Part 19 (1/2)

”Over yonder. Shall I hail him?” asked Durand, from the next table, promptly putting his fingers to his mouth as though to give one of the ear-splitting whistles which seem to carry for miles.

”If you dare, you scape-grace, right here in this dining-room!” she warned.

”Oh, do it!” cried Polly. ”I want to learn how. Show me.”

”All right; stick out your tongue,” directed Durand and Polly promptly fell into the trap, though unluckily she happened to be looking straight past Durand at the moment, and what proved more embarra.s.sing, right at a table occupied by Foxy Grandpa, Helen and Lily Pearl, whom Mrs. Harold had not yet met, so, of course, did not recognize. (Helen and Lily did not mean to lose sight of Peggy and Polly if they could help it.)

There are some situations where explanations only make matters worse.

This was one of them. Polly was in everlasting disgrace and everyone at the table in shouts of laughter, as well as those at other tables near at hand, whose occupants could not have helped hearing and seeing if they would.

But at that moment Rosalie diverted attention from Polly by trying to clap her hands regardless of the piece of luncheon roll she held, thus promptly launching it over her shoulder, where it went merrily bounding across the polished floor to be gravely rescued by the irreproachable John. But Rosalie was in the realms of the G.o.ds and far above such mundane matters as a luncheon roll's eccentricities.

Mrs. Harold was no whit behind her girls in their fun, and was so well known to every guest in the hotel that her table was invariably looked upon as a source of amus.e.m.e.nt for most of the others, and the fun which flowed like an electric current came very near making them forget the good things before them, and the big dining-room full of people found themselves sympathetically affected, each gay bit of laughter, each enthusiastic comment finding an answering smile at some table.

As nearly every member of the first cla.s.s had gone on Christmas leave, the few who happened to be in Annapolis having remained as the guests of friends, there was a very perceptible thinning out of ranks over in Bancroft that afternoon. Nevertheless, Mrs. Harold had announced an informal tea from four to six and ”general liberty” enabled all who chose to do so to attend it. And many chose! But in the interval between luncheon and four o 'clock Mrs. Harold ”barred out the masculine population” and carried her girls upstairs to change their gowns for her tea. It was during the ”prinking process” that some very characteristic comments were made upon the masculine guests now enjoying their post-prandial cigars, or cigarettes, in the smoking-room, below stairs.

Mrs. Harold was in her element listening to the girls' frank comments.

”Oh, I know I'm going to have the very time of my life, Mrs. Harold,”

exclaimed Natalie, giving a little bounce of rapture.

”Mr. Porter is certainly a remarkably handsome man,” was Juno's complacent comment. ”But, Mrs. Harold, aren't first cla.s.smen really--well--don't they come in for greater privileges? Rate more? Is that what you say down here?”

”Of course. Especially a five-striper, Juno. You'd better cultivate Guy Bennett. It's a great distinction to profit by a five-striper's favors.

There are three girls in Annapolis who have reduced that sort of cultivation to a science and if you manage to rival them you will have scored a point, sure enough.”

”How many five-stripers are there?” asked Stella.

”Only one, happily, or the girls to whom I allude would have nervous prostration. But the four and three-stripers save the day for them.

Nothing below is worth cultivating.”

”Don't Polly and Peggy 'cultivate' the stripers!” asked Rosalie.

”That depends,” was Mrs. Harold's cryptic answer as an odd smile caused her lips to twitch. ”Last year's five-striper and a good many other stripers, were with us constantly, and I miss them more than I like to dwell upon. This year's? Well--I shall endeavor to survive their departure.”

”Oh, but don't you just love them all!” cried Rosalie.

”Which, the mids.h.i.+pmen or the stripes?” asked Polly.

”Why, the mids.h.i.+pmen, of course!”

”I think a whole lot of some of the boys--yes, of a good many, but there are some whom I wouldn't miss much, I reckon.”

”Oh, I think you are perfectly heartless, Polly. They are just the darlingest men I ever met.”

With what unction the word ”men” rolled from Rosalie's tongue. ”Men” had not figured very largely in Rosalie's world, and Mrs. Harold chuckled inwardly at the thought of cla.s.sing Rosalie's particular little Jean Paul, in the category of grown-ups; anything more essentially boyish, and full to the brim of madcap pranks, than the eighteen-year-old Jean Paul, it would have been hard to picture.

Mrs. Harold had dispatched notes to Helen and Lily Pearl asking them in Peggy's and Polly's name to be present at her little tea that afternoon, to meet several of the mids.h.i.+pmen, and, if they cared to do so, to bring with them the men who were taking them to the hop. She did not know who these men were.

Shortly after four Helen and Lily Pearl arrived in a flutter. Mrs.