The Automobile Girls at Palm Beach Part 6

CHAPTER V

THE DAUGHTER OF MRS. DE LANCEY SMYTHE

Breakfast was hardly over next morning before a note on thin foreign paper was handed to Miss Sallie Stuart. She read it aloud: it asked for the pleasure of their company at luncheon. It was signed "Sophia von s...o...b..rg." The messenger would wait for the answer. Mr. Stuart was included in the invitation.

"There's only one answer to that note," laughed Mr. Stuart, scanning the four eager faces of the "Automobile Girls." "Shall I translate your expressions into a single word? It is 'yes,' my hearties."

"Did you think they would fail to accept?" teased Miss Sallie. "Look at the foolish young things! They have all fallen in love with the countess at first sight, and can hardly wait for one o'clock to arrive. But I will send our acceptance at once, so as not to keep the man waiting."

Miss Stuart hurried off to the writing room of the hotel.

So the girls were alone when they were joined on the piazza by Mrs. De Lancey Smythe and Marian.

"Good morning, my dears," said Mrs. De Lancey Smythe, with an attempt at affability. "Isn't it delightful after the storm?"

"Very," answered Ruth, rather shortly.

"Have you seen dear Maud and her father this morning?" pursued Mrs.

Smythe, ignoring Ruth's lack of cordiality.

"No," replied Ruth. "Have you?"

"I saw them a few minutes ago, and they were engaged in a family discussion," replied the older woman. "Such discussions are most disagreeable to me. Marian and I never have them. For some stupid reason, Mr. Warren is opposed to his daughter's receiving attentions from the Count de Sonde. I have a.s.sured him that I know the count well.

He belongs to an old and ill.u.s.trious family. But tell me, what is your opinion of the Countess Sophia von s...o...b..rg? Do you think she is an impostor?"

"An impostor!" exclaimed Ruth indignantly. "I think she is simply perfect. I never met any one in my life who impressed me so much."

"Beware, my dear, that your feelings do not run away with you," warned Mrs. De Lancey Smythe with asperity. "I have heard rumors, since I saw you last night. There are suspicious circ.u.mstances connected with this countess. She may very possibly be an impostor."

"Who told you such a dreadful falsehood?" demanded Ruth. She was almost choking with anger. But Barbara had joined her. Bab's firm fingers on Ruth's arm warned her to be careful.

"The man who told me is in a position to know the truth. He is a clever man of the world, a foreigner himself," replied Mrs. Smythe triumphantly.

"I am afraid I cannot credit his story," replied Ruth, with more composure. "I cannot forget that we accepted the countess's hospitality yesterday and we are to have the pleasure of accepting more of it to-day. My father and Aunt Sallie, and we four girls, are to have luncheon with the Countess von s...o...b..rg and Madame de Villiers."

Ruth drew Barbara's arm through hers. They moved away from Mrs. De Lancey Smythe.

But Mrs. De Lancey Smythe had said her say and left a sting, and she smiled maliciously as the two girls walked away.

"I can't endure that woman, Barbara," exclaimed Ruth. "I'll lose my head completely if she attacks our beautiful countess again."

"She is too disagreeable to notice," answered Bab vehemently. "Here comes Maud Warren. Shall we ask her to take a walk with us along the Beach?"

"I suppose so," a.s.sented Ruth, whose enthusiasm had somewhat cooled over night. "I don't want her. But we ought to be polite."

The two girls greeted Maud Warren cordially. There was a discontented line across that young woman's brow, and an angry look in her pale blue eyes.

"I am looking for the count," she declared defiantly.

The girls instinctively knew that Maud was disobeying her father. Mr.

Warren had just finished lecturing Maud and had commanded that she cut the count's acquaintance.

"I saw the count a few minutes ago. He was starting off with his friend for a walk," explained Bab gently. "Won't you take a stroll on the beach with us, Maud? It is such a perfect morning."

"Oh, do come, Maud," begged Ruth, with a charming, cordial smile. Ruth's sweet nature was again a.s.serting itself.

"Yes, do," cried Mollie and Grace, who had just joined the little group of girls.

Maud's face softened. "You are awfully nice," she said. Maud was a little taken aback by so much friendliness. She had been spoiled all her life, and had never had real friends among young girls. People had thought her disagreeable and overbearing, and she had held herself aloof, displaying a degree of hauteur that admitted of no friendship.

