“Oh! that’s more than mother gave me credit for!—Do you really know what you’re saying anyway?” laughed Polly.
“Perfectly, Miss Dudley! And I declare to you this moment that you are a model of propriety!”
“O-o-h! Don’t I look awfully puffed up? Now you’ll think me silly! But I’ve talked long enough about David and me. I’m dying to tell you how glad, glad, glad I was last evening every time I looked your way! I almost forgot the birthday girl for thinking of you! Wasn’t Mr. Randolph lovely? And didn’t you have a dandy time? Why, he kept as close to you as if you ’d been engaged to him! He—”
“Oh, Polly, don’t talk that silly stuff! I won’t hear it!” Miss Sterling got up hurriedly and went to her work-table, apparently hunting for something in her spool basket.
“Why, Miss Nita!” Polly’s tone was grieved.
“Well, forgive me,” came from over the array of threads and silks, “but I do hate to hear you say such things!”
“I was only telling the truth,” said Polly plaintively. “I thought you were having a lovely time—you looked as if you were! Doodles spoke of it.”
“Yes, I dare say I looked and acted like an old fool!”
“Miss Nita! You couldn’t! You looked too sweet for anything, and I guess he thought so—”
“Polly! what did I tell you?” She came back with a half-mended stocking.
“Aren’t you ever going to let me speak of Mr. Randolph again? He acted as if he were dead in love with y—”
A hand was clapped over her mouth.
“I won’t hear it! I won’t! I won’t!” Miss Sterling laughed a little uncertainly.
Polly drew a long breath of disappointment. “I never knew you to act like this before,” she mused.
“How sweetly Doodles sang!” said Miss Sterling.
“Yes,” agreed Polly dispiritedly.
“And you are a charming accompanist.”
“Oh! now, who’s silly?”
“Nobody.” Miss Sterling drew her hand from her stocking.
“It doesn’t seem to me that I play well at all—I long to do so much better.”
“It is a rare gift to be a good accompanist, and you surely possess it.”
“Thank you—you’re not saying that to counterbalance what you said about—?”
“No, I’m not! When I say a thing I mean it.”
“Perhaps some other folks do. Oh, Miss Nita! I couldn’t help hearing what Mr. Randolph said when he bade you good-bye—I was so near!”
“What if you did! There was nothing secret about it.” The voice was hard and unnatural. Miss Sterling felt the flame in her cheeks.
“Well, I was almost sure that it meant he was going to take you to ride, weren’t you?”
“Of course he won’t ask me!” She crossed over to the work-table for another stocking.
“I think he will,” said Polly decidedly. “You’ll go if he does, shan’t you?”
“No, not an inch!”