Nan Sherwood's Summer Holidays Part 13

"You can't go anyplace, not even across the ocean, but what that girl turns up."

"What girl?" Laura feigned innocence.

"Linda Riggs, of course." Bess was utterly disgusted. "When I left you down in the corridor, I went straight up to the steward's window. I took my place in line with others, paying no attention to anyone. All I cared about was getting my ticket and getting down to the dining room. I moved along in line like the others and was just about ready to show the steward my pa.s.sport, when someone gave me a shove.

"Well, I wasn't going to stand for that, so I stood my ground."

"You mean," Nan interpreted, "that you shoved right back."

"Well, if you want to call a little push that, yes," Bess admitted. "But if I'd known who it was, I would have knocked her down."

"Why, Bess!" Nan was horrified and amused. "You little beast! I'm surprised at you."

"She's always getting us into trouble." Bess was indignant all over again. "There I was, minding my own business, thinking nice thoughts, and having quite a perfect time. No one was farther from my concern than she. And what happens? She walks right into me, pushes me aside, never begs my pardon, and presents her pa.s.sport first."

"Then what did you do?" Laura asked. She was as amused as Nan.

"What could I do?" Bess inquired sharply. "I couldn't fight with her there in front of all those people. She had the advantage and knew it.

She's the most unfair person I've ever come across. I hate her!"

"Was that all that happened?" Laura was reluctant to let the subject drop.

"All! Wasn't that enough?" Bess exploded again.

"Well--yes." Laura admitted. "But don't you know anything more about her. Did you leave right away?"

"Of course not!" Bess answered resentfully. "How could I? I didn't even have my check yet for the table. There wasn't anything to do," she added regretfully, "except to take a place behind her in line and listen to her make her demands of the steward."

"Now we are getting someplace," Laura leaned forward as Bess let drop this piece of information. "What did you find out about her?"

Nan shook her head at this line of conversation. She did not approve of eavesdropping. But no one paid any attention to her.

"Oh, it makes me angry all over again to think of it," Bess jerked at the steamer rug again. "As I said before, she didn't pay any attention to me. I might have been just anyone."

"She gave the steward her pa.s.sport, stepped back slightly, almost treading on my feet, and looked at him through a lorget--"

"You mean lorgnette," Laura interrupted, "but it doesn't matter. Go ahead."

"Lorgnette, then," Bess corrected. "Anyway, she looked at the steward through it as though he had been put there just to do as she ordered, as though he was a puppet that she could dangle as she wished.

"You know how she does it in that stuck-up way of hers. Why, if I had been him, I would have thrown the plans right in her face. But he was just as meek as I am before Mrs. Cupp, the fool!"

"Bess, do be careful," Nan put a restraining hand over her mouth, "other people will hear you."

Bess lowered her voice as she went on. "She told him that he had made a mistake, a perfectly dreadful mistake. Devastating, I think, was the word she used--whatever that means. At any rate, he had given her a stub for a table down here in Tourist Cla.s.s."

"And, my dears, Linda Riggs," Bess mimicked Linda's voice as she continued, "the daughter of the great railway magnate, never has anything but the best, the very best, when she travels."

At this Nan hooted. She was remembering her own encounter with Linda at the travel agent's a few weeks previously.

"And then--" Laura wanted more about this exciting encounter.

"Then he begged her pardon. Can you imagine that?" Bess looked at her friends for an answer. There was none. "Gave her a new stub, asked her if there was anything else he could do for her, and all but personally escorted her back to First Cla.s.s.

"She didn't even thank him for his trouble. She just turned, looked some of the people up and down as though they were curiosities in a zoo, and swept over to the elevator."

"What? She didn't walk on you again," Laura was purposely baiting Bess now.

"I should say not!" Bess answered emphatically. "Before she turned, I stepped way back so that there wasn't any more danger of that."

"Good for you, Bess," Rhoda now spoke up for the first time.

"It seems to me," Nan grinned impishly as she thought about it, "That one or two of us made a New Year's resolution about Linda Riggs.

Remember Bess?"

"Remember, why should I remember?" Bess asked. "I never in all this wide world made a resolution about Linda, unless it was to get even with her for the times she has embarra.s.sed us."

"Oh, but Bess," Nan pursued her train of thought, "You remember how, after the New Year's Eve party at Grace's, we went up to our room and made resolutions?"

"You did." Bess corrected her abruptly and very positively. "You and Grace said that for one month you would be nice to Linda, no matter what happened. Then Linda never did come back to school, so it didn't count."

"Anyway," Nan attempted to dismiss the unpleasant subject, "There's no reason why she should bother us. She's up in First Cla.s.s."

"Yes, and we're down here in Tourist." It was a sore point with Bess, who was always irritated when Linda was able to show her superiority in money matters. Bess wanted most intensely to be able to look down on Linda. She wanted to have something so much better than Linda that the arrogant girl would envy her.

"Even so," Nan resolved as she rose from her deck chair, "I'm not going to let her spoil my trip. Come," she half coaxed, "Come, Bess, let's all take a turn about deck."

"Yes, let's," Grace encouraged, "I'd like to walk once, clear around the boat."

"But you can't," Laura supplied the information, as she looked at Bess, "You can walk only so far and then there's a gate that separates you from first cla.s.s."

"Please, forget it!" Nan looked reprovingly at Laura. "Come with me,"

she invited again. "I know a place where you can stoop under some rigging and come out on a little part of the deck that's almost like a balcony with the ocean below it and nothing but the sky above."

"And I know a place," Rhoda contributed, "where you can get way up front, so that you are at the prow of the boat. When you stand there, you feel as though you yourself are cutting through the water."

"A mermaid at large." Laura laughed. "I know that place, too. I found it right after lunch and thought, until now, that it was my private property."

"But I know a place that's even better than that," Grace boasted. "It's a large room with portholes all along both ends. There are tables in it--"

"And tea and cakes for all who come," Laura finished. "Let's go there."

They went, but neither tea nor cakes could make Bess forget that she had a score to even up with Linda.

CHAPTER XIII