“We looked around specially to find out if there were any others near, but didn’t find any,” Olga answered. “Addie—that’s my sister—had the laugh on us all after that.”
“Do you live in the cottage over there?” Ethel Zimmerman inquired, pointing toward Graham summer residence.
“Yes,” Addie replied. “Our name is Graham. We were very much interested when we learned that a company of Camp Fire Girls were camping near us.”
“Don’t you girls camp out any?” Katherine asked with the view of possibly bringing out an explanation of the Graham girls’ attire, which seemed suited more for promenading along a metropolitan boulevard than for any other purpose.
“Oh, dear no,” Olga answered somewhat deprecatingly. “We’d like to well enough, you know, but we’re in society so much that we just don’t have time.”
Katherine wanted to ask the Graham girls if they were going to a stylish reception before breakfast, but restrained the impulse.
Both Katherine and Hazel recognized Addie as the girl whom, on their first trip to Stony Point, they had seen handle roughly the little boy they believed to be Glen Irving, the grandnephew of Mrs. Hutchins’ late husband in whose interests they made the present trip of inspection. Whether or not she recognized among the campers the two girls to whom she had behaved so rudely on that occasion did not appear from her manner, which was all sweetness now. She continued her social discourse thus:
“I really wish society did not demand so much of our time, and I’m sure my sister feels the same way about it. There’s nothing we’d like better than to become Camp Fire Girls and live close to nature, you know, just the way you girls live. Truly it must be delightful. But when you become an integral figure in society (she really said integral), you are regarded as indispensable, and society won’t let go of you.”
None of the Camp Fire Girls attempted to reply to this speech. Their plan was to bring about an appearance of friendship between them and the Grahams in order that they might associate with the family that had custody of the little boy in whose interests they were working. Any attempt on their part, they felt, to discuss “society” from the point of view of the Graham girls must result in a betrayal of their utter lack of sympathy with this “social indispensability” of such helpless society victims.
“We’d like, however, to do something for you in your unfortunate situation,” Addie Graham continued with a gush of seeming friendliness. “I’m sure my brother James—he’s 16 years old—would be glad to assist you in any way he can. I’m going to send him down here, if you say the word, to help you extend that rope around your swimming place. He’s a very handy boy, and it would be much better for you to let him do the work than to perform such a laborious task yourselves.”