Part 35 (2/2)
”What's the trouble?” Harold inquired solicitously. ”The little gold slippers?”
”No--I don't mind the slippers; but, you see, I'm not supposed to go off the porch.”
”How ridiculous! Of course you are going off the porch. I have only one hour to stay, and I've something very important to tell you.”
”But why can't we sit here?” she insisted, indicating an unoccupied bench.
”Because those ubiquitous youngsters will be clamoring for you the moment the music begins. Haven't you had enough noise for one night? Perhaps you prefer to go inside and be pushed about and eat messy things with your fingers?”
”Now you are horrid!” Eleanor pouted. ”I only thought----”
”You mean you _didn't_ think!” corrected Harold, putting the tip of his finger under her chin and tilting her face up to his. ”You just repeated what you'd been taught to say. Use your brains, Eleanor. What possible harm can there be in our quietly sitting out under the light of the stars, instead of on this crowded piazza with that distracting din going on inside?”
”Of course there isn't really.”
”Well, then, come on”; and he led the way across the strip of dewy lawn and handed her into the car.
Eleanor experienced a delicious sense of forbidden joy as she sank on the soft cus.h.i.+ons and looked back at the brilliantly lighted club-house. The knowledge that in many of those other cars parked along the roadway other couples were cozily twosing, and that not a girl among them but would have changed places with her, added materially to her enjoyment.
It was not that Harold Phipps was popular. She had to admit that he had more enemies than friends. But rumors of his wealth, his position, and his talent, together with his distinguished appearance, had made him the most sought after officer stationed at the camp. That he should have swooped down from his eagle flight with Uncle Ranny's sophisticated group to s.n.a.t.c.h her out of the pool of youthful minnows was a compliment she did not forget.
”Well,” he said, lazily sinking into his corner of the car and observing her with satisfaction, ”haven't you something pretty to say to me, after I've come all these miles to hear it?”
Eleanor laughed in embarra.s.sment. It was much easier to say pretty things in letters than to say them face to face.
”There is one thing that I always have to say to you,” she said, ”and that's thank you. These orchids are perfectly sweet, and the candy that came yesterday----”
”Was also _perfectly_ sweet? Come, Eleanor, let's skip the formalities.
Were you or were you not glad to see me?”
”Why, of course I was.”
”Well, you didn't look it. I am not used to having girls treat me as casually as you do. How much have you missed me?”
”Heaps. How's the play coming on?”
”Marvelously! We've worked out all the main difficulties, and I signed up this week with a manager.”
”Not _really!_ When will it be produced?”
”Sometime in the spring. I go on to New York next month to make the final arrangements. When do you go?”
”I don't know that I am going. I'm trying my best to get grandmother's consent.”
”You must go anyhow,” said Harold. ”I want you to have three months at the Kendall School, and then do you know what I am going to do?”
”What?” she asked with sparkling eagerness.
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