Chapter XII: A Week Later

"Barbara, I wouldn't play tennis with Gladys and Harry Townsend, if I were you," said Mollie to her sister, one morning a week later. "They were horrid to you yesterday. Didn't you notice, when you called to Hugh and Ruth that their last ball had gone over the line, Gladys just shrugged her shoulders, and gave a sneery kind of smile to that Townsend fellow, and he lifted his eyebrows! Is your score the best, or Ruth's? I know you're both ahead of Gladys and Grace. I am sure Gladys doesn't play a bit better than I do; so she needn't have been so high and mighty."

Mollie shrugged her dainty shoulders. "You see, she told me, the first day she arrived, that, of course, I didn't play in the class with the others, so you had just the right eight for the two courts--four girls and four men."

"Why, Mollie!" Bab looked surprised. "I thought you said you didn't want to play. You can take my place any time."

Mollie smiled. "No," she answered; "I don't want to play. It's not that. But it annoys me when you let Gladys Le Baron, cousin or no cousin, snub us all the time, and you not notice it. Ralph certainly wouldn't like to have me play with him now, when you're in for a match game."

"Mollie," said Bab, tying her tennis shoe, "I _do_ notice how rude Gladys is. She left me standing all alone the other afternoon, when Ruth and Grace had gone into the club house to speak to Aunt Sallie. Friends of Gladys's came up, and she deliberately turned her back on me and didn't introduce me. I felt so out of it! Mrs. Post and Mrs. Erwin soon joined them, and they shook hands with me. I found the other people were some guests who had come down for Mrs. Erwin's ball, next week, and were staying at her house.

"I know," she continued, "Gladys is furious that we are invited to the dance. Mrs. Erwin was so cordial and nice. She said, right before me, that though the ball was a grown-up affair, she knew Gladys would want her cousins and friends, and she had invited us on her account. Wasn't it funny? Miss Gladys couldn't say a word. Goodness knows, _she_ doesn't want us. She has been lording it over us, for days, because she and Harry were to be the only very young people invited. Gladys imagines herself a woman of society, and is in reality merely a foolish little girl," said Barbara. Then she added reflectively: "Miss Sallie says we are all too young to 'go out,' and she doubts the propriety of allowing us to attend Mrs. Erwin's ball. Last night she told Ruth she had almost decided against our going. Ruth championed our cause on the strength of the shortness of our stay in Newport, also that we should be permitted to go as a special favor to our hostess. You know Miss Sallie hates to refuse Ruth anything. Consequently we will be 'among those present' at Mrs. Erwin's ball whether Miss Gladys approves or not."

"I just wish I could tell my lovely Mrs. Cartwright how mean Gladys is," said Mollie. "She would not ask her to her charity fair."

"Please don't say anything, Mollie," pleaded Barbara, taking her tennis racquet from the bed. She had already answered Ralph's impatient whistle from the garden below. "It won't do any good for us to be horrid to Gladys in return; it will only make us seem as hateful as she is. Things will come around, somehow. I don't mind her--so very much."

"Well, I do," answered Mollie. "But you haven't told me how your score and Ruth's stand."

"Oh, I think we are pretty nearly even." Barbara was half way out the door. "Be careful, Molliekins," she urged, "if you go rowing with that freshman this afternoon. Why do you want to know about Ruth's score and mine? It's a week before the game, and anything may happen before then. We all play pretty evenly; Hugh Post and Ralph Ewing, too."

"Oh, I didn't mean anything, Bab," Mollie said, thoughtfully. "Only Ruth's awfully anxious to play in the tournament. She's just crazy about it."

"Of course she is, child. So are we all, for that matter," answered Bab. "You don't mean----"

"I don't mean a single thing, Bab Thurston!" said Mollie, a little indignantly.

"Yes, I am coming, at last, Ralph," Barbara sang softly over the banisters. She had not overcome her awe of Mrs. Ewing. Ralph's mother was by no means pleased with the idea that her adored Ralph preferred Barbara to any of the other girls.

"It's like Ralph," she complained to his father, "to pick out the poorest girl of the lot, when the rich ones are so much more charming. A great way for him to retrieve the family fortunes!"

"We will hope," said Ralph's father quietly, "that Ralph will not try to restore our fortunes by marrying for money."

As Barbara walked down to meet Ralph she looked grave, and her face was flushed. Ruth _did_ want to play in the tournament, but so did she, for that matter! Could she resign in Ruth's favor? Then Barbara laughed to herself. "Catch a girl like Ruth letting me give up to her! I wonder if it would be fair of me to disappoint Ralph?"

"Come on, Miss Day-dreamer," ordered Ralph, hurrying her along. "The others have been waiting for us for fifteen minutes down at the Casino courts. Do you know that there is a party on for the afternoon? Ruth and Hugh are to pile as many of us as they can into their motor cars, and take us ten miles out the Ocean Drive. We are to stop at Mrs. Duffy's English tea place on our way back."

Bab was certainly not playing in good form today. She even missed one of Gladys's serves, which were usually too soft to count. When the morning's practice was over, Ruth's and Hugh's score was two points ahead.

"Who is going to play in the tournament from these courts?" asked Mrs. Cartwright, crossing the lawn, her tennis racquet swinging in her hand. Mollie was close beside her, also "that freshman," who followed Mollie wherever she went.

"Bab," answered Ruth, coming up to smile at Mrs. Cartwright, who was looking prettier than usual in her tennis blouse of pale pink madras with a linen skirt of the same shade.

