"The very most exciting thing of all--and don't you dare breathe it to a soul"--and Angeline sat bolt upright and clasped her arms about her knees--"is the awful scrape that Jule Kale and I got into and that's really why I'm here!"
Jule Kale had been a Junior when Pat had been at Miss Prindle's. Pat remembered her as a daring young lady whose adventures had more than once thrilled her and the other girls in the school.
"You know she'd been writing to a French soldier for over a year, even after Prin said we couldn't and what do you think! He came to New York! He was the handsomest thing--the girls were all crazy about him, when we described him! He wrote to Jule right away and asked her to meet him at the Waldorf and she went real often and took me with her. I used to take a book and pretend to read, but I watched every minute so's I could tell the other girls. Once he bought me some chocolate, too, when Jule told why I was sitting there. He said there were some more Frenchmen coming over and he'd introduce them to us! Oh, the girls were wild with excitement! Then one afternoon Jule went to a tea-room and danced with him and she didn't take me and some one saw her there and told Prin and Jule was awfully scared, 'cause you remember Prin had told her that the next scrape she was in she'd have to leave the school! And what does Jule do but tell Prin that he was her cousin who had been in the French flying service! And Prin insisted that she invite him up to school for dinner like we always do our relatives and have him give a talk about the war and Jule had the worst time explaining how he had to go away and couldn't come! And we knew all the while that Prin was sniffing around the way she does for more information so Jule thought I'd better go away for awhile so's she couldn't question me! I pretended to faint one day--I can do it awfully well now--and Prin never said a word when I told her I wanted to come here for a visit. But wasn't that all exciting and wouldn't it be funny if some day Jule married the French soldier? His name is Henri Dupres. Only Jule says his teeth are all filled with gold and he shows 'em all the time as if he was proud of them!"
Contrasted to these exciting revelations Pat felt that the telling of her little experiences--the happy school with Aunt Pen, the Eyrie and its secrets, the jolly hours at the Lee's, the basketball games, the Scout work and play, would be stupid to Angeline!
Aunt Pen had bade Pat do everything she could to entertain her guest; Pat found that Angeline was easily entertained. Indeed, the young lady never failed to indicate with daring frankness just what she wanted to do and what she did not want to do. And to Pat's dismay none of Angeline's desires included any of the other girls! Angeline stated very plainly that she considered Peggy "stupid," Keineth "a kid," and Sheila--"downright common."
"Why, do you mean she lives in that tumble-down house and her mother keeps lodgers?" she had asked with scorn.
Pat had opened her lips to answer and then closed them quickly. Something within her told her that nothing she could say would win Angeline's approval of Sheila--she, too, months ago, when she was at Miss Prindle's, might have thought the same thing!
Angeline, with pretty condescension, found Renée interesting. "Poor little refugee!" she said when Pat told Renée's story.
The two girls divided their time in the moving-picture theatres, the chocolate shops and the stores. Angeline never tired of hanging over counters and showcases; because she was smartly dressed and possessed a fund of information as to styles, she commanded respect and attention from the clerks. Each day Pat grew more and more envious and impressed by Angeline's "grown-upness."
Under Angeline's influence Pat began to feel ashamed of her own simple garments and to contrast them unhappily with the finery Angeline spread out over the bed for her inspection. She turned the henna and turquoise creation over and over while Angeline told that it had cost twenty-five whole dollars! "That's more than Renée and I earned all winter," Pat thought. And Angeline put into her hands a pair of pumps, gleefully remarking that "they were sixteen and I got them for twelve--wasn't that a great bargain?"