“Mis' _Hawley!_” shrilled the voice of Minnie at the foot of the stairs. “There's a couple of _drummers_ off'n the _train_, 'n' they want _supper_, 'n' what'll I _give_ 'em?” “My heavens! That girl'll drive me crazy, sure!” Arline hurried to the door. “Don't take the roof off'n the house,” she cried querulously down the stairway. “I'm comin'.” Val had not spoken a word. She went over to the bed, lifted a fold of satin, and smiled down at it ironically. “Mamma and I spent a whole month planning and sewing and gloating over you,” she said aloud. “You were almost as important as a wedding gown; the club's farewell reception--'To what base uses we do--'” “Oh, here's your slippers!” Arline thrust half her body into the room and held the slippers out to Val. “I stuck 'em into my pockets to bring up, and forgot all about 'em, mind you, till I was handin' the drummers their tea. And one of 'em happened to notice 'em, and raised right up outa his chair, an' said: 'Cind'rilla, sure as I live! Say, if there's a foot in this town that'll go into them slippers, for God's sake introduce me to the owner!' I told him to mind his own business. Drummers do get awful fresh when they think they can get away with it.” She departed in a hurry, as usual. Every day after that Arline talked about altering the satin gown. Every day Val was noncommittal and unenthusiastic. Occasionally she told Arline that she was not going to the dance, but Arline declined to take seriously so preposterous a declaration. “You want to break a leg, then,” she told Val grimly on Thursday. “That's the only excuse that'll go down with this bunch. And you better git a move on--it comes off to-morrer night, remember.” “I won't go, Manley!” Val consoled herself by declaring, again and again. “The idea of Arline Hawley ordering me about like a child! Why should I go if I don't care to go?” “Search me.” Manley shrugged his shoulders. “It isn't so long, though, since you were just as determined to stay and have the shivaree, you remember.” “Well, you and Mr. Burnett tried to do exactly what Arline is doing. You seemed to think I was a child, to be ordered about.” At the very last minute--to be explicit, an hour before the hall was lighted, several hours after smoke first began to rise from the chimney, Val suddenly swerved to a reckless mood. Arline had gone to her own room to dress, too angry to speak what was in her mind. She had worked since five o'clock that morning. She had bullied Val, she had argued, she had begged, she had wheedled. Val would not go. Arline had appealed to Manley, and Manley had assured her, with a suspicious slurring of his _esses_ that he was out of it, and had nothing to say. Val, he said, could not be driven.