"What a glorious surprise!" cried Jane. "You'll stop for lunch, of course?" Then to the girls nearest them: "This is Selma Gordon, who writes for the New Day."
Pronouncing of names—smiles—bows—veiled glances of curiosity—several young women exchanging whispered comments of amusement. And to be sure, Selma, in that simple costume, gloveless, with dusty shoes and blown hair, did look very much out of place. But then Selma would have looked, in a sense, out of place anywhere but in a wilderness with perhaps a few tents and a half-tamed herd as background. In another sense, she seemed in place anywhere as any natural object must.
"I don't eat lunch," said Selma. "But I'll stay if you'll put me next to you and let me talk to you."
She did not realize what an upsetting of order and precedence this request, which seemed so simple to her, involved. Jane hesitated, but only for a fraction of a second. "Why, certainly," said she. "Now that I've got you I'd not let you go in any circumstances."
Selma was gazing around at the other girls with the frank and pleased curiosity of a child. "Gracious, what pretty clothes!" she cried—she was addressing Miss Clearwater, of Cincinnati. "I've read about this sort of thing in novels and in society columns of newspapers. But I never saw it before. ISN'T it interesting!"
Miss Clearwater, whose father was a United States Senator—by purchase—had had experience of many oddities, male and female. She also was attracted by Selma's sparkling delight, and by the magnetic charm which she irradiated as a rose its perfume. "Pretty clothes are attractive, aren't they?" said she, to be saying something.
"I don't know a thing about clothes," confessed Selma. "I've never owned at the same time more than two dresses fit to wear—usually only one. And quite enough for me. I'd only be fretted by a lot of things of that kind. But I like to see them on other people. If I had my way the whole world would be well dressed."
"Except you?" said Ellen Clearwater with a smile.
"I couldn't be well dressed if I tried," replied Selma. "When I was a child I was the despair of my mother. Most of the people in the tenement where we lived were very dirty and disorderly—naturally enough, as they had no knowledge and no money and no time. But mother had ideas of neatness and cleanliness, and she used to try to keep me looking decent. But it was of no use. Ten minutes after she had smoothed me down I was flying every which way again."
"You were brought up in a tenement?" said Miss Clearwater. Several of the girls within hearing were blushing for Selma and were feeling how distressed Jane Hastings must be.