Nan Sherwood on the Mexican Border Part 16

"That's just what I was afraid of," Nan whispered. "These people in this country are so hot-headed that I was afraid there would be a general riot, before we got out of there. They were all worked up so over the first fight that they would have entered our private little fray without any question."

"That's what I thought too," Laura agreed. "And did you see the expression on Bess's face?"

"No," Nan returned, "but I can just imagine what it was like. She hates scenes of any kind. I do too, but this one was almost funny. Cousin Adair is so quick tempered that he glides in and out of trouble with the greatest of ease."

"Doesn't he though?" Amelia contributed. "It fascinates me when I see one of his explosions coming. Every time he opens his mouth, he gets in deeper."

"That is funny when you see it happen to someone else," Laura agreed somewhat ruefully. "But when it happens to you, if you have a sensitive soul, like mine, it's pretty embarra.s.sing." Laura was in earnest, for her quick tongue often did its work before she had a chance to stop it.

"Oh Laura," her mother had more than once shaken her head over her daughter's failing, "you need to count to a hundred at least when you feel your cheeks flus.h.i.+ng and your head getting hot with anger. And you need to b.u.t.ton your mouth up tight, or you'll always be terribly unhappy."

Laura thought of this now, and giggled.

"Well, I don't know what's so funny," Bess remarked. She still felt irritated at what had happened. "Maybe if you had seen Linda Riggs looking around at us, you wouldn't be giggling the way you are. I wish I could have just gone right through that floor."

"But it was concrete and you couldn't." Laura pretended to be very practical.

"That is, not without hurting herself," Amelia appended.

"Oh, it isn't funny." Bess was genuinely upset. She would have hated the scene anyway, and when it occurred in Linda's presence, she hated it doubly. "You should have seen the look of pity and disgust and triumph on her face when she saw that it was our party that was making all the fuss," Bess went on, growing more vehement the more she talked. "It was positively humiliating."

More than any of the others, Bess cared about what other people thought of her. Always conscious of herself and eager to make a good impression, she was always upset when things went wrong at all. When they did not run just according to the way she thought they should, in public especially, she felt like hiding her head and running. "It's the way I am and I can't help it," she retorted once when Nan accused her of being over-sensitive, and so she never made the proper effort to overcome her failing.

"Who cares what Linda thinks?" Laura said airily as Walker and Grace joined the party, and the incident was forgotten, for the moment, while everyone made a fuss over Grace.

"You're just a sissy," Laura teased. "See a little bit of blood and you go off in a faint. What will you do when we start dissecting things in biology at school next fall?"

"I don't know." Grace looked worried as though she was going to have to do the dissecting right away.

"Tut! Tut! We'll worry about that when the time comes," Adair MacKenzie answered as though it was his problem to be handled in due course. "How are you now?" He looked at Grace closely while he asked the question.

"Feeling all right again, are you?" He spoke gently, as he might have spoken to Alice, his daughter, and a warm feeling of sympathy toward him went through all those standing around.

"Why," Nan said afterward, and Bess had to agree, "I believe he was irritable up in the stands because he was worried about Grace."

"I suppose so." Bess was much less tolerant of other people's failings than her friend. "But that was no excuse for him to get all riled up. I can't forget the way Linda looked."

"Bessie, forget it." Nan spoke sharply. "It's not important at all. It doesn't matter what Linda thinks of us. And it is important that we not criticise Cousin Adair. After all, we are his guests."

"You are right," Bess agreed. She could, on occasion, be generous in yielding when she knew she was in the wrong.

As they talked these things over, the whole party walked toward the waiting car. Again, it was a voice from the United States that arrested them, but one more softly spoken than that they had heard in the grandstands.

"I beg your pardon," it said. Nan and her Lakeview Hall companions looked up startled. The speaker who had accosted them was accompanied by none other than Linda Riggs!

CHAPTER XVIII

LINDA PERFORMS AN INTRODUCTION

"I beg your pardon." Linda Riggs' companion spoke again, "but could you direct us to Avenida Chapultepec?"

Before anyone could answer Linda rushed over to Nan and took her by the arm. "Why, Nancy Sherwood!" she exclaimed as though Nan was the best friend she had in the world. "I'm so surprised to see you here. When did you arrive? Isn't this city just perfectly gorgeous? More quaint, don't you think, than anything we saw in Europe?"

