A DINNER PARTY
As Patty expressed it afterward, she felt as limp as a jelly-fish with
the grippe when she saw Susan at the head of Mona's table! Mrs.
Hastings herself seemed in no way appalled at the sparkling array of
glass and silver, of lights and flowers, but she was secretly alarmed
lest her ignorance of etiquette should lead her into blunders that
might shame Miss Patty.
But Jack Pennington proved himself a trump. Without attracting
attention, he touched or indicated which spoon or fork Mrs. Hastings
should use. Or he gave her valuable advice regarding the viands.
"I say," he whispered, "you'd better duck the artichoke Hollandaise.
You mightn't manage it just right. Or--well--take it, but don't attempt
to eat it. You'd sure get into trouble."
Irish Susan had both quick wit and a warm heart, and she appreciated
gratefully the young man's good-natured assistance, and adroitly
followed his instructions. But Jack was a daring rogue, and the
temptation to have a little fun was too strong to resist.
"Are you fond of motoring, Mrs. Hastings?" he asked, innocently, while
Patty, on his other side, felt her heart beat madly and her cheeks grow
red.
But Susan wasn't caught napping this time.
"Oh, I like it," she said, "but I'm not fair crazy about it, like
some." She smiled benignly at Patty, and the few guests who overheard
the remarks thought nothing of it.
But naughty Jack went on.
"Oh, then you know of Miss Fairfield's fad. I didn't know you knew her
so well. I thought you had just arrived here. Have you been to Spring
Beach before?"
Susan looked at Jack with twinkling eyes. She well knew he was saying
these things to tease Patty, and she looked kindly at the embarrassed
girl as she replied:
"Oh, my niece, Mona, has told me so much about her friend, Miss
Fairfield, that I feel as if I had known her a long time."
Patty gasped. Surely Susan could take care of herself, after that
astounding speech!
Jack chuckled silently, and as the game promised rare sport, he kept on.
"Are you fond of bridge, Mrs. Hastings?"
Susan looked at him. So far all had gone well, but she didn't know how
long she could match his banter. So she favoured him with a deliberate
gaze, and said, "Bridge, is it? I'm fond of the game, but I play only
with expayrienced players,--so don't ask me."
"Ho! ho! Jack, that's a good one on you!" said Guy Martin, who sat
within hearing. "You're right, Mrs. Hastings; he's no sort of a player,
but I'm an expert. May I hope for a game with you some time?"
"We'll see about it, young sir," said Susan, with cold dignity, and
then turned her attention to her plate.
In response to a desperate appeal from Patty, Jack stopped teasing, and
made general conversation, which interested the young people, to the
exclusion of Susan.
Then, supper over, he escorted the chaperon from the table, talking to
her in low tones.
"I hope I didn't bother you," he said. "You see, I know all about it,
and I think it's fine of you to help the girls out in this way."
"You helped me far more than you bothered me, sir," Susan replied with
a grateful glance. "Will it soon be over now, sir?"
"Well, they'll have a few more dances, and probably they'll sing a
little. They'll go home before midnight. But, I say, Mrs. Hastings, I
won't let 'em trouble you. You sit in this cosy corner, and if you'll
take my advice, you'll nod a bit now and then,--but don't go really to
sleep. Then they'll let you alone."
Susan followed this good counsel, and holding her knitting carelessly
in her lap, she sat quietly, now and then nodding, and opening her eyes
with a slight start. The poor woman was really most uncomfortable, but
Patty had ordered this performance and she would have done her best had
the task been twice as hard.
"You were a villain to tease poor Susan so at the table," said Patty to
Jack, as they sauntered on the veranda between dances.
"She came through with flying colours," he replied, laughing at the
recollection.
"Yes, but it was mean of you to fluster the poor thing."
"Don't you know why I did it?"
"To tease me, I suppose," and Patty drew down the corners of her mouth
and looked like a much injured damsel.
"Yes; but, incidentally, to see that pinky colour spread all over your
cheeks. It makes you look like a wild rose."
"Does it?" said Patty, lightly. "And what do I look like at other
times? A tame rose?"
"No; a primrose. Very prim, sometimes."
"I have to be very prim when I'm with you," and Patty glanced saucily
from beneath her long lashes; "you're so inclined to--"
"To what?"
"To friskiness. I NEVER know what you're going to do next."
"Isn't it nicer to be surprised?"
"Well,--that depends. It is if they're nice surprises."
