He got up and passed into the library, and Gordon heard him calling his sister at the stairway. He came back in a moment. “She’s coming down,” he announced. “Don’t hurry off. Dad will be in his office all the morning, I guess. I hope you don’t mind my not wanting to ask him, Gordon. I would in a minute, only, as I say, we aren’t very chummy just now.”
At that moment Louise Brent came through the doorway, and Gordon, who had reseated himself after his first start to leave, arose again. She was tall, like her brother, but, unlike him, was light in coloring, with brown hair that just escaped being yellow and a very fair skin and blue eyes. She was not a beauty, but she was pretty in spite of irregular features, with a lot of animation and a smile that won friends at once. She was fifteen; but she looked older, Gordon thought as he took the hand she extended.
“I haven’t seen you for a long time, Gordon,” she said, as she seated herself on the edge of Morris’ chair. “Not since the school dance in January. And then you didn’t ask me for a single dance.”
Gordon smiled a trifle embarrassedly. “I—I don’t dance very well,” he said. “I thought it would be kinder to spare you.”
“You didn’t spare Grace Levering,” she laughed.
“I didn’t mean that! I meant that—she’s only thirteen—and——”
“Oh, I’m too old?” Louise opened her eyes very wide. “But I’m only fifteen, Gordon. How old are you? Or isn’t it polite to ask?”
“Fifteen, too,” he laughed. “I guess the reason I danced with Grace so much was because I thought she wasn’t old enough to be fussy about the way I did it. Kind of tough on her, though, wasn’t it?”
“Kind of tough on the rest of us, you mean,” responded Louise. “You’ll have to make it up this summer by coming to some of our parties at the Point. Will you?”
“Why—yes, if you want me to. But, really and truly, I’m a fierce dancer, Louise.”
“Is he?” She turned to her brother. Morris shook his head.
“Search me. I know he can bat a ball like sixty, though. I’ve been trying to get him to stay and play some tennis, but he won’t. You ask him, sis.”
“Won’t you?” she begged. “The court’s just crying to be played on. If you will, I’ll bring you out the biggest, coldest pitcher of lemonade, Gordon, you ever saw!”