“Why, how’s that?” Ralph looked around inquiringly. “His father has piled up a few millions. That ought to please any girl.”
“That’s just where the shoe pinches, so to speak,” was the reply. “Arden, being a red-blooded young American, refused to just spend his father’s money and so he put on overalls and began at the bottom in one of his dad’s factories. He said he wanted to prove to himself, even if the world didn’t care, that he had brains enough to make good without help. Phyl wouldn’t speak to him after that, hoping that, for her sake, he would give it up; but he didn’t, and so I thought it was all off between them.”
“Well, something must have happened, for Bobs tells me that they are really engaged, and so, of course I have also invited Arden. By the way, you know Gwendolyn Vandergrift. What kind of a chap ought I to ask for her? Harry Birch is in town. I thought she might like him.” And so the lads talked over the plans for the coming house party, and so successfully did Ralph play his part that his pal did not for one moment suspect that his friend was secretly wishing that he might have sailed away in Dick’s place on the boat which, that noon, had left for distant shores.
But night is darkest before the dawn.
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE HOUSE PARTY
Ralph and Dick were out on the wide velvety lawn which surrounded the handsome rambling summer home of the Caldwaller-Corys.
The gay awnings, palms and boxes of flowers gave the house a festive appearance, while the many colored lanterns strung about the garden suggested that some merriment was planned for the evening.
Mrs. Caldwaller-Cory, who seemed very young to be the mother of a junior member of an ancient law firm, emerged from the house closely followed by Roberta Vandergrift.
Bobs, in an attractive summer dress and wide flower-wreathed hat, looked very different from the girl who, while on the East Side, dressed in a simple dark tailor-made suit and a neat, narrow-brimmed hat.
“Aren’t your guests late, my son?” the hostess inquired. Ralph looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.