The Ranch Girls in Europe Part 2

And there again was the coldness, the hauteur and the superiority, which Jean had resented before their misfortune had awakened the young woman's sympathy.

In the midst of a murmur of thanks from every one else in the room, Jean quietly opened the door for their visitor. But it was hardly possible for the Princess successfully to pa.s.s two large men bearing enormous trays of dishes in their outstretched arms.

"Dinner!" Jean murmured soulfully, forgetting her new-found dignity.

And the Princess' tired-looking, big blue eyes were immediately turned wistfully toward the food.

"I am dreadfully hungry too," she announced, speaking like a girl again.

"I wonder if you would let me have some of your dinner. You see, it is too late to dress now and I shall be all alone."

Five voices answered and several hands reached forward to draw their guest down into the most comfortable chair. A little later the table was laid with a bunch of roses, which Ruth had received anonymously, to serve as the centerpiece. And seated between Jean and Frieda was a real live Princess; when in their fondest dreams the Ranch girls had only hoped to see one drive past some day in a coach and four.

CHAPTER III

NEW ACQUAINTANCES

AMBITION in this world is often gratified in a most unexpected fas.h.i.+on, and so it happened with Frieda Ralston!

For weeks before leaving the Rainbow Ranch she had discussed with Jim, with Ralph Merrit, who was still engineer at the mine, and with her sister Jack, whether or not they believed she would be able to make agreeable acquaintances aboard s.h.i.+p or during the months of their travel on the other side. For Frieda was certain that she should soon grow weary with nothing to entertain her but miles of salt water, hundreds of art galleries, thousands of pictures and statues. It was all very well for Jack and Olive to enthuse over these possibilities and for Jean to pretend to feel the same way. She wanted _people_ for her diversion and hoped to be able to make a few friends in the course of their ocean crossing. Though how this was to be accomplished without a single introduction Frieda did not know. However, on the morning of the second day of their voyage the youngest Ranch girl made the discovery.

In a state of blissful unconsciousness and without reflecting on the events of the day before, she started down to breakfast with Jean and Olive. Jack and Ruth were a little too weary to care about making early appearances.

The morning was a perfect one, with a smooth sea, and the dining room was crowded with pa.s.sengers. One would hardly have expected that the quiet appearance of three young girls could have attracted any special attention. For a few moments they waited for the head steward to be found, and were then led to their seats at the First Officer's table. It was all very quickly done, yet Jean and Olive were distinctly aware that a subdued murmur followed them; then that an entirely unnecessarily large number of heads were turned in their direction. Of course Frieda noticed this, too, but she merely presumed that their fellow travelers were curious and had not the good manners that they should have had. The idea that she or Jean or Olive could be exciting any particular attention never occurred to her at first, so deeply did the scene hold her attention.

Then, without warning, something took place which made Frieda flush and tremble. Except that she was holding a menu card in her hand at the moment the tears would have shown in her eyes.

Seated just across the table opposite her was a large, middle-aged woman, dressed in black and wearing a quant.i.ty of handsome jewelry. She stared hard at Frieda for the first few moments after her arrival. Then, turning to the young fellow who sat next her, she announced in a loud enough voice to be heard from one end of the table to the other, "It was the plump, yellow-haired one, wasn't it, created such a stir? Seems like it ain't possible she could have been asleep in some one's stateroom.

Much more likely she was in some kind of mischief! I am going to ask her what she _really_ was doing?" Then she leaned half-way across the cloth and, except for the young man's agonized protest, most a.s.suredly would have asked her question of Frieda.

But in an instant Jean grasped the situation. She was quicker than any of the other girls to understand social matters, and now realized that something must be said and done at once. Not only must she cover up the awkwardness of the present moment, but save Frieda from further discussion later on. They had believed that their search yesterday had been conducted quietly, and yet questions must have been asked of many pa.s.sengers aboard and the whole business of the lost girl thoroughly gone into. Frieda herself should speak now and right the whole matter.

Of course this would have been the better way, Jean thought. And yet one glance at Frieda showed this possibility hopeless. Should the strange woman ask her a single question or say another word concerning her escapade, it was apparent that the youngest of the Ranch girls would burst into tears before the many strangers at the breakfast table!

Frieda was not feeling very well. Perhaps because she had slept so long in the afternoon, or, perhaps, for more sentimental reasons she had lain awake several hours during the night past worrying over the events of the afternoon. Not that she dreamed then that she might be talked about aboard s.h.i.+p, but because she was sorry for the girls' and Ruth's anxiety. Yet evidently persons had been commenting upon her! Moreover, had she not just been called plump before everybody at their table?

