When they finally returned to the Warrens’ modest house, the wily chauffeur, looking after them as they walked along the nasturtium-bordered path that led to the porch, winked the wink of one on the inside, and smiled broadly as he murmured: “She’s a crackajack! And if there ain’t somethin’ doin’ this time, I’ll eat my goggles!”
“Don’t you think, mother,” said Nancy, an hour or so later—they were sitting in Nancy’s room, Mrs. Warren, with unusual condescension, having come up for a little chat—“that it would have been rather nicer to have had dinner here Friday night, the eventful Friday night”—a queer little tremor ran over her—“instead of at Mr. Thornton’s?”
“Why, no,” said Mrs. Warren, complacently; “I think it will make everything easier for James if we are up there. You know he is inclined to be diffident, Nancy. A man always appears to better advantage in his own house.”
“And of course that is the only thing to be considered.” Nancy smiled half bitterly. She had lost a little of the buoyancy of a few hours before.
“Why, of course, my dear,” Mrs. Warren began, hastily, “if you prefer to——?”
“Oh, no, let it go at that,” returned Nancy, carelessly. “It will be all the same at the end of a lifetime.” She shrugged her shoulders as she spoke. “What shall I wear, mother?” she asked the next moment, with an entire change of manner. “My white, virginal simplicity and all that sort of rot; my shabby little yellow, or the scarlet? Those are my ‘devilish all,’ you know.”
“The white, by all means, Nancy.” Mrs. Warren’s tone was impressive; and for reasons of her own she chose to ignore the slang.
“Pink rose in the hair, I suppose, a Janice Meredith curl, bobbing on my neck and nearly scratching the life out of me, a few visibly invisible little pink ribbons, and any other ‘parlor tricks’ I happen to know——”
“Anne!” Her mother frowned angrily.