On their way back, naturally Dudley talked of the Italian children.
“What do you suppose those youngsters are so worried about? Seemed to be dreadfully afraid that we would find out something; didn’t they?” he asked Babs.
“Yes. But, after all, don’t you think people do spy dreadfully upon poor folks, if they happen to be interested in them?” Barbara returned.
“Spy?” Dudley seemed to resent that.
“Oh, you know what I mean,” Barbara quickly drew back. “I mean they think they have to know all about the people they help. I’ve often seen that, when we had a sewing circle and gave aprons to poor women, the women of the sewing circle almost wanted a report upon every time the old aprons were worn.” Barbara could not hide her dislike for the prying social service sort.
Dudley laughed at that. “I suppose they are nosey,” he said merrily, “when they give away a few pennies they seem to think they have a right to butt in on everything. Well, I’ve got to say, I am a bit curious just the same. Those youngsters know. They learn a lot because they need to know it.”
“Dad says every creature is like that. Animals have developed all their traits through necessity,” Barbara answered seriously.
“You know a lot too,” laughed the boy. “Not that you need to.” This was sort of an apology.
“Oh, but I do,” insisted Barbara, in turn laughing at the idea. “Knowledge is power, you know.”
“Yes—maybe.” He paused as he swung his car around a corner. “You know I lost on your coming to this party,” he continued presently. “I bet you wouldn’t come.”
“Too bad I came.”
“Oh, no. Glad I lost, really, I’m awfully glad you came.” He was wagging that red head of his like an animated signal light. “You see, Cara is an awfully good sport.”
“I know that.”
“Oh say! I’m getting myself in trouble,” he laughed again. “I mean, she’s better and more than just a sister to a fellow; she’s a whole family.”
They were almost within sight of Billows and Barbara noticed that Dudley had slowed down. He seemed to be enjoying himself.
“You see,” he pursued, “the girls all think you’re sort of different.”
“Why?” Barbara asked so suddenly and so frankly that Dudley’s cheeks flared. He couldn’t have been blushing, yet his face certainly had gone red.
“Oh,” he faltered, “I suppose because you don’t run around a lot. And then, you are so fond of study.”
“I hate it,” flung back Barbara, unconsciously shifting her position, which was alongside of him since Nicky’s departure.
“I mean, studying with your father.”
“That isn’t studying at all; it’s just experimenting. Don’t you like to experiment?”
“Sometimes and with some things!” He sang that out in a way that meant he liked a lark, liked fun, and liked to try out things that gave him any fun in their trying.
But whether intentionally or not, he had admitted to Barbara the general opinion held of her. She was different; Cara called it elusive, Esther would have said it was stand-offish and Louise had been heard to declare that Barbara Hale was just plain “stuck up.”
But Barbara knew. She might have had all of these various personalities but she alone knew just why she was different. And she wasn’t telling Dudley Burke, either. Not that he had an idea of expecting such a confidence, but she had come to Cara’s party and he rejoiced in that fact. She felt sort of tricked into an unpleasant situation.
“It’s too bad,” she remarked presently, “that Nicky’s accident had to take so much time. It must have spoiled all Cara’s fun this afternoon.”
“But it hasn’t mine,” blurted out Dudley. “I’d rather drive around with a boy’s cut-up arm than to stick around——”
“With girls!”
“I didn’t mean that.”
“You—certainly did.”
“All right then, with some girls.”
“I won’t have you talk about my friends,” Barbara was laughing but not willing to understand the boy as he wanted her to.
“And you love them too, don’t you?” Dudley could play her evasion game quite as well as she could do it herself.
“Why, of course I like the girls!” she flung back with so much fervor that any one could see she was fearing a suspicion. She didn’t want Dudley to think she was so unsocial as not to care for her new companions.
The boy continued to tease. He brought up the subject of her preference for Glenn Gaynor.
“Glenn’s more to your taste, I guess,” he remarked with assumed indifference. “He knows something; girls are mostly dumb-bells.”