"Oh, mine always are! I'm going to surprise you a lot of times this
summer. Are you to be here, at Mona's, all the rest of the season?"
"I shall be here two months, anyway."
"That's time enough for a heap of surprises. Just you wait! But,--I
say,--I suppose--oh, pshaw, I know this sounds horrid, but I've got to
say it. I suppose everything you're invited to, Mona must be also?"
Patty's eyes blazed at what she considered a very rude implication.
"Not necessarily," she said, coldly. "You are quite at liberty to
invite whom you choose. Of course, I shall accept no invitations that
do not include Mona."
"Quite right, my child, quite right! Just what I was thinking myself."
Patty knew he was only trying to make up for his rudeness, and she
looked at him severely. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself," she said.
"I am! Oh, I AM! deeply, darkly, desperately ashamed. But I've
succeeded in making your cheeks turn that peculiar shade of brick-red
again!"
"They aren't brick-red!"
"No? Well, a sort of crushed strawberry shading to magenta, then!"
Patty laughed, in spite of herself, and Jack smiled back at her.
"Am I forguv?" he asked, in a wheedling voice.
"On condition that you'll be particularly nice to Mona all summer. And
it's not much to your credit that I have to ASK such a thing of you!"
"You're right, Patty," and Jack looked honestly penitent. "I'm a
good-for-nothing brute! A boor without any manners at all! Not a manner
to my name! But if you'll smile upon me, and let me,--er--surprise you
once in a while, I'll,--oh, I'll just tie myself to Mona's apron
strings!"
"Mona doesn't wear aprons!"
"No, I know it," returned Jack, coolly, and they both laughed.
But Patty knew she had already gained one friend for Mona, for
heretofore, Jack Pennington had ignored the girl's existence.
"What are you doing to-morrow, Patty?" asked Dorothy Dennison, as she
and Guy Martin came up to the corner where Patty and Jack were sitting.
It was a pleasant nook, a sort of balcony built out from the main
veranda, and draped with a few clustering vines. The veranda was
lighted with Japanese lanterns, whose gayer glow was looked down upon
by the silvery full moon.
"We're going to the Sayres' garden party,--Mona and I," said Patty.
"Oh, good gracious!" rejoined Dorothy. "I suppose Mona will have to be
asked everywhere, now you're staying with her!"
"Not to YOUR parties, Dorothy, for I'm sure neither of us would care to
come!"
It was rarely that Patty spoke crossly to any one, and still more
rarely that she flung out such a bitter speech as that; but she was
getting tired of combating the prevalent attitude of the young people
toward Mona, and though she had determined to overcome it, she began to
think it meant real warfare. Dorothy looked perfectly amazed. She had
never heard gentle, merry Patty speak like that before.
Guy Martin looked uncomfortable, and Jack Pennington shook with
laughter.
"Them cheeks is now a deep solferino colour," he observed, and Patty's
flushed face had to break into smiles.
"Forgive me, Dorothy," she said; "I didn't mean what I said, and
neither did you. Let's forget it."
Glad of this easy escape from a difficult situation, Dorothy broke into
a merry stream of chatter about other things, and the quartette were
soon laughing gaily.
"You managed that beautifully, Patty," said Jack, as a little later,
they returned to the house for the last dance. "You showed fine tact."
"What! In speaking so rudely to Dorothy?"
"Well, in getting out of it so adroitly afterward. And she had her
lesson. She won't slight Mona, I fancy. Look here, Patty. You're a
brick, to stand up for that girl the way you do, and I want to tell you
that I'll help you all I can."
"Oh, Jack, that's awfully good of you. Not but what I think you OUGHT
to be kind and polite to her, but of course you haven't the same reason
that I have. I'm her guest, and so I can't stand for any slight or
unkindness to her."
"No, of course not. And there are lots of ways that I can--"
"That you can surprise Mona," interrupted Patty, laughing.
Jack smiled appreciation, and to prove it went straight to Mona and
asked for the favour of the final dance. Mona was greatly elated, for
handsome Jack Pennington had never asked her to dance before. She was
not a good dancer, for she was heavy, physically, and self-conscious,
mentally; but Jack was skilful, and guided her lightly across the
shining floors.
"I'll see you to-morrow at the Sayres'," he said, as the dance ended.
"Yes," said Mona, smiling. "We're going to the garden fete. The Sayres
have a house party, you know. I've always longed to have a house party."
"This would be a fine place for one," said Jack, glancing at the large
and numerous rooms.
