"Barbara, I wouldn't play tennis with Gladys and Harry Townsend, if I
were you," said Mollie to her sister, one morning a week later. "They
were horrid to you yesterday. Didn't you notice, when you called to Hugh
and Ruth that their last ball had gone over the line, Gladys just
shrugged her shoulders, and gave a sneery kind of smile to that Townsend
fellow, and he lifted his eyebrows! Is your score the best, or Ruth's? I
know you're both ahead of Gladys and Grace. I am sure Gladys doesn't
play a bit better than I do; so she needn't have been so high and
mighty."
Mollie shrugged her dainty shoulders. "You see, she told me, the first
day she arrived, that, of course, I didn't play in the class with the
others, so you had just the right eight for the two courts--four girls
and four men."
"Why, Mollie!" Bab looked surprised. "I thought you said you didn't want
to play. You can take my place any time."
Mollie smiled. "No," she answered; "I don't want to play. It's not that.
But it annoys me when you let Gladys Le Baron, cousin or no cousin, snub
us all the time, and you not notice it. Ralph certainly wouldn't like to
have me play with him now, when you're in for a match game."
"Mollie," said Bab, tying her tennis shoe, "I _do_ notice how rude
Gladys is. She left me standing all alone the other afternoon, when Ruth
and Grace had gone into the club house to speak to Aunt Sallie. Friends
of Gladys's came up, and she deliberately turned her back on me and
didn't introduce me. I felt so out of it! Mrs. Post and Mrs. Erwin soon
joined them, and they shook hands with me. I found the other people were
some guests who had come down for Mrs. Erwin's ball, next week, and were
staying at her house.
"I know," she continued, "Gladys is furious that we are invited to the
dance. Mrs. Erwin was so cordial and nice. She said, right before me,
that though the ball was a grown-up affair, she knew Gladys would want
her cousins and friends, and she had invited us on her account. Wasn't
it funny? Miss Gladys couldn't say a word. Goodness knows, _she_ doesn't
want us. She has been lording it over us, for days, because she and
Harry were to be the only very young people invited. Gladys imagines
herself a woman of society, and is in reality merely a foolish little
girl," said Barbara. Then she added reflectively: "Miss Sallie says we
are all too young to 'go out,' and she doubts the propriety of allowing
us to attend Mrs. Erwin's ball. Last night she told Ruth she had almost
decided against our going. Ruth championed our cause on the strength of
the shortness of our stay in Newport, also that we should be permitted
to go as a special favor to our hostess. You know Miss Sallie hates to
refuse Ruth anything. Consequently we will be 'among those present' at
Mrs. Erwin's ball whether Miss Gladys approves or not."
"I just wish I could tell my lovely Mrs. Cartwright how mean Gladys is,"
said Mollie. "She would not ask her to her charity fair."
"Please don't say anything, Mollie," pleaded Barbara, taking her tennis
racquet from the bed. She had already answered Ralph's impatient whistle
from the garden below. "It won't do any good for us to be horrid to
Gladys in return; it will only make us seem as hateful as she is. Things
will come around, somehow. I don't mind her--so very much."
"Well, I do," answered Mollie. "But you haven't told me how your score
and Ruth's stand."
"Oh, I think we are pretty nearly even." Barbara was half way out the
door. "Be careful, Molliekins," she urged, "if you go rowing with that
freshman this afternoon. Why do you want to know about Ruth's score and
mine? It's a week before the game, and anything may happen before then.
We all play pretty evenly; Hugh Post and Ralph Ewing, too."
"Oh, I didn't mean anything, Bab," Mollie said, thoughtfully. "Only
Ruth's awfully anxious to play in the tournament. She's just crazy about
it."
"Of course she is, child. So are we all, for that matter," answered Bab.
"You don't mean----"
"I don't mean a single thing, Bab Thurston!" said Mollie, a little
indignantly.
"Yes, I am coming, at last, Ralph," Barbara sang softly over the
banisters. She had not overcome her awe of Mrs. Ewing. Ralph's mother
was by no means pleased with the idea that her adored Ralph preferred
Barbara to any of the other girls.
"It's like Ralph," she complained to his father, "to pick out the
poorest girl of the lot, when the rich ones are so much more charming. A
great way for him to retrieve the family fortunes!"
"We will hope," said Ralph's father quietly, "that Ralph will not try to
restore our fortunes by marrying for money."
As Barbara walked down to meet Ralph she looked grave, and her face was
flushed. Ruth _did_ want to play in the tournament, but so did she, for
that matter! Could she resign in Ruth's favor? Then Barbara laughed to
herself. "Catch a girl like Ruth letting me give up to her! I wonder if
it would be fair of me to disappoint Ralph?"
"Come on, Miss Day-dreamer," ordered Ralph, hurrying her along. "The
others have been waiting for us for fifteen minutes down at the Casino
courts. Do you know that there is a party on for the afternoon? Ruth and
Hugh are to pile as many of us as they can into their motor cars, and
take us ten miles out the Ocean Drive. We are to stop at Mrs. Duffy's
English tea place on our way back."
Bab was certainly not playing in good form today. She even missed one of
Gladys's serves, which were usually too soft to count. When the
morning's practice was over, Ruth's and Hugh's score was two points
ahead.
"Who is going to play in the tournament from these courts?" asked Mrs.
Cartwright, crossing the lawn, her tennis racquet swinging in her hand.
Mollie was close beside her, also "that freshman," who followed Mollie
wherever she went.
"Bab," answered Ruth, coming up to smile at Mrs. Cartwright, who was
looking prettier than usual in her tennis blouse of pale pink madras
with a linen skirt of the same shade.
"What a funny Gladys!" Mrs. Cartwright laughed as the other girls joined
her. "You are following our latest Newport fad, are you not, of having
your head wrapped in a chiffon veil while you play tennis. You look like
a Turkish girl, with only your eyes peeping out."
Gladys had tied up her head in a pale blue chiffon veil, with a fetching
bow just over the ear. The other women who were playing on the courts,
with the exception of Mrs. Cartwright and the automobile girls, were
draped in the same fashion.
"That suggests a game to me," continued Mrs. Cartwright. "You must come
to my veranda some night and we will play it. It is called 'eyeology.' I
won't tell you anything more about it now. Just you wait! But to go back
to my first question. Then I am to enter Barbara for the tournament?"
"I should say not, Mrs. Cartwright," said Barbara, who was standing
near. This time she would not let Ruth speak.
"Ruth is certainly the best player among us," drawled Gladys; "she and
Mr. Post; but," she went on in insinuating tones, "you know there are
strange things that can happen in tennis!"
"If you mean, Gladys, that I cheated the other day," broke out Barbara
fiercely, "I simply won't bear it! I know it is horrid of me to make a
scene," she turned to Ruth with her eyes full of tears, "but this is the
second time."
"Please don't get excited, Miss Thurston," cried Gladys scornfully. "I
have not said you cheated. It looks a little bit like a case of guilty
conscience."
Harry Townsend smiled knowingly.
Bab, nearly in tears, couldn't answer, but Ralph and Hugh Post both
protested indignantly.
"Please don't discuss a thing of this kind here," said Mrs. Cartwright,
angrily. "We don't allow quarreling on the Casino courts. I am surprised
at you, Barbara. You were accused of nothing."
Mollie's eyes were black, instead of their usual lovely blue. She was
very indignant, but she was always more of a diplomat than Barbara.
"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.