CHAPTER IV
A HEART TO HEART TALK
True to her word, Ruth dutifully dashed off a short letter to Marian Selby before retiring that night. The writing of it was after all a mere formality. Ruth was certain that her cousin would offer no objection to the presence of a ninth girl at the reunion. In the first place, Marian would be sure to see matters as she saw them. Then, too, Marian would be the last person in the world to bar another’s road to happiness.
Her duty done, it but remained to Ruth to inform Blanche that her case was still under consideration pending the decision of the eighth member of the Equitable Eight. The following morning she was rather taken aback when, on going to her door in answer to a persistent rapping, she beheld Blanche, kimono clad and smiling serene expectation.
“What did they say? Is it all right?” were her eager queries, just above a whisper.
“Come in, Blanche.” Ruth was perfunctorily polite. She found it difficult to mask her disapprobation of her early morning caller.
“Oh, I can’t.” Blanche drew back hastily. Knowing Emmy to be within, she prudently kept to the hall. “I must hurry and dress. I was so worried! I simply had to come and ask you about things. You see, it means so much more to me than you can possibly understand,” she continued, simulating a wistfulness which fell so far short of the mark as to be faintly patronizing.
Blanche was quite unconscious of this. Ruth, however, sensed it keenly and it annoyed her. “The girls are willing that you should spend August with the Equitable Eight,” she made answer, “but we thought it fair to write to Marian Selby, my cousin, about it. She belongs to the Equitable Eight, too. I wrote her last night after the meeting. I am going to post the letter as soon as I have had my breakfast. That is all I can say until I hear from her.”
A decided frown darkened Blanche’s plump features as she listened to Ruth. Thrown off her guard by this unlooked for news, she burst forth pettishly. “I don’t see what difference—”
A flash in Ruth’s brown eyes warned her to caution. “Excuse me,” she apologized. “It’s not my place to find fault with anything you girls want to do. It’s sweet in you to go to so much trouble on my account. When do you expect an answer from your cousin?” This last with scarcely suppressed eagerness.