“I waited for Ruth,” Esther was saying, “but she didn’t come over. Then we drove over there and she was gone, in a taxi, her mother said.”
“Here she is now!” proclaimed Louise, for the rollicking Ruth was tripping up the stone steps, suit-case dangling by her.
“’Low girls!” she called out. “I missed you! But I got the worth of my money from old Taxi-Dermot,” she declared, “I made him drive me down along the ocean, and then—so that every one might see me, I directed him to drive past the tennis court——”
“Here’s Cara,” interrupted Louise. “Ruth, you didn’t shake hands with Mrs. Burke,” she whispered to the obstreperous Ruth, although Mrs. Burke had by now disappeared, leaving the scene to Cara and Sniffy.
Greetings and exclamations peculiar to girls who are only growing up and think they have already grown up, were being perfunctorily exchanged, when Cara’s car, almost noiselessly, rolled up the drive, and then a shadow appeared in the doorway. This time it was the Burke’s chauffeur, Dixon, and the suit-case he primly placed in the hall, over near the carved wooden settee, was none other than Barbara Hale’s.
“Oh, here’s Barbara!” exclaimed Cara, happily, rushing forward to greet the latest and last arrival, Barbara, in her green and white sport suit with the close-fitting white felt hat.
Cara gushed and gurgled, saying every pleasant thing she could think of and all but kissing Barbara, but it seemed as if all the joy was between those two. The other girls had fallen back a little, into a group of their own, and just then Barbara wondered if she were going to be treated as an interloper, an outsider.
Were they not glad to meet her?
“Girls!” called out Cara, “you all know Barbara, don’t you? We met her at the committee meeting, you know,” she pointed out breathlessly. “Barbara, this is Louise, and Lida, and you must know Ruth? Ruth Harrison——”
“Oh yes, I know Ruth,” interrupted the embarrassed Barbara, for she was feeling the same old catch in her breath which she always experienced when meeting a lot of strange girls.