“Oh, we have, we have!” Grace exclaimed excitedly when Nan and Bess finally located the others. “We all have invitations to the Captain’s table for dinner tonight! Dr. Beulah says we are to go, that we may wear our very best dresses, and that we may stay up tonight for the costume ball. It’s to be the very nicest night on board ship, for tomorrow morning, early, we sight land and some of the passengers will be leaving.” Grace was breathless as she finished the end of the sentence.
“But where’s Laura?” Nan looked in vain for the red-headed girl.
“Yes, where is she?” Bess echoed, and then added, “Surely, she received one too. The Captain didn’t leave her out, did he?” Bess looked worried, for she remembered suddenly Laura’s unfortunate encounter with the commander of the boat.
“She received one all right,” Rhoda responded, “and she’s down in her cabin practically crying her eyes out.”
“Why?” Nan and Bess chorused.
“She says she can’t possibly go to that dinner and face him. She knows he will laugh at her. She says she has never been in such an embarrassing position before. She almost wishes she hadn’t come on this trip at all. You go, Nan, and see what you can do with her. The more I say, the harder she cries. I have never seen her in such a state.”
“All right. You people stay here and I’ll see if I can persuade her to come up.” Nan started off, but then changed her mind and came back for the rest of the girls. “Come, let’s all go down,” she suggested. “I think, after all, that that would be better.” So they went.
They found Laura lying across her bunk with her face buried in the pillow. Her shoulders were heaving and she was sobbing.
“Oh, Laura, don’t take it so seriously,” Nan stooped over the sobbing girl and gently pulled her around so that she faced her friends. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her red hair was tousled. She put a wadded, tear-wet handkerchief up to her eyes and wiped them.
“I—I——I guess you would take it seriously too,” she wept, “if you couldn’t go to the Captain’s dinner, if you had to send regrets, saying you were ill.”