It was odd, but as Ruth approached Jack and her companion, for just a passing moment an uncomfortable impression entered her mind. Jack and Captain Madden did seem to be talking together like intimate friends. Perhaps Jean had been justified in her grumbling. Nevertheless, Captain Madden was twice Jack's age, and why should they not be friends? It was as absurd to feel uneasy over them as over Frieda and her chocolate-drop boy.
And hearing Frieda's laugh behind her, the next second, Ruth turned around with a smothered sigh of relief. Here came Frieda in her crimson coat and hat with Dick Grant at her side holding the inevitable box of candy in his hand. Following them were Jean and her Princess.
They were just in time, because the Martha Washington was at this moment entering the Straits of Gibraltar. To the right there loomed, like a gray mirage in the background, the Mountain of the Apes in Africa. And there, directly ahead, was the historic Rock of Gibraltar.
"Isn't it thrilling to have reached a foreign country at last!" Jack exclaimed, turning again to her first companion. But on her other side Frieda pulled at her coat sleeve impatiently.
"If you are going into raptures over everything you see while we are abroad, I don't know what is to become of you, Jacqueline Ralston!" she argued. "Of course the Rock of Gibraltar is fairly large, but I have seen almost as big stones in Wyoming. Have a piece of candy."
And when everybody in the little company laughed, Frieda would have been offended if she had not already grown accustomed to starting just such foolish attacks of laughter. What had she said that was in the least amusing, when she had just made a plain statement of fact? For how could she possibly have guessed how her point of view typified that of many American travelers?
CHAPTER VIII
A MORE IMPORTANT OBLIGATION