"Where's Father?" Harriet inquired, trying to conceal a tremor in her voice. "Did he know I was upstairs?"
"I am afraid he did, Harriet," Ruth replied.
"Well, I don't care," declared Harriet defiantly. "I will select my own friends. Charlie Meyers is stupid and ill-bred, but he is good natured, and I am tired of position and poverty."
"You are no such thing, Harriet," protested Ruth, taking her cousin by the hand and leading her to a long mirror. "There, look at yourself in your yellow gown. You look like a queen. Please don't be silly."
"It's clothes that make the woman, Ruth," Harriet replied, kissing Ruth unexpectedly. "And this yellow gown is just one of the things that troubles me. Dear me, I am glad the reception is over!"
CHAPTER IV
AT THE CHINESE EMBASSY
"Shall we eat our luncheon with chopsticks to-day?" Mollie Thurston asked Harriet Hamlin an hour before the "Automobile Girls" and their hostess were to start for the Chinese Embassy.
Harriet laughed good-humoredly at Mollie's question. "You absurd child, don't you know the Chinese minister is one of the most cultivated men in Washington! When he is in America he does what the Americans do. But his wife, Lady Tu, is delightfully Chinese. She paints her face in the Chinese fashion and wears beautiful Chinese clothes in her own home. And the little Chinese daughter is a darling. Really, Mollie, you will feel as though you had been on a trip to the Orient when you meet dainty little Wee Tu."
"Oh, I don't believe a Chinese girl can be attractive," Mollie argued, her eyes fixed on the pile of pretty gowns which Harriet was laying out on her bed.