Part 16 (1/2)
”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?”