Ball! Rebecca Mary never wanted to see another ball in her life. There had been one ball too many in it as it was. She forced herself to smile at Joan. "I must go up to Granny, honey," she said slowly. "She has been alone all day. You will have to play by yourself. If Mr. Cabot comes up from the shop, or Mr. Peter, or even old Mr. Simmons, will you call me, please?"
She stood in the doorway and looked across the lawn in the direction of the shop. The chatter of the gasoline engine came to her faintly, puff-puff. She wondered if she should run across and call to Richard herself, and she decided that she had better wait. She must do nothing to make Frederick Befort suspect that she knew why he was at Riverside.
When at last she went upstairs she found that Granny was not inclined for conversation.
"If you'll hand me that book, Rebecca Mary, I'll finish it. There is a silly little heroine in it who can't make up her mind which of three men she loves."
"Do you think it is always easy for a girl to know what to do?" Rebecca Mary asked wistfully. Rebecca Mary was almost overwhelmed at the number of things she had discovered that a girl should know.
Granny began a rather scornful speech but as she looked at Rebecca Mary's troubled little face she changed it for a more sympathetic one.
"No, I don't. I think it's very hard sometimes for every one, for even an old lady, to know what is best to do. But if you were in a book, Rebecca Mary, it would be easy. All you would have to do would be to wait for your knight of the four-leaf clover," she laughed.
"Oh, that!" Rebecca Mary had lost all pleasure in her mysterious talisman; it had brought her all at once such a huge amount of bad luck. "But how am I going to find him?" she asked impatiently. "It's weeks since that day at the Waloo, and I don't know any more than I did then."
"Don't you?" Granny raised quizzical eyebrows.
"Well, not much." Rebecca Mary didn't wish to talk of clover leaves, but it would be easier to follow Granny's lead than to offer one of her own. If she talked of what was really in her thoughts she would frighten Granny into hysterics. "I know that Peter and Mr. Cabot were there that afternoon and Wallie Marshall and George Barton. Even old Major Martingale was there eating hot buttered toast, but I can't make one of them say that he gave me that clover leaf. You don't think it was Major Martingale, do you?" Rebecca Mary would rather never know the truth if fat old Major Martingale had given her the talisman.