Jan, concluding that Gwen had been at the bottom of her welcome gift, went to find and thank her. She learned to her surprise that her aunt had designed and ordered the costume, wishing that her boy should have not only the most skilful partner, but the prettiest one, and with this discovery Jan made another, which was that her busy aunt had unsuspected pride and affection for her eldest born.
The entire family, with the exception of Mr. Graham and Jerry, went out to the games on the following day. The sun was warm, but the air cool; there was not much wind. Altogether it was a day which justified the wisdom of holding games so late in the season.
Most of the big girls from the Misses Larned’s were in the grand stand, interested from more or less personal connection with the contestants, and filling the place with gay colors, lively chatter, and candy odors.
The races preceded the tennis, as did the wrestling. Sydney was not among the wrestlers, but he ran and jumped, and the Graham party nearly fell over the rail in its enthusiasm as he came in first in the foot-races and when he marched up to the judges’ stand later to have the first medal for the race and the second medal for the standing jump fastened on the breast of his white sweater.
“Isn’t he gloriously handsome?” whispered Mrs. Graham in Jan’s ready ear. “There isn’t a boy here to compare with him! I am proud of my beautiful boy and my clever Gwen, Janet, and I sometimes think I love them more than all the others put together.”
Jan felt the injustice of these words, although she realized that the pride of the hour might have made her aunt exaggerate her partiality. But as she looked at Sydney she felt that they were almost to be excused. With his face flushed, his head thrown back, his lips proudly smiling, and his straight young form drawn up to its fullest height, showing his fine muscles at their best, Sydney Graham was a son to glory in, and Jan clapped her loudest, feeling that her big cousin was very dear to her, too, and that she was grateful to Drom for being the link that had drawn them together.
The time for the tennis had come, and Jan rose in her seat to make her way through the crowd down to the courts. She heard but faintly the clapping of hands with which her school friends sped her, but she heard as distinctly as if a megaphone had shouted the hateful words, Daisy Hammond’s whisper to Flossie Gilsey: “Look at the Wild West Show! I suppose she thinks she’ll paint this town red to match her own war-paint.”
A little righteous indignation often does wonders. Jan had risen with her heart in her rubber-soled shoes. As she heard Daisy’s ugly, vulgar speech her nerves suddenly steadied, and with a profound contempt for the speaker came a resolution to show these girls that she could excel them in sport as easily as she could not help knowing that she surpassed them in class.
Sydney met her at the foot of the stairs, and he read the steady light in her eyes and the firm curl of her lips aright, and with unspeakable relief saw that Janet could be relied on.
“O Sydney, we are all so proud of you!” cried Jan, saluting her cousin with a wave of her racket in her left hand and a tight clasp of his hand with the right one. “No, you mustn’t take my racket. It is part of my costume! Don’t you see that Aunt Tina had a cover for it made to match my dress?”