“These Southern girls,” replied Mrs. Temple in the same guarded tone, “I always did consider them more attractive than you mannish young women.”
Whereat Della laughed lightly, nor felt any hurt. She knew none was intended.
“Oh, there’s Tubby Devore,” she cried the next moment. And running forward, she gripped Jack’s free arm and pointed. “Jack, Jack, there’s Tubby Devore, and Johnny Malcolm, and Pinky Atwell, and—and—why, there are Frank and Bob. Oh, call to them, Jack.”
Whereat Jack raised his voice, and in a moment the group thus hailed came plunging through the crowd, to surround the newcomers, pay their laughing respects to Della—an old acquaintance—and to slap Jack thunderously on the back and hail him as “Benedict.” To all of which Jack appeared brazenly indifferent, and presented each in turn to Rafaela, “who,” he said, “is soon going to have an awful job on her hands. Give her your pity lads. She’s going to look after me.”
But if we were to follow our friends throughout the festivities and occasions of that and succeeding days, we would need another book or two. It was Commencement Week, and New Haven was going through its annual madness. Enough to say that indoors or out, at dance or tea or in the Bowl, Jack everywhere came in for attention as a distinguished young alumnus whose radio research already was bringing him and the institution fame, while Rafaela with her Spanish beauty offset by a ravishing accent and a spirit of mischief forever lurking beneath the surface was acclaimed by all Jack’s friends as a jolly good sort, indeed. As for big Bob, it was with genuine regret that those old alumni who followed Yale sports from season to season spoke of his graduation. He was leaving a record in practically all departments of athletics which everybody considered would remain unsurpassed for a long time to come. And Frank’s graduation equally was a matter for regret, among the undergraduate body especially, inasmuch as he had endeared himself to its members by his democratic spirit and charm of manner.
At length, however, all good things must end, and it was so with Commencement Week. The day came when New Haven was only a memory, and all our friends were back in New York, though not in New York City, but on the adjoining Hampton and Temple estates near Southampton. Ahead of the young folks lay a long Summer with the prospects of gay companions coming and going, tennis, yachting, motor boating on the waters of Great South Bay and the broad Atlantic, golf and dancing, motoring and horseback riding. Della who was a born manager had taken charge of affairs, and had planned a round of gayeties leading up to the approaching marriage of Jack and Rafaela. The latter and Don Ferdinand were guests of the Temples. And, of course, in between everything else and, in fact, forming at first the major attraction for at least two members of the party, were the innumerable visits to New York paid by the two girls and Mrs. Temple in pursuit of that elusive thing known as “Rafaela’s trousseau.”
Many times did the swift-moving events at Laredo and at Don Ferdinand’s Mexican estate come up for discussion, and every item of occurrences had to be rehearsed time and again, with the exception of how Rafaela had been captured and conveyed to Laredo.
By tacit consent, that was never brought up for discussion because of the horrors surrounding it in Rafaela’s recollection. It was known that a lieutenant of Ramirez’s, who had been hiding in the hills near the estate, had swooped down the day after Jack and his father had concluded their brief visit, and, after smashing the radio station, had carried Rafaela off from under the eyes of the few peons left behind by Don Ferdinand and Pedro and from the despairing clutches of Donna Ana. More dead than alive, the poor girl had been swept up into the hills. But when she found that whatever fate was intended for her was to be deferred until she could be transported on horseback to Nueva Laredo and turned over to Ramirez, her courage and resourcefulness revived. She watched for an opportunity, and, when on arrival at Nueva Laredo, she found Ramon in almost as sad plight as herself, she instantly began working to bring the old fellow around to the point of helping her escape. The two, as we know, were in the act of carrying out their desperate attempt when Jack fortunately and opportunely arrived with his comrades and the aviators to rescue her.
But, of the tortured hours that lay between the sudden attack of the bandits on her home and Jack’s arrival, she could never be persuaded to talk, and so, by common consent, the matter was never pressed.
One day during this golden vacation period Jack went into New York, not returning until the next day. Then he arrived jubilant. He had come straight from hours spent with the chief engineers and officials of the great radio trust, and so fulsome had been the praise heaped on his young head on account of the successful outcome of his year’s experiments that modesty forbade him to repeat more than a tithe of it. Indeed, many another head—and many a good deal older than Jack’s—might have been turned; but his sat too squarely, he saw too sanely for conceit to gain a foothold.