Strangely enough, this speech came back to each of the three girls at the same moment.
Ruth felt that perhaps they had rushed too quickly into an intimacy with the countess. For the first time Mollie was inclined to be a little suspicious. While Barbara who had even more evidence against the Countess Sophia tried vainly to fit together the pieces of this most mysterious puzzle.
“Well, fair and beautiful ladies, are you quite ready for a sail on the Grand Canal? Have you your wraps and bonnets? Is Grace’s guitar on hand?” called Mr. Stuart that evening, after dinner, rapping on three doors one after the other.
“In a minute!” called a chorus of voices from the three rooms, while Mr. Stuart put on a look of resigned patience and waited for the girls to appear. At length, tired of waiting, he strolled toward the elevator when Marian De Lancey Smythe hurried along the corridor.
She averted her face when she saw Mr. Stuart, for Marian had sedulously kept out of sight for a number of days, and they had wondered not a little at it.
“Why, Miss Marian,” called the kind-hearted man, who had always felt an interest in the strange young girl, “aren’t you going to see the water fête to-night?”
“I’m afraid not, Mr. Stuart,” she replied, her lips trembling a little, partly from loneliness and partly because people were not often kind to her. “Mama is going with Mr. Duval and some friends, but I didn’t care to go with them.”
“Very well, Miss Marian; you must go with us, then. Get your wraps and meet us on the piazza.”
And ten minutes later, her eyes alight with pleasure, Marian made one of the party of girls who presently found themselves floating in the long procession of illuminated boats on the lake.
All the hotels had emptied themselves upon the lake front, and hundreds of boats had already filled and were forming in line for the water. The moon would not be up until very late, but the place was aglow with Japanese lanterns, which decorated the launches and rowboats and hung in festoons along the boat landings.