“Oh, we know lots of titled people,” Marian interposed. “There were two countesses and a marquis at our hotel in Newport last summer.”
“Isn’t all this lovely?” cried Barbara. She was not interested in counts and titles. She was keenly alive to the beauty of the scenery about them. “I can’t decide which out-blues the other, the lake or the sky.”
“But aren’t there a great many clouds in the sky?” questioned Ruth. “See how they have piled up over there? Do you suppose, by any chance, that we shall have rain? We were told that it never rained down here. It simply isn’t tolerated.”
The launch was now running far out from the shore, which was lined with pretty villas, set here and there in the midst of cocoanut palms and oleander trees. Following the boat’s path of rippling waves came another launch much smaller than Mr. Warren’s. It was manned by two men who had apparently not observed them. The men were deep in earnest conversation.
“Oh, Marian, there is the Count de Sonde with his friend!” exclaimed her mother. “How fortunate that we should run across them, just now.”
“Which one is the count?” asked Maud Warren. She had taken very little interest in anything before. “I hope he is not the older man.”
“No; he is the slender, dark-haired one,” returned Mrs. Smythe. “He is dressed in white.”
In the meantime Mr. Stuart had changed his seat. He had come to Palm Beach to enjoy his four “Automobile Girls.” No fascinating widow should swerve him from his original plans. Like most hard-working successful men he loved a holiday like a schoolboy and resented deeply any interference with his pleasure.
“Are my girls having a good time?” he queried, smiling into four charming faces.
“Yes, indeed!” exclaimed four voices in chorus.