"What a funny Gladys!" Mrs. Cartwright laughed as the other girls joined her. "You are following our latest Newport fad, are you not, of having your head wrapped in a chiffon veil while you play tennis. You look like a Turkish girl, with only your eyes peeping out."

Gladys had tied up her head in a pale blue chiffon veil, with a fetching bow just over the ear. The other women who were playing on the courts, with the exception of Mrs. Cartwright and the automobile girls, were draped in the same fashion.

"That suggests a game to me," continued Mrs. Cartwright. "You must come to my veranda some night and we will play it. It is called 'eyeology.' I won't tell you anything more about it now. Just you wait! But to go back to my first question. Then I am to enter Barbara for the tournament?"

"I should say not, Mrs. Cartwright," said Barbara, who was standing near. This time she would not let Ruth speak.

"Ruth is certainly the best player among us," drawled Gladys; "she and Mr. Post; but," she went on in insinuating tones, "you know there are strange things that can happen in tennis!"

"If you mean, Gladys, that I cheated the other day," broke out Barbara fiercely, "I simply won't bear it! I know it is horrid of me to make a scene," she turned to Ruth with her eyes full of tears, "but this is the second time."

"Please don't get excited, Miss Thurston," cried Gladys scornfully. "I have not said you cheated. It looks a little bit like a case of guilty conscience."

Harry Townsend smiled knowingly.

Bab, nearly in tears, couldn't answer, but Ralph and Hugh Post both protested indignantly.

"Please don't discuss a thing of this kind here," said Mrs. Cartwright, angrily. "We don't allow quarreling on the Casino courts. I am surprised at you, Barbara. You were accused of nothing."

Mollie's eyes were black, instead of their usual lovely blue. She was very indignant, but she was always more of a diplomat than Barbara.

"Lovely lady," she said, putting her hand in Mrs. Cartwright's as they moved away, "Gladys did mean that Bab cheated. This is the second time she has said it. Wouldn't you answer back if you were accused of not playing fair with your very best friend?"

Mrs. Cartwright gave Mollie's hand a squeeze. "Tell Barbara I am sorry if I was too hard on her, but I don't like scenes!"

"I wish I could get an excuse to pummel that Harry Townsend!" muttered Ralph indignantly to Hugh, when the girls had gone home. "I can't take it out on Gladys, for she's a girl. That Townsend fellow's nothing but a sneak. He just stands round and smiles and says nothing, until he puts me in a rage!"

"Oh, don't fight, Ralph," Hugh protested. "I hate that Townsend man, though, as much as you do. He is too infernally polite, for one thing, and he walks on his tiptoes. He comes right up behind you, and you never know where he is until he speaks. I believe he wears rubber soles on his shoes!"

That afternoon, when the automobile parties had finished drinking their tea, Barbara asked Ralph to take a little walk with her in the woods. She wanted to ask him something.

"Ralph," she began, "if I should fall down in my tennis, in the next few days, would you and Hugh play a test game to see which of you is the better man to help Ruth out in the tournament?"

Ralph shook his head. "No," he answered. "You are not losing your nerve, are you, Bab? Ruth and Hugh are wonderfully good players, but we are as good as the rest of 'em. I'll take my chances with you."

"Would you be very, very much disappointed if we lost?"

"Oh, yes," said Ralph, cheerily, "but I could bear it all right." He looked hard at Barbara for a minute. Then he said: "Go ahead, Barbara; I think I understand. I am game. And I'll never breathe it to a soul. Hugh and Ruth would never forgive us, if they found out!"

"Well, Ralph," said Barbara, "I don't think there's going to be any reason for my trying to let Ruth win; she's a better player than I am, and she will win anyhow, but, in case she shouldn't, Ruth has been a perfect dear to Mollie and me!"

"Gladys," said Ruth that night, when the young people were having an informal dance at the Casino, "I shall never forgive you for accusing Barbara of cheating, as you did today. Barbara is perfectly incapable of cheating. I can't understand why you don't like her."

Ruth's frank face clouded. She was incapable of understanding the petty meannesses in Gladys's nature.

"Mr. Townsend and I thought differently concerning Miss Thurston," Gladys replied, "but I have made no accusations, and will make none. You will find things out for yourself, though, when it is too late!"

Mollie was very sympathetic with Barbara that night. Things had not been going well with Bab for several days; she had an unfortunate habit of speaking her mind without thinking, and this trait had gotten her into trouble with Miss Sallie several times. That lady had a profound respect for the rich, while Barbara had been heard to say that some of the most fashionable ideas of Newport were "just nonsense."

"Bab," comforted Mollie, "Mrs. Cartwright told me to say she was sorry she had been cross to you. She wants you to be the gypsy fortune-teller at her bazaar. She says you are very clever, and would do it better than anyone else; besides, she thinks no one would know you. She has lots of gypsy things to dress up in."

"I would much rather be a waitress, like you girls," Bab declared.

"But you will do what Mrs. Cartwright wants you to, won't you?" urged Mollie.

"I'll see," said Bab.

The automobile girls were seeing Newport indeed! Mrs. Erwin and Mrs. Cartwright were both leaders in society. The girls had not only been invited to Mrs. Erwin's ball, but to the big dance which took place after the tennis tournament, and Mrs. Cartwright was arranging for a Charity Fair, which was to be the most original entertainment of the Newport season.