The Automobile Girls at Newport Part 14

"Lovely lady," she said, putting her hand in Mrs. Cartwright's as they moved away, "Gladys did mean that Bab cheated. This is the second time she has said it. Wouldn't you answer back if you were accused of not playing fair with your very best friend?"

Mrs. Cartwright gave Mollie's hand a squeeze. "Tell Barbara I am sorry if I was too hard on her, but I don't like scenes!"

"I wish I could get an excuse to pummel that Harry Townsend!" muttered Ralph indignantly to Hugh, when the girls had gone home. "I can't take it out on Gladys, for she's a girl. That Townsend fellow's nothing but a sneak. He just stands round and smiles and says nothing, until he puts me in a rage!"

"Oh, don't fight, Ralph," Hugh protested. "I hate that Townsend man, though, as much as you do. He is too infernally polite, for one thing, and he walks on his tiptoes. He comes right up behind you, and you never know where he is until he speaks. I believe he wears rubber soles on his shoes!"

That afternoon, when the automobile parties had finished drinking their tea, Barbara asked Ralph to take a little walk with her in the woods.

She wanted to ask him something.

"Ralph," she began, "if I should fall down in my tennis, in the next few days, would you and Hugh play a test game to see which of you is the better man to help Ruth out in the tournament?"

Ralph shook his head. "No," he answered. "You are not losing your nerve, are you, Bab? Ruth and Hugh are wonderfully good players, but we are as good as the rest of 'em. I'll take my chances with you."

"Would you be very, very much disappointed if we lost?"

"Oh, yes," said Ralph, cheerily, "but I could bear it all right." He looked hard at Barbara for a minute. Then he said: "Go ahead, Barbara; I think I understand. I am game. And I'll never breathe it to a soul. Hugh and Ruth would never forgive us, if they found out!"

"Well, Ralph," said Barbara, "I don't think there's going to be any reason for my trying to let Ruth win; she's a better player than I am, and she will win anyhow, but, in case she shouldn't, Ruth has been a perfect dear to Mollie and me!"

"Gladys," said Ruth that night, when the young people were having an informal dance at the Casino, "I shall never forgive you for accusing Barbara of cheating, as you did today. Barbara is perfectly incapable of cheating. I can't understand why you don't like her."

Ruth's frank face clouded. She was incapable of understanding the petty meannesses in Gladys's nature.

"Mr. Townsend and I thought differently concerning Miss Thurston,"

Gladys replied, "but I have made no accusations, and will make none. You will find things out for yourself, though, when it is too late!"

Mollie was very sympathetic with Barbara that night. Things had not been going well with Bab for several days; she had an unfortunate habit of speaking her mind without thinking, and this trait had gotten her into trouble with Miss Sallie several times. That lady had a profound respect for the rich, while Barbara had been heard to say that some of the most fashionable ideas of Newport were "just nonsense."

"Bab," comforted Mollie, "Mrs. Cartwright told me to say she was sorry she had been cross to you. She wants you to be the gypsy fortune-teller at her bazaar. She says you are very clever, and would do it better than anyone else; besides, she thinks no one would know you. She has lots of gypsy things to dress up in."

"I would much rather be a waitress, like you girls," Bab declared.

"But you will do what Mrs. Cartwright wants you to, won't you?" urged Mollie.

"I'll see," said Bab.

The automobile girls were seeing Newport indeed! Mrs. Erwin and Mrs.

Cartwright were both leaders in society. The girls had not only been invited to Mrs. Erwin's ball, but to the big dance which took place after the tennis tournament, and Mrs. Cartwright was arranging for a Charity Fair, which was to be the most original entertainment of the Newport season.

CHAPTER XIII-THE NIGHT OF THE BALL

"Yes, Hugh," Barbara said, as the last strains of the Merry Widow waltz died away, "I should like to rest here a minute." Barbara sank down on the low, rose-colored divan shaded by magnificent palms in Mrs. Erwin's conservatory. "I would love an ice, too," she added.

It was the night of Mrs. Erwin's famous white and gold ball, long remembered in the history of splendid entertainments in Newport.

