So sympathetic was she (as I afterward discovered) that she smiled too, and then I couldn’t, in common decency, be rude to her. She chatted away, and before I knew it I was charmed with her. I didn’t change the name I had mentally bestowed on her, but, instead, I told her of it, and it delighted her beyond measure. I told her, too, how I intended to devote the next two days to planning my summer trip, then a day for writing letters, and after that I hoped to play bridge, or otherwise hobnob socially with certain people whom I had mentally selected for that purpose.
The Bold-Faced Jig laughed heartily at this.
“Haven’t you any idea where you’re going to travel?” she asked.
“Not the slightest.”
“Well, let me advise you——”
“Oh, please don’t!” I cried. “I left my planning until now in order to get away from all advisers. I must decide for myself. I know just what I want, and I can’t bear to be interfered with.”
The B.-F. J. looked amazed at first, and then she laughed.
“All right,” she said. “Now listen, Miss Emmins. I think you’re delightful, and I’m going to help you all I can by not advising you. But if you’ve not finished your itinerary plans in two days, mayn’t I tell you then what I was going to advise?”
“Yes,” I said, with dignity and decision, “if you will keep away from me for two days, and do all you can to keep others away.”
She promised, and it was more of a task than it might seem, for as I sat in my deck-chair, or, oftener, at a table in the library, surrounded by Baedekers, time-tables, maps, guide-books, and Hare’s Walks in London, many of the socially inclined or curious-minded paused to make a tentative remark. My replies were so coolly polite that they rarely ventured on a second observation, but I soon discovered that my laughing friend had told her comrades what I was doing, and they awaited the result.