“Thea West, you ought to be ashamed of youself, asking a young man to escort you to the dance. If no one asked you for your company, you ought to stay at home.”
Thea was dodging behind Emmie’s shoulder, trying to see if she had tied her blue sash properly over her airy white mull dress. She gave a gasp of surprise.
“Oh, you needn’t pretend you didn’t!” Emmie continued, angrily, her cheeks as red as the roses she was pinning on her corsage.
“Who says I did?” Thea asked, quickly.
“No matter; I happen to know that you asked Frank,” snapped Emmie. “I should think you’d know Maude Fitz wouldn’t like it, and he as good as engaged to her. Why, before you came from school they went everywhere together. Now you keep him running after you all the time, the same as if he were your beau.”
“Frank is the same as my brother. Maude knows that I didn’t think she’d care,” Thea said, flushing, and keeping back two started tears that wanted to fall.
Emmie had never scolded her before.
“I suppose Tom is the same as your brother, too, but he didn’t think so this afternoon when he was asking you to marry him,” snapped Emmie.
She moved aside from the mirror, but Thea did not want it now. She had forgotten about the sash.
“Did Tom tell you that?” she asked, in a low voice.