"Yes, it would. Do you suppose I COULD have one?"
"Easy as pie!" declared Jack. "Why don't you?"
"Perhaps I will, after Aunt Adelaide comes. This,--this chaperon
to-night is only temporary, you know."
"Yes, I know," said Jack, but he said no more. The discovery of Susan
was his secret with Patty, not with Mona. Then the young people
prepared to depart, and Patty and Mona stood either side of Mrs.
Hastings to assist her, if necessary, in receiving their good-nights.
Jack stood near, too, for he thought he might be of some slight help.
"Good-night, Mrs. Hastings," said Beatrice Sayre. "The girls are coming
to my garden party to-morrow, and as my mother also expects guests, I'm
sure she'd be glad if you would come."
Susan, much bewildered at being thus addressed, looked about her
helplessly, and murmured uncertainly, "Thank you, Miss," when Jack
interrupted by saying, "Such a pity, Bee, but Mrs. Hastings goes away
to-morrow. Another aunt of Mona's is coming to play chaperon at 'Red
Chimneys.'"
"Oh," said Beatrice, carelessly; "then this is good-bye as well as
good-night, Mrs. Hastings. I've SO enjoyed meeting you."
These conventional phrases meant nothing on Beatrice's part, but it
almost convulsed Patty to hear Susan thus addressed. However, she knew
she must play the game a few moments longer, and she did so, watching
the thoughtless young guests as they shook hands with the masquerading
COOK!
Jack Pennington was the last to go. "I say," he whispered to Patty,
"it's been a great success! I don't see how you ever had the nerve to
try it, but it worked all right!" Then he went away, and Patty and Mona
sank limply into chairs and shook with laughter. Susan instantly
returned to her role of servant, and stood before Patty, as if waiting
for further orders.
"You were fine, Susan, just fine," Patty said, still giggling as she
looked at the satin clad figure.
"I did me best, Miss Patty. I made some shlips, sure, but I thried that
hard, ye wuddent belave!" In her earnestness, Susan lapsed into her
broadest brogue, and the girls laughed afresh to see the silver
headdress wag above Susan's nodding head.
"You were all right, Susan," declared Mona. "Now you can trot off home
as fast as you like, or you can stay here over night, as you prefer."
But Susan wanted to go, as her duty was done, so, changing back to her
own costume, she went away, gladdened by Mona's generous douceur.
"And now for bed," said Patty, and the two girls started upstairs. But
after getting into a kimono, Mona came tapping at Patty's door. She
found that young person in a white negligee, luxuriously curled up
among the cushions of a wide window seat, gazing idly out at the black
ocean.
"Patty, you're a wonder!" her hostess remarked, with conviction. "Can
you ALWAYS do EVERYTHING you undertake? But I know you can. I never saw
any one like you!"
"No," said Patty, complacently. "They don't catch 'em like me very
often. But, I say, Mona, wasn't Susan just a peach? Though if Jack
Pennington hadn't helped, I don't know how she would have behaved at
the supper table."
"Isn't he a nice young man, Patty?"
"Lovely. The flower of chivalry, and the glass of form, or whatever it
is. But he's a waggish youth."
"Well, he's kind. Patty, I'm going to have a house party, and he's
going to help me!"
"You DON'T say! My dear Mona, you ARE blossoming out! But you haven't
asked MY permission yet."
"Oh, I know you'll agree to anything Jack Pennington favours."
"Sure, I will! But he seems to favour you, and I don't always agree
with you!"
"Well, anyway, Patty, it will be perfectly lovely,--and we'll have a
gorgeous time!"
"Where do I come in? Providing cooks for chaperons?"
"Nonsense! Aunt Adelaide will come to-morrow, and she'll do the
chaperon act. Now, I'll tell you about the house party."
"Not to-night, Lady Gay. It's time for you to go beddy, and I, too,
need my beauty sleep."
"You need nothing of the sort,--you're too beautiful as it is!"
"Oh, Mona,--Monissima! DON'T say those things to me! I'm but a
weak-minded simpleton, and I MIGHT think you meant them, and grow
conceited! Hie thee away, fair maiden, and hie pretty swiftly, too. And
call me not to breakfast foods until that the sun is well toward the
zenith."
"You needn't get up till you choose, Patty. You know you are mistress
here."
"No, you're that. I'm merely the adviser-in-chief. And what I say goes!"
"Indeed it does! Good-night, Patty."
"Good-night, Mona. Scoot!"