“Esther!” exclaimed Cara, in unassumed surprise. “You really mustn’t speak so of——”
“Babs’ pets,” interrupted Ruth Harrison, who was the one girl who could say a thing like that unintentionally. She did not mean to hurt Babs, but the whole conversation was hurting her. She resented the girls’ sneering at the children whom she had become fond of through sympathy. Also she felt like something of an outcast herself, for she did not belong to this indifferent leisure class. She had been working and earning money for two years outside of school-time, even if it were such work as might be termed professional.
“Nicky sells junk and we sell bugs,” she had reminded her father, when he too had objected to her interest in the Italians.
“But you’ll find they are hiding black handers in that shack,” persisted Ruth, who would not look Cara’s way and therefore could not see the warnings she was flashing from her eyes at her.
It had been a wonderful dinner, from the ruby bouillon to the snowy sherbet, but to Babs the food was merely incidental. She was annoyed, mad she would call it. Why had Dudley taken the girls over the railroad when there were endless other beautiful drives to be enjoyed?
The noisy arrival of a car load of boys, including Dudley and Dick Landers who had dined at the Club, cut short the girls’ dinner—which was a real charity, for the meal had been dragging along like a box-party picnic.
“We’re all going to the movies,” Cara announced. “That may not be a very original way to spend a house-party evening, but there’s a wonderful picture at the Ritz and the boys will take us.”
“Great!” gurgled Lida Bent. She hadn’t said much all during dinner, and one might have suspected she was being disappointed in Cara’s party. Lida was a pretty blonde, addicted to fancy dressing, and perhaps the fact that she was so beautifully “dolled up” in pale blue with creamy lace inserts, and was wearing shaded blue stockings—the most expensive sort—and all that, might easily account for her joy when Cara imparted the glad tidings of the boys and the movies.
As they hurried from the dining-room Dudley pinched Barbara’s arm. It was a signal. He wanted to speak to her.
She answered with a defiant look. He would have to explain to her why he had taken the girls to Nicky’s.