  The day of the party to be given in honor of Clare Tasselwood arrived and the three most interested were in Gwyn’s room dressing for the occasion. “There is something very queer about Clare,” Beulah announced. “I just passed her room a moment ago. The door was open and I saw her sitting in front of the mirror brushing out that mass of long yellow hair of hers, and I am positive that she was laughing. She saw my reflection, I suppose, for the moment I had passed she got up and closed the door so quickly that it sounded like a slam.” Gwynette, bemoaning the fact that they were not permitted to have maids assist them with their dressing, said impatiently: “Pat, you’ll simply have to help me with these hooks.” Then, to Beulah: “What are you driving at? Why do you think it is queer that Clare Tasselwood should be laughing? You laugh sometimes yourself, don’t you?” “Why, of course I do, if I think of something funny,” Beulah agreed, “but what I can’t understand is why Clare Tasselwood should laugh all alone by herself when she is dressing to go to our party. Of course she can’t have any idea that we are giving it because we believe her to be the daughter of a younger son of the English nobility, can she?” “Of course not!” Gwyn declared. “We three are the only ones who know that and we have not told. I am more than ever convinced that it is true, for yesterday, when Madame Vandeheuton asked me to take Clare’s mail to her room there was a letter with what appeared to be a crest on it.” Patricia, having finished hooking up the blue satin gown of her friend, remarked with energy: “Well, I’m certainly glad to hear that. I’ve had ‘ma doots’ lately about the whole thing, and now and then a faint idea penetrates my brain that we’re idiots whichever way it is. Here we are squandering not only this month’s spending money but next month’s as well, and what is to come of it?” Beulah sat on a low stool to put on her gilt slippers. “Oh, we’ll have to take a gambler’s chance. Pat, be a sport. We know for a fact that there is a pupil at this seminary who is the daughter of a younger son of a noble English family. Miss Granger was only too glad to let that much be known. I’ve no doubt it brought her several pupils whose vain mothers wished them to be associated with such a girl even if they could not know which one she was.” Pat agreed. “And didn’t we study the qualities of every girl in this establishment, beginning with Clare and ending with that timid, sickly-looking creature who always wears brown?” “And who associates, by choice, with the granddaughter of my mother’s servants,” Gwyn scoffed as she surveyed her beautiful party gown in the long gilt-framed mirror. “Wasn’t it adorable of Ma Mere to send me this creation from Paris? She knows how hurt I am because she put me in this detestable prison instead of permitting me to accompany her to France, and so she sends me presents to sooth my wounded spirits, I suppose.” “Your mother is mighty good to you,” Pat remarked in rather a critical tone, “better than I think you deserve. I have never yet heard you say that you wish you could do something to add to her pleasure.” Gwynette crossed the room, watching the swing of the soft satin folds in the mirror over one shoulder. Her lips were pressed together as though she were trying to keep from retorting to her friend’s speech, but her mounting anger caused her to stop in front of Pat’s chair and flare at her. “I can’t understand why you continue to associate with me at all, since you disapprove of me so entirely. If you feel that it is an idiotic thing for us to try to do homage to the daughter of nobility, why didn’t you say so at first? It is too late now to make any changes in our plans, but after tonight I shall no longer expect you to be one of my intimate friends.” Beulah said conciliatingly: “Gwyn, we aren’t any of us perfect, and we certainly don’t want our friends to pretend they think we are, do we?” Then, in an entirely different tone, she continued: “For myself, Gwyn, since your brother and fifteen other cadets are coming to our party, I shall consider my money well spent. I’m pining for a dance. And, as for the Lady Clare Tasselwood, I don’t care a fig whether she is or isn’t. Hark, what’s the commotion without?” The palatial bus from The Palms was arriving and on the high seat with the driver, resplendent in his gold-trimmed blue uniform, sat Cadet Harold. Beulah, who had skipped to the front window, hurried back to don her cloak and tie a becoming cherry colored scarf over her short light brown curls. “Gwyn, I wish you would be the one to tell Lady Clare that the hour of departure has arrived. Pat and I will round up the other twelve.” Gwynette lifted her eyebrows as she adjusted her swansdown-trimmed cloak about her slim shoulders. “Sometimes, Beulah, from