Those Dale Girls Part 18

"I know it is a man-I heard him. It can't be Dr. Ware; it wasn't his step. It's-it's-oh! Hester Dale, is it cousin Driscoe?"

"You're getting hot," cried Hester encouragingly, reveling in her sister's excited curiosity.

"Tell me this minute," demanded Julie, shaking her. "What other man would be coming here?"

"Well, there _are_ others," laughed Hester, teasingly. "Mr. Renshawe, for instance."

"No!"

"Honor bright! And who do you suppose he is?" mysteriously.

"Don't be so tantalizing! What on earth do I know about him?"

wrathfully.

"Well, you ought to. He hung around you the whole evening at Mrs.

Lennox's, you know he did. I simply wasn't in it. I don't believe he even knew I was there!"

"You idiot! I had no personal talk with him whatever. As for you, you flirted shockingly with Mr. Landor. I was astonished at you!" severely.

"I _was_ nice to him, wasn't I?" admitted Hester, "but that was all for Jessie Davis' benefit."

"So I thought, you depraved wretch! Will you kindly tell me what all this has to do with your present excitement?"

Hester sat on the edge of her chair and delivered her next speech in italics.

"Mr. Renshawe is the man who went to Nannie's party and got the ring in her birthday cake!"

"Not really!"

"And he came here not knowing who we really were, because the manager at Heath's gave him one of our cards and recommended us as caterers. You ought to have seen him, Julie! He was embarra.s.sed almost to death and I felt fl.u.s.tered myself, to say the least, but we managed to get through the business part nicely and then at the end he just floored me!"

"Hester!" Words other than e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns seemed to have failed Julie.

The younger girl came over and stood in front of her to get the full effect of her next speech, the most important piece of news, which she had had hard work to keep until the last.

"Jules Gremond is in this country, staying with Mr. Renshawe now," she said.

Julie was rendered wholly inarticulate, but the color spread in a crimson wave over her face and she made a grab at her sister, pulling her down beside her.

"You are guying me!" she cried when she could speak.

"It is the solemn truth; 'cross my heart, hope to die,'" maintained Hester dramatically. "Moreover the things Mr. Renshawe has ordered are for a tea he is giving for Monsieur Gremond to-morrow and the Fates decree that we shall tickle the palate of the distinguished African explorer with sandwiches and things! Oh! Julie, what a funny world!"

"How do you know he is distinguished?" asked Julie, clasping her hands behind her head that her nervous fingers might not betray her.

"Because I do. Mr. Renshawe as much as said so. I wouldn't have believed he had it in him, would you?"

"I don't know; we really hardly knew him well enough to judge."

"Umph! I don't know about that. What do you suppose he is doing here, Julie? Do you think he'll look us up?" hesitatingly.

"Of course not," with more asperity than the innocent questions seemed to justify. "He will never dream of our being in Radnor. You know we had been some weeks at the hotel in Los Angeles when he came, and for all he knew we might have been going to spend the rest of our days there.

Probably he has ceased to remember that we exist-a man would find his _affaires du cur_ rather clumsy baggage in the wilds of Africa!"

"If he carried them all, yes. One or two might be consoling," suggested Hester airily.

"Oh! bother Jules Gremond! I don't want to think of him! He belongs to a life that is past!"

"Well, it is queer, anyway," insisted Hester, "and I want to scream with laughter when I think of a divinity like you-didn't he call you a divinity, Julie?-coming down from your pedestal to cater for his serene highness, the one and only Jules Gremond!"

There was something so inimitable about Hester's manner coupled with the graphic picture she drew that Julie went off into a paroxysm of laughter that ended in hysterical sobbing which Hester put an end to by shaking her vigorously.

"You are so funny," said Julie faintly, wiping her eyes. "You are almost as funny as the situation!" and then she buried her face in Hester's arm and laughed again.

"Shut up!" said Hester with more force than elegance for she was getting frightened at Julie's unusual behavior. "Stop this minute or you'll go all to pieces and besides, I've an awful confession to make!"

"Oh! not anything more," protested Julie, leaning back exhausted. "My dear, don't! Another shock will certainly be the death of me!"

piteously.

"Well I'll die if I don't get it off my conscience, so there you are!"

cried Hester, thumping down in Julie's lap and beginning to finger the hair that strayed in little curls about her temples.

"Go on," resignedly from Julie.

"Playing with your hair? I know you love to have me do it so you need not put on such a martyred air."

"Go on with your confession, you goose!"

"Well, I told Mr. Renshawe he might come to call on us. You see he asked if we would let Mrs. Lennox bring him and he was so nice I couldn't refuse."

An amused smile crept into Julie's eyes. "I thought we had nothing in common with men whatever-that they did not fit into the present scheme of things-that we had no use for them in the life we live! _Wasn't_ it some such explosive theory you expounded to me ages ago?" she asked teasingly.

"It is true, you know it is," pulling Julie's curls to emphasize her words, "but I did it for Nannie's sake. I know he is just dying to come here and talk about her."

"You mean you are just dying to have him! So am I, for the matter of that. Won't it be nice to hear all about them?"

"Do you know something?" said Hester who had a trick of beginning a speech with a question, "I believe he is in love with her!"

"What gave you that idea, you precocious infant?"

"Oh! nothing special, only the way he looked when her name was mentioned and his wanting to come here to talk about her-there is no other possible reason why he should want to come-and he got the ring in her cake you know. Wouldn't it be romantic if she married him?"

"Hester Dale! The way you allow your imagination to run riot is something perfectly fearful! You put one and one together and make a thousand things! I never saw such a girl!"

"You are not cross, are you, Julie? You don't think I did wrong to say he might come?"

"Of course not, you baby, I think you did perfectly right. Now go and make me a cup of tea if the kettle has not boiled dry. We need a brace after all this excitement."

Hester busied herself with the tea things and Julie sat staring at her, wrapt in thought. If Hester was conscious of this preoccupation she gave no sign, but hummed a gay tune and talked to Peter Snooks, who came and sat pressed close to her knees in true dog fas.h.i.+on.