"That stiff!" commented Pat, doing a pirouette. "No more pep than a jumping-jack."
"Neither would you have if you'd been brought up in a bandbox. But he's begun to lift the lid and look around. And he's a winner to look at."
"Maybe I'll have a shot at him. Dee, I'm out for trouble this trip. I've been being good so long it hurts."
"You look it; the trouble-hunting, I mean," commented the elder, appraising her maid-of-honour. "They ought to put a danger signal over you, Pat. Where do you get the stuff that you work on the men? Your features are nothing to hire out to an artist, you know. And yet——"
Pat laughed delightedly. "Aren't they? Well, you and Con have got enough cold and haughty beauty for the family. Being a bride is becoming to you, Dee. You look stunning."
Indeed, Dee's clean-cut, attractive athleticism seemed to have taken on a new quality. Her eyes had grown more brilliant; there was a higher glow of colour in the clear skin; but a more analytical observer than Pat might have discerned in the little, straightening lines at the corners of the firm, sweet mouth, a conscious effort at nervous control.
"Oh, I'm all right," said she, carelessly. "When's Cissie coming?"
Cissie Parmenter was the Philadelphia schoolmate whom Pat had adopted as "b.f." "To-morrow night. You're a peach to let me have her. What'll we do with her Wednesday, Dee? Only the actual wedding party are asked to the Dangerfields', aren't they?"
"That's all. I'll get Cary Scott to run her in town for luncheon."