The Wrong Twin

by Harry Leon Wilson

The girl with black hair and the turquoise necklace was already reading Wilbur's palm, disclosing to him that he had a deep vein of cruelty in his nature. Patricia Whipple listened impatiently to this and other sinister revelations. She had not learned palm reading, but now resolved to. Meantime, she could and did stem the flood of character portrayal by a suggestion of tennis. Patricia was still freckled, though not so obtrusively as in the days of her lawlessness. Her skirt and her hair were longer, the latter being what Wilbur Cowan later called rusty. She was still active and still determined, however. No girl in her presence was going to read interminably the palm of one upon whom she had, in a way of speaking, a family claim, especially one of such distinguished appearance and manners—apparently being bored to death by the attention of mere girls.

Tennis resulted in a set of doubles, Merle and his little friend playing Patricia and one of her little friends—the one with the necklace and the dark eyes. The desirable new man was not dressed for tennis, and could not have played it in any clothes whatever, and so had to watch from the back line, where he also retrieved balls. Both girls had insisted upon being at his end of the court. Their gentlemen opponents were irritated by this arrangement, because the girls paid far more attention to the new man than to the game itself. They delayed their service to catch his last remark; delayed the game seriously by pausing to chat with him. He retrieved balls for them, which also impeded progress.

When he brought the balls to the dark-eyed girl she acknowledged his courtesy with a pretty little "Thanks a lot!" Patricia varied this. She said "Thanks a heap!" And they both rather glared at the other girl—a mere pinkish, big-eyed girl whose name was Florrie—who lingered stanchly by the new man and often kept him in talk when he should have been watchful. Still this third girl had but little initiative. She did insinuatingly ask Wilbur what his favourite flower was, but this got her nowhere, because it proved that he did not know.

The gentlemen across the net presently became unruly, and would play no more at a game which was merely intended, it seemed, to provide their opponents with talk of a coquettish character. Wilbur ardently wished that Winona could have been there to hear this talk, because the peerless young things freely used the expletive "Darn!" after inept strokes. Still they bored him. He would rather have been on the links.

He confessed at last to his little court that he much preferred golf to tennis. Patricia said that she had taken up golf, and that he must coach her over the Newbern course. The dark-eyed girl at once said that she was about to take up golf, and would need even more coaching than Patricia. Once they both searched him—while the game waited—for class pins, which they meant to appropriate. They found him singularly devoid of these. He never even knew definitely what they were looking for.

He was glad when refreshments were served on the lawn, and ate sandwiches in a wholehearted manner that disturbed Winona, who felt that at these affairs one should eat daintily, absently, as if elevated converse were the sole object and food but an incident. Wilbur ate as if he were hungry—had come there for food. Even now he was not free from the annoying attentions of Patricia and her little friends. They not only brought him other sandwiches and other cake and other lemonade, which he could have condoned, but they chattered so incessantly at him while he ate that only by an effort of concentration could he ignore them for the food. Florrie said that he was brutal to women. She was also heard to say—Winona heard it—that he was an awfully stunning chap. Harvey D. Whipple was now a member of the party, beaming proudly upon his son. And Sharon Whipple came presently to survey the group. He winked at Wilbur, who winked in return.

After refreshments the young gentlemen withdrew to smoke. They withdrew unostentatiously, through a pergola, round a clump of shrubbery, and on to the stables, where Merle revealed a silver cigarette case, from which he bestowed cigarettes upon them. They lighted these and talked as men of the world.

"Those chickens make me sick," said the little friend of Merle quite frankly.

"Me, too!" said Wilbur.