"Let's get our hats and go immediately. It will soon be time to go in bathing," suggested Bab. Barbara never missed a swim if she could help it.

"All right, old water dog," Ruth agreed. "Meet us on the piazza looking toward the ocean, Maud. We will be back in ten minutes."

The girls were back on the piazza at the appointed time. Maud was there.

But with her were Marian De Lancey Smythe, and the Count de Sonde.

"What a nuisance!" exclaimed Ruth under her breath. But there was nothing to be done; therefore the girls decided to accept this undesired addition to their number with the best possible grace.

The entire party started down the avenue of palms toward the ocean.

The "Automobile Girls" were thrilled with the beauty of the great stretch of blue water. Marian De Lancey Smythe, too, had a soul stirring within her. It had been choked by the false principles and ostentations that her mother had taught her. But Marian was not a stupid girl. Her wits had been sharpened by years of managing and deceit. She had the sense to see the difference between herself and the four sweet, unaffected "Automobile Girls," and she knew the difference was in their favor.

Under her fashionable exterior a really simple heart beat in Marian's bosom, and she was filled with a wild desire to shake off her mother's despotic rule, and for once let her real self come to the surface. As she strolled moodily along beside Barbara she reflected bitterly that while others had been given all, she had received nothing.

She contrasted the hand to mouth existence that she and her mother led with the full, cheerful life of the "Automobile Girls," and a wave of shame swept over her at the deceptions and subterfuges that were second nature to her mother, which she felt reasonably certain that no really honest person would practise. Her life was a sham and a mockery, and behind it was the ever present fear that her mother would some day overstep all bounds, and do something to bring the crushing weight of the law down upon them. There were so many things that Marian did not understand. Her mother never said more about her affairs than was absolutely necessary. She only knew that they were always poor, always struggling to appear to be that which they were not. She had been commanded to dissemble, to lie, to do without a murmur, whatever her mother asked of her, and her better self sometimes rose in a revolt against her mother, that was almost hatred.

As she walked gloomily along wrapped in her own bitter reflections, she sighed deeply. Bab who was walking with her glanced quickly at Marian, then with one of her swift impulses, she put out her hand and clasped that of the other girl.

"Are you unhappy, Marian?" she asked.

"No," replied Marian. But her emotions got the better of her and she choked back her sobs with an angry gulp. Then feeling the pressure of Bab's sympathetic hand she said brokenly, "I mean, yes. At least, I don't know exactly what is the matter with me. I think I am homesick--homesick for the things I have never had, and never expect to have."

"I'm sorry," said Bab, still holding Marian's hand, yet looking away, so she should not see Marian's rebellious tears. "But why do you think you won't have the things you want? If you keep on wishing for a thing the wish is sure to come true some day."

Marian's set face softened at these words. "Do you really think that?"

she asked. "Do you suppose that things will ever be any different for me? Oh, if you only knew how I hate all this miserable pretense."

"Why, Marian!" exclaimed Bab. "What is the matter? I had no idea you were so unhappy."

"Of course you hadn't," replied Marian. "Because I never dare let any one know my real feelings. I never have hated my life as I do since I have known you girls. You are just girls. That's the beauty of it, and you have folks who love you and want you to stay girls and not ape grown up people all the time. I'd like to wear my hair in one braid, and run and romp and have a good time generally. Look at me. I look as though I were twenty-two at least, and I'm only seventeen. I have to wear my hair on top of my head and pretend to be something remarkable when I want to be just a plain every day girl. It's intolerable. I won't stand it any longer. I don't see why I was ever born."

"Poor Marian," soothed Bab. "Don't feel so badly. It will all come right some day. Let me be your friend. I believe I understand just how you feel. Perhaps your mother may----"

"Don't speak of my mother!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the girl pa.s.sionately. "Sometimes I hate her. Do you know, Barbara, I often wonder if she is really my mother. Away back in my mind there is the memory of another face. I don't know whether I have only dreamed it, or where it came from, but I like to think of that sweet face as belonging to my mother."

Bab looked at Marian in a rather startled way. What a strange girl she was, to be sure. Suppose Mrs. De Lancey Smythe were not her mother.

Suppose that Marian had been stolen when a baby. Bab's active brain immediately began to spin a web of circ.u.mstances about Marian Smythe.