“How would you like to drive to Palm Beach this afternoon, stop at the Cocoanut Grove for tea and later take dinner at one of the hotels?” proposed Mr. Carroll, with diplomatic intent to change the subject.
This proposal met with instant enthusiastic response from the girls. Even Miss Carroll graciously admitted that it would be pleasant.
Luncheon over, the Wayfarers promptly scurried upstairs to decide the momentous questions of gowns. To go to Palm Beach merely for an afternoon and evening’s outing was an entirely different matter from going there for the remainder of their vacation. Tea in the Cocoanut Grove promised to be interesting.
When, at three o’clock that afternoon, the automobile sped down the oleander drive laden with its freight of daintily gowned girls, Miss Martha’s equanimity had quite returned. Seated in the tonneau between Mabel and Eleanor, she looked very stately and imposing in a smart frock of heavy wistaria silk, a plumed hat to match setting off to perfection her thick snowy hair and patrician features.
Bee was wearing her best gown, a becoming affair of pale pink taffeta which had been fashioned by her mother’s clever fingers. Mabel had chosen a dainty little dress of pale green jersey silk, embroidered with white daisies. Eleanor wore a fluffy blue chiffon creation, while Patsy was radiantly pretty in white net over white taffeta.
That the Wayfarers presented a charming appearance in their delicately-hued finery at least one spectator to their departure could testify. As the car swept through the gateway and onto the white public road, from behind a flower-laden bush situated just inside the gates, a black-haired, bare-footed girl emerged and peered wistfully through the iron palings after the fast vanishing automobile.
When it had entirely disappeared from view, the elfish little watcher turned and threw herself face downward in the tangled grass and began a low disconsolate wailing, her thin shoulders shaking with convulsive sobs. There she continued to lie, beating the long grass with two small brown clenched hands.
Her emotion having finally spent itself she slowly dragged herself to her feet, tossed her long heavy black hair out of her eyes, and sped like a fawn across the lawn. Coming at last to a clump of low growing bushes, she dived in under them and reappeared, holding something in her hand. Then she was off again, this time toward the house. Slipping through the oleander hedge with the ease of a wood sprite, she made final port at the entrance to the patio.
The doors stood open. Like a shadow she flitted through the doorway and into the patio beyond. On a rustic seat near the fountain, she laid the object which she carried in one thin brown hand. Then she turned and ran in the direction from which she had come like a timid, hunted young animal.