I could hardly believe my old ears.
“W—we two?” I quavered.
“Certainly!” she confirmed it, “I’ll come in the coupé at noon.”
I made a faint show of resistance. “What about your lame shoulder?” I wanted to know.
“Pooh!” said Miss Willie, “that will be dead in a minute and then I won’t know whether it’s lame or not.”
The next moment she had left the telephone and I had promised!
I went upstairs in a delicious flutter of excitement. When our niece Lisa is with us I watch her go breezily off to matinées with her young friends, but “matinée” is to me one of the words that one says often though they mean very little to one, like “ant-arctic.” I protest that I felt myself to be as intimate with the appearance of the New Hebrides as with the ways of a matinée. I fancy that it was twenty years since I had seen one. Say what you will, evening theater-going is far more commonplace; for in the evening one is frivolous by profession but afternoon frivolity is stolen fruit. And being a very frivolous old woman I find that a nibble or so of stolen fruit leavens the toast and tea. Innocent stolen fruit, mind you, for heaven forbid that I should prescribe a diet of dust and ashes.
I had taken from its tissues my lace waist and was making it splendid with a scrap of lavender velvet when our old servant brought in fresh candles. She looked with suspicion on the garment.
“Nichola,” I said guiltily, “I’m going to a matinée. And you’ll need get no luncheon,” I hastened to add, “because I’m lunching with Miss Lillieblade.”
“Yah!” said Nichola, “going to a matinée?”