IV

Summary

DELIA had broken out the evening they took Mr. Probert to the circus; she had apostrophised Francie as they each sat in a red-damask chair after ascending to their apartments. They had bade their companions farewell at the door of the hotel and the two gentlemen had walked off in different directions. But up stairs they had instinctively not separated; they dropped into the first place and sat looking at each other and at the highly-decorated lamps that burned, night after night, in their empty saloon. “Well, I want to know when you’re going to stop,” Delia said to her sister, speaking as if this remark were a continuation, which it was not, of something they had lately been saying.

“Stop what?” asked Francie, reaching forward for a marron.

“Stop carrying on the way you do—with Mr. Flack.”

Francie stared, while she consumed her marron; then she replied, in her little flat, patient voice, “Why, Delia Dosson, how can you be so foolish?”

“Father, I wish you’d speak to her. Francie, I ain't foolish.”

“What do you want me to say to her?” Mr. Dosson inquired. “I guess I’ve said about all I know.”

“Well, that's in fun; I want you to speak to her in earnest.”

“I guess there's no one in earnest but you,” Francie remarked. “These are not so good as the last.”

“No, and there won't be if you don't look out. There's something you can do if you’ll just keep quiet. If you can't tell difference of style, well, I can.”

“What's the difference of style?” asked Mr. Dosson. But before this question could be answered Francie protested against the charge of carrying on. Quiet? Wasn't she as quiet as a stopped clock? Delia replied that a girl was not quiet so long as she didn't keep others so; and she wanted to know what her sister proposed to do about Mr. Flack. “Why don't you take him and let Francie take the other?” Mr. Dosson continued.

“That's just what I’m after—to make her take the other,” said his elder daughter.

“Take him—how do you mean?” Francie inquired.

“Oh, you know how.”