“Never mind the heels,” he interrupted. “This will be rolled tomorrow, besides those are little heels,” he finished, not knowing that the better word might have been “low” for heels.
Dudley was like Cara, good-looking in a very general way and with that same easy gracefulness that made Cara so attractive. But his hair! Red! The very reddest-red, bleached a little now by the summer sun, but red for all that. He should have had blue eyes, but Barbara wasn’t wondering about the color of his eyes—although Cara always called them green—she wasn’t wondering about anything, as a matter of fact, she was just deciding.
Queer, how easy it was for her to fall into comradeship with a boy. Dudley Burke wasn’t guessing at the price of her shoes, or her stockings or wondering where she got “that rig.” But he was curious to know how she sprinted like any fellow would, and how she put up such a good game of tennis, anyway.
Tennis surely is the game for boys and girls, and these two were throwing so much energy and enthusiasm into it they could not help getting proportionate enjoyment from it. Time passed quickly, too quickly for both of them. Then, suddenly Barbara remembered she had promised to follow the girls to the lake.
“I’m afraid I’ll have to stop,” she said reluctantly, panting a little. “This is lots of fun, but I promised to meet the girls——”
“Oh, yes,” drawled the boy, shaking his head in mockery. “This here house party, of course——” He did a few tricks with his racket then sprang around to get Barbara’s jacket which she had left on the bench.
“Oh, let me show you something,” he exclaimed, as he reached for his own coat. “Mother’s ‘nuts’ on old junk, and look what I just bought!” He was holding up an old candlestick.
“Why,” faltered Barbara, “isn’t that—wherever did you get that?” she asked quickly altering the original form of her question.
“Couple of kids. It’s brass.” He was rubbing the tarnished metal with his handkerchief. “Two funny little Dagoes waylaid me down the road. Suppose they snibbied it——”
“Nicky and Vicky wouldn’t steal anything.”