“How are you getting along as a driver?” Leslie asked, not without a smile as she sighted Elizabeth’s brightly painted car. It was reminiscent of last year’s disasters.
“Oh, very well. I’ve always told you that I could keep the road if people would keep out of my way. Every near accident I’ve ever had has been the fault of someone else’s poor driving.”
To this airy, self-exonerative statement Leslie made no response save by a twist of her loose-lipped mouth. She was very near derisive laughter. Elizabeth, blandly complacent, did not notice her companion’s peculiar expression.
“Let me give you one piece of advice, Bess,” she said brusquely. “Get through with that giddy blue and tan car of yours. It is a dead give-away. One can recognize it a mile away. You think you are O. K. as a driver. You’re not. Don’t deceive yourself. You can’t put it over me. I know your style of driving and it’s punk. Why don’t you learn to drive?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elizabeth bridled. “I like my car blue. Blue is my color.” She ignored Leslie’s fling at her driving abilities.
“It will be your finish some day; on that car, I mean. Get a black car. You need a new one. This one is passé. You could have it painted black, but what’s the use? Trade this one in on a new machine. Maybe you’ll do better driving a new car.”
“Perhaps you are right. I think my father will let me have a new machine.” Possession of a brand new car appealed to vain Elizabeth.
“I know I’m right. Suppose you were to have trouble along the pike as you had with that driver last year. If anyone reported you the tag that gave you away would be: ‘The student I mean was driving a blue and buff car.’” Leslie imitated to perfection a high, complaining voice. “With a black car you could simply scud away from trouble and no one would remember how you looked. What?”
“You are right, Leslie,” Elizabeth reluctantly conceded. “I never before looked at the matter in that light.”
Leslie was tempted to reply, “That was because you were too stupidly vain of your gay, blue ice wagon.” She refrained. Discretion warned her to allow matters to rest as they were. She had no desire to arouse resentment in the shallow, but tricky, junior. Her advice concerning a change of cars was sound and she knew it. While Leslie had neither liking nor faith in Elizabeth Walbert, she needed her services. She thought she had learned by past bitter experience precisely how to manage Elizabeth.