The dinner party was spoiled for Barbara. All she could think of was Nicky slamming his door in the face of those thoughtless girls who wanted to go slumming. As if the habits and homes of the poor should furnish them with amusement!
And she could imagine little Vicky jerking down the shades, the shades with the funny pictures on. But she could not quite imagine what might be the real cause of their alarm. All this seemed more than mere suspicion of those in the more agreeable walks of life.
Cara’s family had given her the exclusive use of the big dining-room for her party, and not even Dudley was present at dinner. The girls would, no doubt, have been delighted to have had a few boys present, but Cara had other ideas. She would give the first meal to the girls as they do it at college, except, of course, that the college menu could in no way compare to the Billows.
Two waitresses glided about attending to, and even anticipating, the girls’ slightest wish, and Barbara was glad to feel at home amid their ministrations.
“Not a question of clothes now,” she prompted herself, noticing more than one of the girls were showing some nervousness.
Cara easily led the conversation, but Louise and Esther would revert to the slumming party. That seemed to them to be the real event of the day.
“Babs, you should have been along,” said Louise, a little pointedly. “I know you just love that little Italian.”
“But Nicky was really hurt this afternoon,” Babs contended. “I can’t see how you forgot that. They are human, just as we are, and his folks probably were just as alarmed about his cut arm as ours might have been. Arms and cuts run about the same, I should think,” she said sharply.
“Oh, those people don’t mind cuts,” flung back Esther Deane disdainfully, and in total disregard of the impropriety of talking of “cuts” at a dinner table. “They just flourish knives the way some people point their fingers.”
“Esther!” exclaimed Cara, in unassumed surprise. “You really mustn’t speak so of——”
“Babs’ pets,” interrupted Ruth Harrison, who was the one girl who could say a thing like that unintentionally. She did not mean to hurt Babs, but the whole conversation was hurting her. She resented the girls’ sneering at the children whom she had become fond of through sympathy. Also she felt like something of an outcast herself, for she did not belong to this indifferent leisure class. She had been working and earning money for two years outside of school-time, even if it were such work as might be termed professional.
“Nicky sells junk and we sell bugs,” she had reminded her father, when he too had objected to her interest in the Italians.
“But you’ll find they are hiding black handers in that shack,” persisted Ruth, who would not look Cara’s way and therefore could not see the warnings she was flashing from her eyes at her.
It had been a wonderful dinner, from the ruby bouillon to the snowy sherbet, but to Babs the food was merely incidental. She was annoyed, mad she would call it. Why had Dudley taken the girls over the railroad when there were endless other beautiful drives to be enjoyed?
The noisy arrival of a car load of boys, including Dudley and Dick Landers who had dined at the Club, cut short the girls’ dinner—which was a real charity, for the meal had been dragging along like a box-party picnic.
“We’re all going to the movies,” Cara announced. “That may not be a very original way to spend a house-party evening, but there’s a wonderful picture at the Ritz and the boys will take us.”
“Great!” gurgled Lida Bent. She hadn’t said much all during dinner, and one might have suspected she was being disappointed in Cara’s party. Lida was a pretty blonde, addicted to fancy dressing, and perhaps the fact that she was so beautifully “dolled up” in pale blue with creamy lace inserts, and was wearing shaded blue stockings—the most expensive sort—and all that, might easily account for her joy when Cara imparted the glad tidings of the boys and the movies.
As they hurried from the dining-room Dudley pinched Barbara’s arm. It was a signal. He wanted to speak to her.
She answered with a defiant look. He would have to explain to her why he had taken the girls to Nicky’s.
“Jump in my car when you’re ready,” he said very quietly while she hesitated.
“Isn’t Glenn here?” she asked presently. It was clear to her that she should not desert an old friend like Glenn for one so new as Dudley.
“Yes, but Cara’s taking the big car and he will go with the crowd. I’ve got to take mine,” Dudley added, as an excuse for asking Barbara. “If you want to ask another girl there’s lots of room, of course.” He drawled that “of course” in open mockery. Why take on another girl?
“All right,” replied Barbara. “I’ll ask Ruth.”
Now this was the very thing she didn’t want to do, because Ruth’s presence would prevent her private talk with Dudley, but she was annoyed. She was ready to quarrel with Dudley. He had heard all she said to little Nicky, and he could not have helped understanding her promise not to go to his house.
“I suppose you’re sore,” the boy made a chance to say, “but it wasn’t my fault.”
“No? I suppose your car knew the way so well it skidded right along over the tracks.”
Dudley looked at her sharply. This was a new Babs. She was sharp and bitter as a boy would have been. And scrappy.
“Oh, say!” he exclaimed, his own eyes flashing defiantly. “I told you I could explain.”
“Got to go,” Babs reminded him, for the other girls were actually coming down the stairs and she had not yet gone up. Also she didn’t want to hear his excuse.
It seemed as if Dudley’s bright-red hair always took part in his emotions. Perhaps it pricked him or tickled him, or something, for he ran his fingers through it and spoiled it so far as the part went, unmarking a beautiful straight line of curls that began at his forehead and made a border right over the top of his head. Boys hate curly hair, but girls love it—even on boys.
Babs was smiling as she left him. She liked to punish boys, and her first inclination was to “cut him,” to refuse to ride with him. Only her own selfish determination to find out more about the slumming party prompted her acceptance of his invitation.
