chatting as they went, to Mrs. Peabody's car. She stood down in the drive talking through the open limousine window until they started.
"You really must come over, dear Mrs. Drake, for some bridge," invited Mrs. Peabody at the last minute. "And bring Mr. Drake. We shall be delighted."
Carmelita accepted without hardly knowing what she did. What a farce. Well, no date had been set, anyway.
She had hardly regained the living-room and a deep, upholstered chair in which to rest and gather her scattered wits together when another car drove up bearing Lucy Hodge in an excited, for her, condition.
"Jackie phones me that your father is in town, Carmelita," she greeted her.
Two weeks ago this would have filled Carmelita with a great hope and joy. But since that letter from him—
"That is news," she said uncertainly. "I have never heard from him since my marriage, you know—except for a letter I received the other day in which he repeated that he had disowned me. I don't think he'll want to see me."
"Probably not," agreed Lucy, and drew one of her interminable supply of monogrammed cigarettes and, lighting it, exhaled an enormous puff. Her chief interest in dashing over to
