Jean was dancing around Frieda as though she had been in reality a butterfly. Ruth, Jack and Olive would not allow the maids to take off their cloaks in order to give her their undivided attention.
"Frieda is the star of us all, isn't she?" Jack declared, since the spoiling of her small sister was a sin upon which the entire ranch party agreed. Unwrapping a round gold bowl, she then handed it to her. "Frieda represents the lovely goddess, Hebe, who served nectar and ambrosia to the high gods on Mount Olympus," she explained.
Quite oblivious of the admiring Italian maids, Ruth knelt down on the floor to rearrange Frieda's skirt. The young girl's dress was of corn color, almost the shade of her blond hair. So her eyes looked bluer and her cheeks pinker than ever. It was odd that her toilet had been copied from an old Greek model and yet was not unlike the modern style. A tunic of soft yellow crepe was loosely belted at the waist, the overskirt falling to her knees. About this was a border of gold braid in the Trojan wall pattern and beneath it hung the narrow, plain skirt. Frieda's yellow hair was caught together in a bunch of curls and a gold fillet encircled her head.
Olive was by this time ready to be admired. She seemed shy at being seen even by her dearest friends; but then Olive would never entirely recover from her timidity. Tonight she wore Nile green, the shade always best suited to her. She was dressed as Amphitrite, the wife of Neptune. Her costume was unlike the others. It was of India silk, because of its peculiar glistening quality, and strung with tiny sea shells. Around her slender throat was a string of pearls, which she had lately bought for herself in Rome as a gift from her friend, Miss Winthrop. In and out among the braids of her black hair were other strands of pearls. Above the middle of her forehead was a jeweled spear with three points. This represented a tiny trident, the symbol of Neptune's power over the sea.
Notwithstanding the assistance of the maids, after Ruth Drew had finally given a hurried glance at herself in Jean's mirror and had seen that three of the girls were ready to go down to the ball room, to her surprise she found Jack loitering. The girl had seated herself in a chair and, in the face of Olive's and Jean's protestations, still had her opera coat wrapped close about her.
"Are you ill, Jack?" Ruth queried, observing that she was paler than any one of them.
But Jack shook her head, smiling nervously. All of a sudden she did not seem like herself.
"I am frightened," she confessed the next moment. "It does not seem possible for me to go down to the ball room dressed as I am before so many strangers. I don't want to keep the rest of you waiting, but can't I stay here by myself for a few moments, Ruth? I want to think about something."
But before Ruth could answer Jean had almost forcibly pulled off her cousin's wrap. "If you are not ill, Jack dear, how can you be so absurd! If it were Olive now who suddenly had an attack of stage fright we might forgive her. But you! Why you have never been afraid of people or of things in your life. Besides you will only have to speak to the Princess and the Prince Colonna. We won't know any one else except Captain Madden and—perhaps a few other persons. The others we can just enjoy seeing." During her speech Jean had tried to catch her cousin's expression. But Jack had her eyes down. Now she jumped hurriedly to her feet and went out of the room ahead of the others. Evidently she did not wish to hear herself or her costume discussed. She did look unlike the other three Ranch girls tonight—taller and older. And while their costumes were in colors, hers was pure white, nothing but soft folds of drapery from her shoulders to her feet. Her only ornament was a half moon of brilliants in the bronze coils of her hair. For Jacqueline, partly because the girls had used to call her Diana in the old days at the ranch on account of her love of hunting and supposed coldness of character, had dressed as the far-famed Latin goddess of the moon.
Slipping down the marble staircase in her gray evening gown, Ruth Drew felt like a chimney swallow amid an assemblage of brilliant, gaily colored birds. Yet she was glad enough to be inconspicuous. Never in their lives had the four Ranch girls been so lovely. Ruth was almost sorry. She did not wish them to attract too much attention. The interest they had taken in their toilets had been for their own and for her pleasure and because of the Princess Colonna's kindness. At this instant Ruth decided that so soon as their greetings were spoken she would find a secluded place, where they might have their first sight of foreign society and yet be properly out of the limelight themselves.