Barbara thanked Jasper somewhat stiffly; she was puzzled. Why was he dressed?
‘Are you going to ride, or to drive us?’ asked Eve, skipping into the hall again. She had put her bunch in her girdle. She was charmingly dressed, with rose satin ribands in her hair, about her throat, round her waist. Her face was, in colour, itself like a souvenir de la Malmaison rose.
‘Whom are you addressing?’ asked Barbara seriously.
‘I am speaking to Jasper,’ answered Eve.
‘Mr. Jasper,’ said Barbara, ‘was not invited to Bradstone.’
‘Oh, that does not matter!’ said the ready Eve. ‘I accepted for him. You know, dear Bab—I mean Barbie—that I had to write, as you were up to your neck in tapioca. Well, at these parties there are so many girls and so few gentlemen, that I thought I would give the Cloberry girls and Mr. Jasper a pleasure at once, so I wrote to say that you and I accepted and would bring with us a young gentleman, a friend of papa, who was staying in the house. Mr. Jasper ought to know the neighbours, and get some pleasure.’
Barbara was aghast.
‘I think, Miss Eve, you have been playing tricks with me,’ said Jasper. ‘Surely I understood you that I had been specially invited, and that you had accordingly accepted for me.’
‘Did I?’ asked Eve carelessly; ‘it is all the same. The Cloberry girls will be delighted to see you. Last time I was there they said they hoped to have an afternoon dance, but were troubled how to find gentlemen as partners for all the pretty Misses.’
‘That being so,’ said Barbara sternly, turning as she spoke to Jasper, ‘of course you do not go?’