Helen went with her.
Had Ruth Fielding possessed the power of movement just then, she would have gotten out of the wagon and run away to the dormitory. But she was stricken motionless as well as speechless by her chum's defection, and before she could recover her poise the wagons had begun to move, rattling over the frozen road toward Triton Lake.
Ah! how it hurt! For weeks Ruth had endured slights, and haughty looks, and innuendoes from Mary Cox and her Upedes—and the girl from the Red Mill had accepted all uncomplainingly. She had heretofore believed Helen only thoughtless. But this was more than Ruth Fielding could bear. She was the last girl to get into the wagonette, and she turned her head away, that her companions might not see her tears.
The other girls chattered, and laughed, and sang, and enjoyed themselves. Ruth Fielding passed the few minutes which elapsed during the drive to the boathouse in trying to stifle her sobs and remove the traces of her emotion. She was tempted to remain in the wagonette and go back to the school at once—for the carriages would return to town, coming out again for the party of Briarwood students late in the afternoon.
This thought was her first intention; but as her sobs subsided she felt more the hurt of the treatment she had received. And this hurt stirred within her a self-assertion that was becoming a more prominent characteristic of Ruth every day. Why should she relapse into tears because her chum had done a cruel thing? Hurt as she was, why should she give The Fox the satisfaction of knowing she felt the slight?
Ruth began to take herself to task for her "softness." Let Helen go with the Upedes if she wished. Here were nice girls all about her, and all the Sweetbriars particularly thought a great deal of her, Ruth knew. She need not mope and weep just because Helen Cameron, her oldest friend, had neglected her. The other girls stood ready to be her friends.
They had not noticed Ruth's silence and abstraction—much less her tears. She wiped her eyes hard, gulped down her sobs, and determined to have a good time in spite of either the Upedes or Helen's hardness of heart.
The first wagonette reached the shore of the lake some time ahead of the second. And perhaps this fact, as well as the placing of Miss Reynolds in the latter, had been arranged by the wily Miss Cox.
"Oh, Mary Cox!" cried Helen, looking out, "there's a whole lot of folks here—BOYS!"
But when one of the boys came running to help her down the steps, Helen shouted with delight. She came "flopping" down into Tom Cameron's arms.