Yet Betty had won some points for her school and she was, indeed, back where she could hear the announcement after the final event and to join in the wild cheering of feminine voices which marked the announcement that Lyon High had won the meet by a narrow margin. It was well that it was so, for there had been some good swimming done by all the schools.
“Going to take the life-saving tests, Betty?” asked Lucia Coletti, who chanced to be by Betty as the crowd left the pool and the building.
“No, not now, Lucia. Next year is time enough. I might get ready for it, but I’m just learning a lot of things and trying the endurance stunts a little. Perhaps I’ll swim across to Italy one of these days.”
Lucia laughed. “That’s what I’d like to do right now, though I prefer going on a steamer. I’m homesick to see my father,” she added.
“Will you be going over this summer?” queried Betty, though casually, for Betty was not one to be curious.
“No. Mother says not,” replied Lucia, and Betty did not ask whether or not the count would come to America. There was some trouble there, Betty supposed. It did not always work when an American girl married a foreigner. But how dreadful for Lucia who loved both parents, of course, if you were separated! Why didn’t people think about their children a little instead of themselves?
“Betty,” said Lucia, “Mother is going to entertain for me this spring and you are the first one I want to invite. I haven’t had you over at all.”
“But I haven’t had you either,” said Betty. “We just couldn’t manage parties some way this year with all that has been going on at school and Mother so busy and Father working so hard, too. You were the stranger to be invited.”
Lucia slipped her hand inside of Betty’s bent arm and patted it. “But I know perfectly well that it was Mother’s place to show some attention to your father and mother. But Mother has been considerably upset—about some of our affairs. She’s been in the social columns of the papers all right, but she’s not done any of the entertaining herself.”
It was rather an odd place for any confidences, Betty thought, but Lucia was likely to say things when she wanted to do it. No one could hear, however, as they went out of the open doors and ran down the steps together. Lucia nodded good night and then went to where the Murchison car waited for her.