Nan was at a loss as to what to say. Deep within her she was entirely out of patience with the situation. Linda was being disgustedly affected. She was talking slowly, dragging her vowels and gesturing with her hands, acting as a person twice her age might act and even then be nauseous. But Linda disregarded Nan's coolness.

"And you, Bess," Linda turned to Elizabeth Harley. "Imagine seeing you here. Isn't it all too romantic for words, a whole crowd of Lakeview Hall people meeting in this far-off corner of the globe. The most astounding things do happen, don't they?"

"Yes, they do," Laura remarked dryly, looking Linda up and down as she did so.

"And you, Laura Polk. Why, you are all together, I do believe." Linda acted as though she had made a brilliant observation. She was having a difficult time, even for her, in the situation, for her effusions were being received rather coldly to say the least.

"I'd like to have you meet my friend, Arthur Howard," she went on, forcing Nan to introduce her and her companion to her cousin and Alice.

"Hm! Glad to meet you." Adair MacKenzie said abruptly. "Got to be going now. Sorry, don't know the way to Avenida whatever-it-was-you-said.

Can't keep any of these streets straight in my mind. They're all mixed up." With this, he summarily herded his daughter, Nan, Laura, Bess, and Amelia toward the car where Walker Jamieson and Grace who had gone on alone together were waiting. Linda and her companion were thus left behind.

"Nan," Grace hardly waited until the girls were in the car beside her before she asked the question, "was that Linda Riggs that you were talking to out there?"

"None other," Laura answered. "And why are you giggling so, Bess. A few moments ago you were all hot and bothered about Linda and now you're laughing. Will you please make up your mind about what you're thinking."

"Oh, it's so funny." Bess was off again. "Did you see the way she looked when Mr. MacKenzie walked away so suddenly. I do believe that she thought we would fall all over her the way she was falling all over us.

Oh, dear, did that do my heart good!" Bess sounded positively gleeful.

"Mine too." Laura was laughing with her.

"And do you remember," Bess went on, "how, when Mr. MacKenzie a.n.a.lyzed all of us when he first met us, we wished that some day he would have the chance to do it to Linda. Well, that wish almost came true down there. I do believe that if we had stayed a moment longer he would have done it. I was hoping--"

"Elizabeth Harley! I thought you didn't like Cousin Adair," Nan, too, was tickled at the whole situation.

"Oh, I do now," Bess capitulated. "I just love him. Do you know that's the first time since we've known her, that we've seen her as embarra.s.sed as she makes us sometimes. How I wish we had stayed just a moment longer."

"What's this about your just loving someone?" Adair turned around to join in the conversation.

Bess blushed.

"Well, all I can say is," he went on when she failed to answer. "I hope it's not that girl back there that we just met that you're being so enthusiastic about. Don't like her at all myself. No character. She's snippy. She's deceitful. Can't even talk without putting on airs. Can't stand her. Hope she's no friend of yours." He turned to Nan as he said this last.

Nan shook her head and said nothing further. She felt, and rightly so, that it was unnecessary to discuss Linda among people who did not know her. This was a consideration that Linda would never have shown Nan. In fact, time and again, Linda had purposely attempted to blacken Nan's character in front of strangers. This was one reason that Bess, loyal as she was to Nan, disliked Linda so much.

"Can't tolerate people who are affected," Adair MacKenzie went on bl.u.s.tering as the car drove out into the street. "And didn't like that man she was with either. He didn't have a very honest look about him."

"But he was nice-looking." Bess let the words out before she realized what she was doing, and the wrath of Adair MacKenzie descended upon her.

"Nice-looking! That's all you think of. Nice-looking, bah! Can't judge people by their looks. It's what's in their eyes and their hearts that counts. Have to see that before you can accurately decide what they are.

Anybody can dress up and make a good appearance. You, Bessie," he lowered his tone at a look from Alice, "you've got to learn something about true values before you get much older. You're a nice sort of girl, but you put too much emphasis on money and worldly goods. You'll have to be taught sometime that they are not so important as you think.

"That goes for all of you," he ended, sweeping them all with his glance.