“Now Dudley, you don’t want to scrap, do you? I told you I liked the girls.” Certainly as a boy he was frank.
“Well, anyhow,” he drawled. “I’m awfully glad you came, for I don’t like them—all.”
There was neither any use for nor time for further arguments. They were rolling down the drive, and the girls waiting for them were squealing things about Babs being mean to stay away, and the whole thing looking like a put-up job, so they managed to make known.
Barbara expected all this, for indeed it did look queer for her to have been away from the girls practically all the afternoon. But Cara made peace by hastily managing to get all the other girls, excluding Barbara, into the little car. Two were assigned to the front seat with Dud, and three in the rumble seat. Then she made Dudley give them a ride.
“Anywhere,” she urged. “Just for a ride,” and the brother understood that she was trying to please the girls by having him “show them off around town.”
“You can play with Sniffy,” she laughingly told Barbara, as once more the little car left the grounds, this time the driver reluctantly turning towards the ocean.
“I’ve got to dress for dinner, you know,” he reminded Cara, as he picked up speed “and——”
“Oh, we just want a whiff of ocean breeze,” she cut him short, while the giggling girls each hoped that her particular friends in Sea Cosset would see her as they flew.
Barbara entered the big house and turned at once to the room assigned her. She felt very dusty and upset and therefore needed freshing up. Also, she welcomed the chance to privately arrange her things, although she was determined not to feel self-conscious about her clothes.
Clothes!
The word was like a stone wall against which she was continually bumping her head. There seemed no escape from it, and to the girl who so lately had positively ignored the word when it loomed up in capital letters, the sudden necessity of taking it seriously was very discomforting. Barbara hated to feel limited by her appearance. Not that she didn’t love pretty things, but because she felt them beyond her reach. She was obliged to build up some other real interest, and that had come to her as she naturally developed an aptitude for helping her father.
Bugs, germs, cultures, and the other symbols of bacteriology meant more to Barbara than frocks, hats, and articles of dainty apparel, dear to the heart of every normal girl.
She was simply sacrificing her natural inclinations to those forced upon her. But being a girl, almost care-free and decidedly courageous, Barbara Hale hardly knew that she was making any sacrifice at all.
In Cara’s lovely green and gold room now, she had no intention of analyzing the situation. But somehow now that she was here she actually felt she liked it.
A little chuckle escaped her as she took from her bag the student’s gown and the black cap. Her best stockings, the new pair called “atmosphere” had been packed into the cap.
“Silly to bring it,” she reflected, “but I had to have something.” She shook out the robe and surveyed the mortar-board hat critically.
An extra clothes’ tree had been placed by her bed (one of the twins), just where she would be sure to understand that the articles hung upon it were intended for her.
Thoughtful Cara! A beautiful lavender cloud of georgette proved to be a party dress. Barbara touched it gingerly and then, since the mute thing didn’t bite her, she became more familiar with it and examined it, closely.
How lovely! Shaded lavender from orchid to purple with a golden silk slip to throw the colors out. There was also a soft gray skirt with a pearl-gray blouse and a velveteen short coat of jade green.
“But the girls would know,” she was thinking when she espied a note pinned to the skirt. It was from Cara, of course, and it hinted that Bab’s aunt in New York had surprised her with a box of lovely things. This was the excuse suggested as Bab’s explanation if the girls seemed suspicious.
“Why not?” Cara had asked naïvely in her note. “You could have an aunt in New York, couldn’t you? And she could send you things?”
A twinge of hurt pride pricked Barbara at the idea. Cara was just a jolly fun-loving girl, who believed it perfectly fair and square to defend any reasonable situation with a reasonable excuse; but then it was not Cara who was being defended. It was easy to do it for some one else, but would she herself have accepted it?
No, Barbara did not love clothes well enough to go to much trouble for them. She was afraid she wouldn’t have much fun in Cara’s finery, although it was certainly lovely. But neither would she feel right to refuse and hurt Cara. Which would be worse? To hurt her own pride or to hurt Cara’s generosity?
