'Oh! of course we have been happy enough,' returns she; 'just jogging along from day to day—every day the same. But that—that,' her agitation gathering volume again, 'that is not pleasure.'
'Pleasure!' repeats Margaret, with reflective bitterness; 'what is pleasure? I suppose that the party last night was pleasure. I think, Prue, that pleasure is an animal that mostly carries a sting in its tail.'
'I—I should not be among strangers either,' urges Prue, with that piteous crimson still raging in her cheeks; 'he would be there.'
'And he would be such an efficient chaperon, would not he?' returns Peggy, unable to help a melancholy smile. 'But from what he said to me, even his going seems problematical.'
'Oh no, it is not!' cries Prue hurriedly. 'There is no doubt about that; the very day is fixed. I—I,' faltering, 'was invited for the same one, too.'
Again Margaret gives vent to an impatient groan at this fresh proof of Freddy's unveracity, but she says nothing.
'Is it quite sure that I am not to go?' asks Prue, throwing herself upon her knees at her sister's feet, and looking up with her whole fevered soul blazing in her eyes. 'I do not feel as if I had ever wished for anything in my whole life before.'
Peggy turns away her head.
'I shall have to begin to live on my own account some time!' continues Prue, her words tumbling one over another in her passionate beseeching. 'I cannot always be in leading-strings! Why may not I begin now?'
'Are you going to kill me, then?' asks Margaret, with a painful laugh. 'Am I to die to be out of your way? I am afraid, for your sake, that I do not see much chance of it.'