“That is, not without hurting herself,” Amelia appended.
“Oh, it isn’t funny.” Bess was genuinely upset. She would have hated the scene anyway, and when it occurred in Linda’s presence, she hated it doubly. “You should have seen the look of pity and disgust and triumph on her face when she saw that it was our party that was making all the fuss,” Bess went on, growing more vehement the more she talked. “It was positively humiliating.”
More than any of the others, Bess cared about what other people thought of her. Always conscious of herself and eager to make a good impression, she was always upset when things went wrong at all. When they did not run just according to the way she thought they should, in public especially, she felt like hiding her head and running. “It’s the way I am and I can’t help it,” she retorted once when Nan accused her of being over-sensitive, and so she never made the proper effort to overcome her failing.
“Who cares what Linda thinks?” Laura said airily as Walker and Grace joined the party, and the incident was forgotten, for the moment, while everyone made a fuss over Grace.
“You’re just a sissy,” Laura teased. “See a little bit of blood and you go off in a faint. What will you do when we start dissecting things in biology at school next fall?”
“I don’t know.” Grace looked worried as though she was going to have to do the dissecting right away.
“Tut! Tut! We’ll worry about that when the time comes,” Adair MacKenzie answered as though it was his problem to be handled in due course. “How are you now?” He looked at Grace closely while he asked the question. “Feeling all right again, are you?” He spoke gently, as he might have spoken to Alice, his daughter, and a warm feeling of sympathy toward him went through all those standing around.
“Why,” Nan said afterward, and Bess had to agree, “I believe he was irritable up in the stands because he was worried about Grace.”
“I suppose so.” Bess was much less tolerant of other people’s failings than her friend. “But that was no excuse for him to get all riled up. I can’t forget the way Linda looked.”
“Bessie, forget it.” Nan spoke sharply. “It’s not important at all. It doesn’t matter what Linda thinks of us. And it is important that we not criticise Cousin Adair. After all, we are his guests.”