“Do you mean you were out motoring alone with the Count de Sonde?” inquired Miss Stuart severely.
“Why not?” answered Maud, looking insolently at Miss Sallie.
“Ah it is in this free America that one needs no chaperons,” said Madame de Villiers innocently, but with a gleam of mischief in her eyes.
Maud made no reply. Two angry spots glowed in her cheeks.
The countess now made up her mind to intercede. She did not wish Maud to fly into a rage.
“I have had a visit from your friends, the ‘Automobile Girls’, Miss Warren,” she said graciously. “Perhaps you will join them when they come to see me again.”
Maud favored the countess with a chilly stare.
Could it be that Mrs. De Lancey Smythe had been whispering tales about the countess in Maud’s ears? And had this stupid girl believed what she had heard? Ruth felt her heart thump with the embarrassment of the situation. What was Maud going to say? Strangely enough Madame de Villiers’ face held the same look of fear that Ruth’s did. Why should Madame de Villiers look frightened instead of angry?
But Maud never uttered the insult her lips were trying to frame. Spoiled and undisciplined child that she was, when she turned her sneering face toward the countess the words suddenly failed her. For the first time Maud felt that money, after all, counted for little. There was something about this plainly dressed woman that suddenly made her feel mean and ashamed. Maud looked deep into the countess’s beautiful eyes, then answered with unaccustomed meekness. “Thank you so much. I should like to come to see you.”
In the meantime naughty Mollie was taking a slight revenge upon the count.