't be so bad for Madge," she said reflectively. "She is bound to marry badly anyhow, she's so impulsive, and Henry would be a good counterweight. He is very dependable."
"She would make him most unhappy," I said. "Probably Henry would be all right for Madge, but how about Madge for Henry?"
Mother looked at me and said nothing.
Russell proposed at the end of the next week, and I refused. He proposed in a movie. We'd had to give up the Art Gallery because Henry was always taking people through it. He took Toots one afternoon, and that finished us.