“Esther Phester!” cried out Cara in mock despair. “There you go. Rich! That isn’t what counts at all, not with boys like Dud, anyway. They like girls who keep them guessing.”
“Oh, Barbara Hale can do that well enough,” scoffed Esther. “Isn’t she keeping us guessing?”
“Just because she keeps to herself,” retorted Cara. “Now, that’s just why I’m so crazy to know her. There must be a reason for her, oh, you know,” again stumbled Cara, who wanted to say there must have been a reason for Barbara’s aloofness, or was it reticence?
“Since you are so keen about it Cara, I’ll do my best,” offered Louise. “You know, her father is a sort of doctor and has some of the awfully rich folks on his list.”
“Rich!” moaned Cara. She seemed to loathe the word. They were starting off towards the boardwalk along which a slim line of girls and boys were already winding their way towards the road. It was almost lunch time.
Just as the girls came to within a few feet of the roadway a small car drew up and from it sprang two persons.
“Look!” gasped Louise. “There she is now!”
“Is that—Barbara!” exclaimed Cara in an undertone, for the two in bathing suits—a young girl and a young man—were racing along through the sands quite close to them.
“Yes,” answered Esther and Louise in one voice.
“Isn’t she stunning in a bathing suit?” continued the entranced Cara. “She must be dandy at athletics.” The two figures under scrutiny were now far enough away to be out of possible reach of the girls’ voices. Barbara Hale was wearing the regulation blue bathing suit with white stripes around the long Jersey and a loose sash flew along after her as she ran towards the ocean. She was trying to adjust her rubber cap as she went, and was just now crowding into it a closely bobbed head, chestnut in color, that beautiful brown that glows and glistens and lights up so wonderfully in the sunshine. Barbara was as slender and straight as an Indian. Her limbs were innocent of stockings or socks, for girls under sixteen were not now trying to be prim at Sea Cosset, that is, girls like Barbara.