“Well,” continued Ruth, highly elated at receiving the approbation of the stern old woman. “We are going to checkmate Mrs. D. L. S. at her own game. She is trying to throw Maud in line with her own schemes. Enter the ‘Automobile Girls.’ Exit the enemy. The first battle was fought on the beach this morning, and the situation was strongly defended to the last word by General Barbara Thurston.”
“What do you mean, Ruth?” interrupted her father gravely.
Then Ruth launched forth with the account of Mrs. De Lancey Smythe’s rudeness to Bab and Bab’s reply. “Marian is all right,” concluded Ruth, “but her mother is an entirely different proposition.”
“So it would seem,” murmured the countess thoughtfully. “But suppose the count is really an eligible person, and has fallen in love, in earnest with Miss Warren, and suppose that Miss Warren truly loves him, what then? Would Mr. Warren still be opposed to the marriage?”
“I don’t know,” replied Ruth doubtfully. “But you see Maud is a girl, and Mr. Warren feels that she is too young to know her own mind. He is afraid that the count’s title has dazzled her, and he does not like foreigners. He thinks we may be able to disabuse Maud of some of her sentimental ideas. Last night we four girls organized a secret society for the suppression of fortune hunters, and we thought perhaps you might help us——”
“Ruth, my dear child!” protested Miss Sallie greatly shocked.
But old Madame de Villiers’ eyes gleamed with amusement.
“Indeed, I shall be most happy to become a member of your secret society,” rejoined the countess. “How exciting! It must be a real secret society, if we are to be serious. Let me see? We should arrange signals and plan a campaign. If I am right, Miss Maud Warren needs to be treated very delicately and carefully, or she is likely to rebel. Is this not so?”
“That is just what we agreed last night,” Ruth confessed.
“But how are we going to prove that Count de Sonde is a fortune-hunter?” argued Mollie. “For all we know, he may be immensely rich as well as illustrious.”