“I in love with Holcomb!” Darcy’s bitter grin dismissed that supposition. “I’m not in love with anybody. It isn’t that.”
“Then what is it?” asked the patient Gloria.
“It’s the whole thing. Helen Barrett is going to marry Paul Wood.”
“If any woman know any just reason why these twain should not be joined together in holy matrimony, let her now speak or forever after hold her peace,” solemnly misquoted Gloria.
“But—but—but Maud and Helen and I,” pursued the girl, evincing symptoms of a melancholic relapse, “were going to be the Three Honest Working-Girls and keep up our Fifty-Sixth Street bachelor-girl hall for life. And now look at the darn thing!”
“What did you expect?” argued Gloria. “Maud is pretty and energetic, and Helen is one of those soft, fluffy creatures that some man always wants to take care of. Bachelor-girl agreements are only made to keep until the right man comes along, anyway.”
“But where do I come in?” demanded Darcy, opening wide her discontented-looking eyes.
“Oh, you’ll be getting engaged yourself one of these days.”
For once in her tactful life Gloria Greene had made a stupid remark.
“Don’t you patronize me!” flashed the girl. “I just won’t stand it! I get enough of that at home from those two d—-d fiancées.”