“Oh, hello there Babs,” sang out a familiar voice as she was almost up the stairs.
“Hello Glenn!” she answered happily. It was so good to see Glenn; he always understood everything.
“See you later,” he added, and she knew what that meant. It meant that he expected to be with her at the movie party. He surely thought she would ride out with the crowd in the big car; how could he guess Dudley had asked her to go in his?
Cara was down and alongside of Glenn before Babs could think further. Of course, the girls had all been “crazy” to know Glenn. And he was good-looking. A little catch pinched her throat as she saw Cara hurry the boy out with her. Glenn could drive any car. No doubt he would drive Cara’s. And he was——Oh, pshaw! why fuss? Of course Glenn and Cara were perfectly suited to be chums. He was charming. Perhaps Babs had never given him credit for half of his good points. But then, with her he was merely some one interested in bacteriology, while with Cara a good-looking, well-mannered boy could become a wonderful pal. She had time for palship.
But he, Glenn, was Babs’ chum. They had worked and played together.
“Coming?” It was Dudley calling her.
“Just a moment—I must find Ruth,” replied Babs, trying to clear her mind from its petty jealousies.
“Ruth’s in the other car. But here’s Dick; we’ll grab him for a chaperon,” proposed Dudley, just as Dick Landers swung himself over the porch rail and announced to Dud that he was making himself late and they wouldn’t see the “funny-picture” if he didn’t “get a move on.”
Dick was another nice boy. Babs saw at a glance how brown he was, how slow and easy going he was, and she also noticed he drawled and dragged and sang his words.
“From the South,” she was deciding, as Dudley introduced Dick Landers from “Geo-gia.”
It was the funniest thing how Babs persistently got herself in with the boys without having any idea of leaving the girls. Here she was again with the two boys for company and no girl. Would the girls believe her when she would tell them she had expected to have Ruth along?
The big car with all the others had gone on ahead, and now Babs was following in the little roadster with Dick on one side of her and Dudley on the other. Here again she found herself perfectly at ease, just as she had with two waitresses hovering around her at the table. After all it was pleasant to be so situated.
The boys were jolly companions, each trying to outdo the other at saying smart things. They teased as boys always do, and when Babs admitted under Dud’s severe fire of questions, that she did like little Italian “Kids” who sold junk, and that she was “sore” because the other girls had followed her tracks that afternoon and had gone to look for more junk; then Dick relieved the strain by telling wonderful tales about the old “junk” down “Sauth.”
“Best old andirons,” he insisted, “the funny old black iron stuff mostly. But of c’ose there’s lots of brasses, too.”
“Did the girls want to go to Nicky’s to buy stuff?” Babs interrupted the Southern story to ask Dudley. “Why should they do a thing like that?”
“Oh, you know what girls are when they get a notion in their heads,” he evaded. “I’ll tell you about it when you’re in better humor, Babs,” he ended just as they pulled up to the curb to enter the motion picture theater.
Ruth came to the rescue. She left the other girls and boys—there were two boys, Glenn Gaynor and Andrew Norton—and skipped along to where Babs stood waiting.
“Heard you wanted me along, Babs,” Ruth said merrily, “and I’ll say I wanted to be along.” She gave a significant glance with a sly chuckle at the Southern boy. “I’ll bet you had a fine time.”
“Yes, I just missed you,” Babs interrupted her, making tight hold of Ruth’s arm. “But don’t escape me now. I want to ask you something.”
There was no getting away from it; Babs felt more and more guilty. She could not get the picture of those frightened Italian children out of her mind, and to think that she had promised and that her friend should have almost immediately have done the very thing she had promised not to do. Babs had told Nicky that they would not go near his home, that they would go no further than the tracks, where he insisted upon leaving Dud’s car. Then, according to the scraps of information that Babs had gleaned, the girls had deliberately gone across the tracks, down the little alley-way and for all she knew right up to Nicky’s door. They had even seen the pictures on the queer paper window shades.
The party occupied almost a full row of chairs in the theater, and Ruth was next to Babs on one side with Dick next her on the other. Between every pause Babs tried to ask Ruth a question, but since talking while a film is being shown is impossibly impolite, she made little headway with obtaining an explanation.
“But what difference did it make?” Ruth blurted out. “Why shouldn’t we go there?”
“Because, when Nicky got his arm hurt and we took him home,” Babs whispered, “I promised we wouldn’t go there again. You know his folks are awfully bitter since they took his father away.”
“Oh.” Ruth added no comment. She was sure to believe and understand Babs, for Ruth Harrison was neither jealous nor suspicious.
The picture was interesting enough to evoke peals of laughter from all those about her, but Babs could not center her attention upon it. When a small boy with his “tattered dog” was shown, she saw Nicky, the big pleading eyes of the screen child accusing her of betraying a child’s trust.
“That’s what makes it so horribly mean,” she kept thinking. “He trusted me, and, of course, he’ll think it was all my fault.”
Just then Ruth nudged her, very insistently.
“Say, Babs,” she whispered, “no fooling, there is something mighty queer about those Italians. I’ll tell you what I think when I get a chance.”
But the chance could not be made during scraps of such whispered conversation as the two girls were having in a crowded “movie” house.