Barbara truly wanted a minute to think. She had come to the ball under Miss Sallie's excellent chaperonage, early in the evening, and had been dancing hard ever since. The little girl from Kingsbridge, who had never before seen anything finer than a village entertainment, felt almost overcome by the splendor and magnificence of everything about her.

Mrs. Erwin's ballroom was built out from the side of her handsome villa like a Greek portico. The conservatory joined it at one end, forming an inner triangular court. This court was filled with rare trees which threw their branches out over a miniature artificial lake. The guests could pa.s.s from the ballroom into this open garden, or they could enter it through the conservatory.

The walls of the wonderful ballroom were covered with a white silk brocade, and on this night Mrs. Erwin had allowed only yellow flowers to be used as decorations. Great bowls of yellow roses perfumed the air, and golden orchids looked like troops of b.u.t.terflies just poising before they took flight.

"Now I know," said Mollie, with a catch in her breath, as she first came into the magnificent ballroom, "what King Midas's garden must have looked like, when he went round and caressed all the flowers in it with the golden touch."

"Clever Mollie!" laughed Ruth. "I expect it is the golden touch that has been round this ballroom, or the touch of golden dollars, anyway."

Mollie blushed. "I didn't mean that," she said.

Barbara leaned her head against the rose-colored cushion, just the color of the jeweled spray in her hair; she was wearing the coral jewelry her mother had given her. Fortunately the two girls had saved their best party dresses for this ball, having been content to wear their summer muslins at the informal dances at the Casino.

Barbara, in her dainty pink flowered organdie, with her cheeks flushed to match it in color, resembled a lovely wild rose.

Curiously enough, amid all this elegance, Bab felt a little homesick.

She kept thinking of her mother and the little cottage.

"It's a wonderful experience for Mollie and me," she said to herself. "I hope I can tell mother exactly what it looks like. I am sure fairyland can't be half so gorgeous; fairies wear only dewdrops for jewels; but here, I believe, there must be nearly all the jewels in the world."

Barbara did not know how big the world really is, nor how many people and jewels, both real and paste, there are in it. After all, artificial people are no better than paste jewels!

Earlier in the evening Mollie and Barbara had stood with their hands tight together, watching the men and women enter the great reception room to speak to their host and hostess.

"Diamonds," whispered Mollie to Bab, "seem as plentiful as the strawberries we gathered for the hotel people this summer. We didn't dream, then, that we were coming to Newport! Isn't my Mrs. Cartwright the most beautiful of them all?" wound up the loyal child.

Mrs. Cartwright wore a white satin gown, with a diamond star in the tulle of her bodice. In her hair was a spray of diamonds, mounted to look like a single stalk of lilies of the valley, each jewel hanging from the slender stem like a tiny floweret.

The conservatory was almost empty while Bab rested and waited.

During the intermission in the dance nearly all the guests had wandered into the dining-room or into the moonlit garden.

Barbara realized that she was almost completely hidden by the great palm trees that formed an arch over her head and drooped their long arms down over her. She had crept into this seat in order that she might see without being seen.

Yet in spite of the quiet, Barbara was not resting. Her heart was beating fast with the excitement of this wonderful evening, and her tiny feet in the pink silk slippers still kept time to the last waltz she had danced with Hugh.

The conservatory door, leading into the garden, was open. Barbara saw Mrs. Post, Governor Post, Harry Townsend and a woman in a gold-colored brocade enter the conservatory and stop to talk for a few minutes. They had not noticed Barbara nor did she feel it was quite proper to interrupt them, as she did not know the strange woman who was with them.

Governor Post bowed in military fashion to the ladies.

"Now," he said, "I'll go, and leave the young man to do the entertaining. We old fellows must make ourselves useful when our ornamental days are over. Mr. Townsend will look after you here, and I shall find a waiter and have him bring you something to eat."

Barbara saw Harry Townsend talking in his most impressive manner to the two women.

"It is curious," Bab thought, to herself, "what a society man Harry Townsend is. Gladys says he is only twenty-two. I wonder where he comes from. n.o.body seems to know. Oh, yes; Gladys said he was educated in Paris. She met him on shipboard."

The little girl from her green bower was an interested watcher. It was fascinating to be able to see all that was going on, without being seen.