Frieda was extremely sensitive on this subject and no one of her family or friends dared mention it. It was because Jack and Olive were both so absurdly thin and because Jean had a remarkably beautiful figure for a girl of eighteen that Frieda might seem a little large in comparison.

The real truth was that she had only a soft roundness of outline, which put attractive dimples, and curves in the places where you might have expected angularities.

Therefore, in the pause following the older woman's speech, Jean looked across the table with an air of quiet amus.e.m.e.nt. Immediately she held the attention of the persons nearest them and at the same time gave the embarra.s.sed young man a rea.s.suring smile.

He was not a young man, however. Jean decided from the weight of her eighteen years of masculine experience that he was a college boy probably in his Freshman year and certainly far more refined in his manner and appearance than his ordinary-looking mother.

"If you were kind enough to be interested in our difficulty of yesterday, I should be glad to explain to you how it had a happy ending," she began in a friendly voice. "I suppose it was foolish for us to have been so frightened."

And then in detail Jean went through the history of the entire occurrence, beginning with their discovery of Frieda's absence, closing with the moment of her appearance, and neglecting nothing to make her story a good one. This in spite of Frieda's hot blushes and imploring although unuttered requests for silence. In the end, however, every member of the audience laughed, and Frieda determined never to forgive Jean's unkindness, while Jean and Olive were both silently congratulating themselves that any mystery surrounding her proceedings had been so soon and so easily cleared up. They were fully aware that their story would soon be circulated among a number of their fellow pa.s.sengers.

Yet for a long time afterwards Frieda Ralston would always recall this first breakfast aboard the Martha Was.h.i.+ngton as one of the most uncomfortable meals of her whole lifetime. More than anything she hated being laughed at. And even the young man, whose mother had started the entire unpleasantness, had the impertinence to forget his own responsibility and to smile and exclaim "Great Scott" over her ability to sleep so long and well in the midst of such great excitement. Later in the meal he attempted smiling at Frieda once or twice, hoping that she might have come in time to regard the situation more humorously. But she had returned his glances with a reproachful coldness that apparently had reduced him to a proper state of silence and humility. One thought, however, upbore Frieda until she was able to withdraw from the dining room. At least, she need never again recognize the presence of the two objectionable persons across the table from her. For not only should she never speak to them, she would not even incline her head in recognition of their existence at meal times, although she had heard that this was a polite custom among even the most exclusive of ocean travelers.

Seated in her steamer chair next her sister Jacqueline half an hour later, with a veil tied close about her little scarlet velour hat, Frieda was dumfounded to observe this same objectionable young man stopping calmly before them.

Looked at closely he had a well-shaped head with almost too heavy a jaw, a bright color, brown eyes and hair that he was vainly trying to train into a correct pompadour. His shoulders were broad and athletic, of a kind the younger Miss Ralston had previously been known to admire.

First the young fellow bowed politely to Jack. Then he turned as directly toward Frieda as though they had already been properly introduced.

"I am awfully sorry my mother made you so uncomfortable this morning,"

he began bravely, and turned so crimson that Frieda felt her heart relenting.

"Mother is an awfully good sort, but she hasn't been around much and did not guess how you would feel. And--oh, well a fellow can't be expected to apologize for his mother! Only as she asked me to come and talk to you, I am trying to do my best."

Then, answering a nod of invitation from Jack, who had liked his straightforward manner, he sat down in the vacant chair next Frieda and pulling out a box of chocolates from his pocket began to tell her the story of his life. His name was Richard Grant. He and his mother came from Crawford, Indiana, where his father had been a candy manufacturer until his death a few months before. Richard was in his second year at Princeton when his father had died, so, as his mother felt a trip abroad might help her, he had dropped behind his cla.s.s for half a year in order to do what she wished.

He seemed so straightforward and so good-natured that by and by Frieda forgot to remain angry. So when he begged her to come and be introduced to his mother she hardly knew how to refuse.

Nevertheless Frieda found her first conclusion had been right. Mrs.

Grant was as impossible as she had previously thought her. Could she ever endure the mother's acquaintance for the sake of the son's?

Still, Frieda continued walking the deck with her newest acquaintance until Ruth was obliged to send Olive and Jean to look for her. And a number of persons aboard had been watching the youngest of the Ranch girls with a good deal of pleasure. For Frieda had never looked more attractive than she did in her scarlet steamer coat and cap, with her blue eyes as wide open and as deeply interested in everything about her as a clever baby's and her cheeks, without exaggeration, as deeply pink as a La France rose.

CHAPTER IV

THINGS PRESENT AND THINGS TO COME

THE ensuing week at sea was one of the most delightful in the Ranch girls' lives and in many ways ill.u.s.trative of their future history.

