“Tell you what I’ll do,” he said, in a perfectly cheerfull tone that made me cold all over. “I’ll be the Cupid for your Valentine. See? Far be it from me to see Love’s young dream wiped out by a hard-hearted Familey. I’m going to see this thing through. You count on me, Barbara. I’ll arrange that you get a chance to see each other, Familey or no Familey. Old Hal has been looking down his nose long enough. When’s your first party?”
“Tomorrow night,” I gasped out.
“Very well. Tomorrow night it is. It’s the Adams’s, isn’t it, at the Club?”
I could only nod. I was beyond speaking. I saw it all clearly. I had been wicked in decieving my dear Familey and now I was to pay the Penalty. He would know at once that I had made him up, or rather he did not know me and therefore could not possibly be in Love with me. And what then?
“But look here,” he said, “if I take him there as Valentine, the Familey will be on, you know. We’d better call him something else. Got any choice as to a name?”
“Carter,” I said franticaly. “I think I’d better tell you. I——”
“How about calling him Grosvenor?” he babbled on. “Grosvenor’s a good name. Ted Grosvenor—that ought to hit them between the eyes. It’s going to be rather a lark, Miss Bab!”
And of course just then mother came in, and the Brooks idiot went in and poured her a cup of tea, with his little finger stuck out at a right angel, and every time he had a chance he winked at me.
I wanted to die.
When they had all gone home it seemed like a bad dream, the whole thing. It could not be true. I went upstairs and manacured my nails, which usually comforts me, and put my hair up like Leila’s.