“Oh, clothes!” she repeated again, “what a nuisance they are, either to have or to need! They’re not really of such importance and yet we are so proud we feel we must be all decked out like the poor helpless Christmas trees. Everything must dazzle us or we don’t want it,” she reflected cynically.
The room about her was beautiful indeed, soft and soothing in its tones of gold and green, with no trifling objects stuck around to offend the best taste. But except for a small row of books held by two painted book-ends (from Italy) there was nothing in the whole room to indicate mental personality. Cara was not reflected in her room.
Barbara’s room at home was old-fashioned, shabby, even cluttered with books and bookish attributes, but it fairly shouted the name and personality of Barbara Hale. Cara’s was the work of an expert decorator; Barbara’s the result of her own individuality.
Shaking out the few garments upon which so much seemed to depend, Barbara hurried now to change for dinner. She would wear the little tub silk, its yellow and black stripes were vivid enough to be especially summery, and although it was home-made, she felt there could be nothing wrong with it. Its simplicity saved it from complications.
“I suppose the other girls will wear more fancy things,” Babs reasoned, “but this is all right.” So the striped tub silk was chosen as a dinner dress, and, just as Barbara had expected, it proved to be all right.
The girls were back from their ride and now made a merry, if somewhat noisy, entrance.
“Easy to tell there is a boy within hearing,” was Barbara’s sly reflection, for the way the girls giggled and chattered indicated an audience. They never would have taken so much trouble merely to amuse themselves.
“Oh, Babs!” called out Cara. “You missed it, we went slumming down the railroad way.”
“Slumming!” repeated Barbara, a sudden fear taking possession of her. Could they have sought out the little Italians to whom she had promised no interference? “Whatever did you go down the railroad for?” she asked breathlessly.
“Just for fun,” prattled Cara. “The girls wanted Dud to take them where he took you, and he bet they wouldn’t enjoy the ride.” Cara was peeling off her things and preparing to put on something pretty for dinner. Barbara hardly knew how to question her without exciting suspicion, but she just had to know whether or not those “giddy things” had bothered poor little Nicky.
“Did you see the—Italian children?” Barbara finally managed to ask in a tone she hoped was natural.
“I should say we did see them!” chanted Cara. “And say, Babs, they’re the funniest kids——”
“Why? How are they funny?”
“Because they are trying to hide something in that shack of theirs,” declared Cara. “They ran out, that is the boy did when he saw Dud’s car, but quick as he saw you were not in it, he turned and raced back, shut the funny old door with a bang, and pulled down the shades with the pictures on them. You would have thought we were the wicked old landlord going to turn them out for their rent,” concluded Cara, innocently.
“But why did Dud drive up there? He heard me tell Nicky we wouldn’t bother them,” faltered the anxious Barbara.
“Why shouldn’t he? It’s a public place. But Babs,” said Cara, suddenly noticing the effect of her words, “what’s the matter? Was there a reason why we shouldn’t have gone there?”
“Oh, no, of course not. I just hated to frighten those children,” Babs answered as lightly as she could. “You know how much excitement a fancy looking car still creates in that sort of district. About like an ambulance,” she finished laughing a little, with evident effort.
“Worse. The children were like bees around us. I never knew what slumming in my own town could amount to,” said Cara. “But Babs, aren’t you going to be a lamb and wear some of my useless things for me?” She had been noticing the untouched garments on the little clothes’ tree, and now ventured the question.
“Oh yes, of course I am, and thank you loads, Cara,” replied Barbara impulsively. “But just this evening I felt I might be better understood if I wore—the common garden variety.” In this speech Barbara had to tactfully refuse to wear the loaned garments.
“That’s a real sweet little dress and looks lovely on you,” Cara in turn declared. “As a matter of fact, Babs, we can’t always buy that charming simplicity. It’s just perfect and makes you stand out instead of hiding you.”
“No, it is not popular enough to warrant the trade making it,” laughed Barbara, as they both turned to finish their dressing.
And now the worry about Nicky was superseding the more common worry about clothes.