An ocean steamer filled with pa.s.sengers is in itself a miniature world, so many different types of people are represented, there is such freedom of a.s.sociation, such a leveling of artificial barriers that often exist on land. Frequently a fellow traveler reveals more of his character and history to some stranger whom he may meet in crossing than ever he has confided to a life-long friend.

Until the present time the four Ranch girls and their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had lived singularly sheltered lives. First brought up almost like boys under the care of their overseer, Jim Colter, three of the girls had known only the few neighbors scattered within riding distance of their thousand-acre ranch. While Olive's acquaintance, owing to her curious childhood, had been even smaller and more primitive. Then had come the year for Jean, Olive and Frieda at Primrose Hall under Miss Katherine Winthrop's charge, when their horizon had broadened, admitting a number of girls and a few young men to be their friends. But this could hardly be called real contact with the world, since always they were under Miss Winthrop's wise guidance. While as Jack had spent exactly the same length of time at a hospital she had had even less experience with people. The last ten months with three of the girls again at the Rainbow Ranch had meant a return to the same kind of quiet every-day existence, varied only by the interests of the working of the mine. Olive's six months apart from the others had simply been devoted to further study with Miss Winthrop with week-end visits to her grandmother at The Towers.

Then, although Ruth Drew was almost ten years older than any one of the Ranch girls, in many ways she was fully as ignorant of the world. It had never yet occurred to her that there were persons capable of misrepresenting themselves, nor of pretending to be what they were not and using innocent friends.h.i.+ps for purposes of their own. Nor had it occurred to her that the reputation of the four girls for having suddenly acquired great wealth might place them in danger.

From the time Ruth had been a little girl she had never had the disposition for making many friends. Always she had been timid and retiring, devoting herself to her father until after his death. Except for the year spent at the Ranch and the winter at the hospital in New York with Jack, Ruth had never known anything outside the narrow circle of a Vermont village life. Not that a village does not furnish almost all there is to learn of human nature, but that she had shut herself in from most of it. The freedom of the wonderful ranch life, the contact and friends.h.i.+p with Jim Colter, which for a while had looked like something more than friends.h.i.+p, had widened the little Vermont school teacher's horizon. Then had come the break with Jim, and the past winter at home she had shut herself up even more completely. During the many evenings alone in her small cottage there had been plenty of opportunity for Ruth Drew to regret her decision against Jim, but whatever pa.s.sed in her mind she had kept to herself. Not even to Jacqueline Ralston, who at one time had been her confidante, had she made any confession.

So perhaps from the standpoint of worldly wisdom the Rainbow Ranch party was none too well equipped for a long journey or for the meeting with many different types of people and the making of friends.h.i.+ps which might be of grave importance in after years.

And, notwithstanding the fact that Ruth and the four girls were singularly devoted to one another, there was no question but that they were five widely unlike characters, and that their interests must often lie in as many different directions now that their opportunities were to be so much broader.

For a disinterested observer (if ever there is such an one) it would have been difficult at this time in the Ranch girls' lives to have decided which one was the most attractive--beauty and charm are in themselves so much a matter of personal taste. But perhaps to older and more thoughtful persons it was now Jacqueline Ralston who would make the strongest appeal.

Jack was only a few months older than her friend, Olive Van Mater, less than a year older than her cousin, Jean Bruce, and yet looked a good deal more mature and felt so. This was true, not only because after her father's death she had been in a measure the head of the Rainbow Ranch, but because her year of illness had given her more time for introspection than is allowed most girls of her age. Sometimes she believed that this whole year had been completely lost, and then again came the knowledge that she could have learned certain lessons in no other way. Yet now she was determined to waste no further time, but to get as much as possible out of each pa.s.sing day and to live fully and completely.

Jacqueline Ralston did not look entirely like the brilliant, vigorous Ranch girl who three years before had ridden alone across the prairie to search for her lost cattle. She had less color in her cheeks, perhaps, except under the pressure of some unusual excitement, but her hair was a deeper bronze, her eyes a clearer gray, and her rather full lips a brighter crimson. There was something about her expression not always easy to understand. The old wilfulness was still there, the old habit of knowing her own mind and wis.h.i.+ng to have her own way, but with it a greater power of self-control than most girls of nineteen have--and something else. What this other trait was neither Jack herself nor her friends yet knew. This trip abroad might mean more to her than to any one of the other four girls. In spite of her lameness, which was never apparent except when she was greatly fatigued, Jack was tall--five feet seven inches--and held her shoulders with the erectness of other days.

Slender, Jack would always be, but not thin, for sixteen years of outdoor life had given her too fine a beginning.