your choice of English, I might think you a cowgirl.” The rebuked maiden chuckled mischievously. “I ain’t, though,” she said inelegantly, “but if ever there was a romance of the Wild West written that I haven’t read, I hope I’ll hear of it soon. I’m daffy about the life. Truth is, I’d heaps rather meet a cowgirl than I would a younger daughter of——” But Gwynette, with a proud toss of her handsome head, had swept from the room, leaving Beulah to mirthfully follow, accompanied by Pat, whose dark looks boded no good. Beulah drew her friend back and closed the door. “Child,” she remonstrated, “don’t take Gwyn’s loftiness so much to heart. I think she is just as superlatively selfish as you do, and I also think she treats her invalid mother shamefully, but you know we can’t go around this world telling everyone just what we think of them. It isn’t done in the best society. Gwyn has her good points, too, otherwise we wouldn’t have been chumming with her, would we?” “Well, take it from me. I’ve chummed my last. After tonight I’ll choose my friends, not have them chosen for me.” “Meaning what?” “You know as well as I do that because our three mothers were in the same set at home, we were all packed off here together, but come, I’ll try to get some pleasure out of this idiotic party.” When they reached the lower hall, they found all of the girls who had been invited waiting for Madame Vandeheuton, who was to be the evening’s chaperone. She was a timid little French woman who felt that the girls were always making fun of her efforts at speaking English, and so she usually kept quiet, except when she was teaching her dearly loved native tongue. Gwynette had especially asked that Madame Vandeheuton be permitted to accompany them, since they could not go without one of the teachers. Clare Tasselwood was gorgeously arrayed in a brocaded gold velvet gown with a crownlike arrangement of pearls bound about her mass of soft yellow hair. She looked more than ever regal. Gwynette sat beside her in the bus and was her constant companion throughout the evening. The ballroom of The Palms had been reserved for this party and the fifteen cadets were charmed with the pretty girls from the select seminary, but handsome Clare was undeniably the belle. Each time that a dance was concluded, Gwyn asked her partner to take her to that part of the salon to which Clare’s partner had taken her. Harold Poindexter-Jones noticed this after a time and asked slangily: “What’s the big idea, Sis? Is the tall blonde a new crush?” Gwyn’s haughty reply was: “Harold, I consider your language exceedingly vulgar. If you wish to know, this party is being given in honor of Clare Tasselwood, whose father is a younger son of English nobility.” Her brother looked at her in wide-eyed amazement, then burst into a laugh. Indignantly Gwyn drew him through an open door, out upon a deserted porch. “What do you mean by such an ill-mannered explosion?” she inquired wrath fully. Harold became very sober. “Sis,” he said, “are you in dead earnest? Has that girl been telling any such yarn about her family?” “Why no,” Gwyn had to confess, “she didn’t tell it, but——” Again the boy laughed: “That’s too good to keep. I’ll have to tell the fellows. Old Hank Peters, the chap who has danced with her so much, comes from her part of the globe—Chicago, to be accurate, and he said that her father made his pile raising pigs—and they aren’t English at all. They are Swedes.” Gwynette was angry with herself and everyone else. “Don’t you dare to tell; not a single soul!” she flared. “If you do, I’ll get even with you some time, some way.” The boy, suddenly serious, took his sister’s hand. “Gwyn,” he said, “I have no desire to make this a joking matter with the fellows. Of course I’ll keep it dark, but I do hope it will teach you a lesson.” Beulah and Pat wondered at Gwynette’s altered manner toward the guest of honor, but, not even to them did she confide the humiliating information she had received. On the ride back to the seminary in the bus Gwyn had very little to say and the others attributed it to weariness. Gwynette noticed a merry twinkle in the blue eyes of Clare Tasselwood when she effusively bade the three hostesses good-night, assuring them that she had spent a most delightful evening. Gwyn went sulkily to her room almost sure that the daughter of that pig-raising Westerner had known all along why the party had been given. She had indeed learned a lesson she decided as she closed her room door far less gently than she should have done at that hour of night. Before retiring she assured herself that even if she found out who really was the daughter of a younger son of English nobility, she wouldn’t put herself out to as much as speak to her. |
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