CHAPTER XXII--THE TENNIS TOURNAMENT
The girls were dressing for the tennis tournament. The games were tobegin at noon, and continue until six o'clock. Three hours later theannual tennis ball took place at the Casino.
"You know, Ruth," said Bab, fixing a pin in her friend's collar, as theystood before the mirror, "that the really most important thing in ourwhole stay at Newport is your winning the silver cup in the tournamentto-day."
"Oh!" cried Ruth. "Don't be quite so energetic, Bab. You jabbed that pinright into my neck. I believe I am going to win. I can't imagine a goodsoldier going into battle with the idea that he is going to be beaten.Why, an idea like that would take all the fight out of a man, or a girleither, for that matter. No, Hugh and I are going to do everything wepossibly can to come out winners. But, if we do, Bab, Hugh and I willthink we owe it to you and Ralph. You have been such trumps aboutkeeping us up to the mark with your fine playing."
"Nonsense, Ruth!" retorted Bab, decidedly. "All Ralph and I ask thisafternoon is a chance to do some shouting for the winners. What time isthe tourney on for the 'eighteen-year-olds'?"
"Just after lunch; about two o'clock, I believe. Bab, are you nervousabout to-night?" Ruth asked. "Do you think there is going to be a sceneat the ball? The detectives will be watching Mr. Townsend closely. Theysuspect that he means to make another big attempt, don't they?"
"I really don't know, Ruth," Barbara answered. "I had a short note fromMr. Burton this morning. I meant to show it to you, but I did not have achance. It simply said: 'Thanks. The game is ours. Keep a sharplookout!' But I want to forget the whole burglary business to-day.Tennis is the only really important thing. Hurrah for Miss Ruth Stuart,the famous girl champion!" cried Barbara, then suddenly sobered down.The two girls had been in the wildest spirits all day. Indeed, MissSallie had sent them into the same room to dress, in order to get rid ofthem.
"What is the matter, Bab?" said Ruth, turning round to look into herfriend's face.
"I've a confession to make to you. In my heart of hearts, way downunderneath, I am kind of sneakingly sorry for Harry Townsend. I know heis a rogue and everything that's wicked. When I think of him in that wayI am not sorry for him a bit. Then the thought comes of the man who hasbeen around with us for weeks, playing tennis with us and going to ourparties, and I can't quite take it in."
"I know just what you mean, Bab," replied Ruth, reflectively. "Don't youthink it must be the same idea as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde? Everyone hasa good and a bad side. We can't help being sorry for the good part of aperson, when the evil gets ahead of it. But, then, you and I have neverreally liked even the good side of Harry Townsend much. So I wonder whywe both feel sorry."
"It's the woman in us, I suppose," sighed Bab.
"Ruth, come in here and let me see how you look," called Miss Sallie.She had sent up to New York for a special tennis costume for Ruth. Thesuit was a light-weight white serge skirt with an embroidered blouse ofhandkerchief linen, and the only color was Ruth's pale blue necktie andthe snood on her hair, which was carefully braided and securely fastenedto the back of her head.
Gowns were an important part of tournament days; indeed, the New YorkHorse Show seldom shows more elaborate dressing than does the annualtennis tournament at the Newport Casino.
Mollie and Barbara were the proud owners of two new gowns made by theirmother for this special occasion. Bab's frock was a simple yellowdimity, and she wore a big white hat with a wreath of yellow roses roundit.
"You're a baby blue, Mollie, aren't you?" asked Grace standing andadmiring her little friend. Grace had on a lingerie frock of lavendermuslin and lace, and a big hat trimmed in lavender plumes.
"Well," said Mollie, making her a low bow, "lucky am I to be dressed inblue, if it means I may sit near so lovely a person as you. Fortunately,lavender and blue make a pretty color combination."
Miss Stuart had a box for the tennis tournament.
When she and the girls entered it, they found it nearly filled withroses. There were no cards except a single one inscribed: "For theAutomobile Girls," for Miss Sallie was as much an automobile girl as anyof the others. The girls selected the bunches of flowers that seemedmost suited to their costumes. Miss Sallie and Grace immediately decidedon the white roses, Mollie chose the pink ones, looking in her pale bluedress and hat like a little Dresden shepherdess.
In some one's garden a yellow rose bush of the old-fashioned kind musthave bloomed for Bab. "Why!" uttered Miss Sallie, holding up Bab'sflowers, from which streamed a long yellow satin bow, "I have not seenthese little yellow garden roses since I was a girl. See how they openout their hearts to everyone! Is that like you, Bab? Be careful how youhold them," teased Miss Sallie; "they have a few thorns underneath, andmust be gently handled."
Ruth half suspected Hugh had been the anonymous giver of the flowers, assoon as she discovered her own bunch. They formed a big ball of paleblue hydrangeas, tied with Ruth's especial shade of blue ribbon.
"See!" said Ruth, laughing, and holding them up for the other girls toadmire. "Hugh was not discouraged by the fact that blue flowers are sohard to find. I wouldn't have dreamed that hydrangeas could look solovely, except on the bush."
Ruth sat in the front of the box, waiting for her name to be called forher tennis match. She was one of the most popular visitors in Newport;nearly everyone who passed her box stopped to wish good luck to her andto Hugh.
"I have seen a good many sights, in my day," said Miss Sallie, gazingaround through her lorgnette, "but never one more beautiful than this."
The grass of the wide lawns was so perfectly trimmed that it looked likea carpet of moss. Over the green there swept a crowd of laughing, happypeople, the women in frocks of every delicate color. Even the sober notethat men's clothes generally make in a gay throng was missing to-day,for the boys, young and old, wore white flannels and light shirts thatrivaled the dresses of the girls in the brightness of their hues.
Tier upon tier of seats rose up around the tennis courts; before thefirst game was called every one was filled.
"Give me my smelling salts, Grace," said Miss Sallie, when Ruth and Hughwere called out to commence their game. "I shall not look at them untilthe set is over."
"O Miss Sallie!" declared Ralph, who had quietly slipped into Ruth'splace next Barbara. "I am ashamed of you for not having more courage. Iam certain they will win. We shall have two silver cups in this box inthe next hour or so."
Over the heads of the great crowd Barbara could see the CountessBertouche. She was standing near Mr. and Mrs. Erwin's box, in which satGovernor and Mrs. Post, Gladys and Harry Townsend.
For the first time in her acquaintance with them, Barbara saw HarryTownsend leave his seat and walk across the lawn with the countess.Evidently she had made some request of him. Not far off Barbara couldalso see a tall, blond man, with a curly, light mustache, who followedthe pair with his eyes and then moved nonchalantly in their direction.
But Harry Townsend was back with his friends in a minute. He had onlytaken the countess to her place, so that she need not be alone in thecrowd.
Ruth and Hugh were easy winners. They had no such tennis battle as theyfought the day they earned the right to represent their crowd over theheads of Ralph and Barbara.
"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted the crowd.
Ruth and Hugh were standing near each other in front of the judges'stand, where the prizes were awarded.
With a low bow, Mr. Cartwright presented Ruth with a beautiful silvercup and to Hugh another of the same kind. On the outside of each cup wasengraved a design of two racquets crossing each other, with the word"champion" below.
Barbara and Ruth had given up all their interest and thought to thetennis match during the day; but Ruth having won her cup, both girls'minds turned to the jewel robbery.
Except for the note Bab had received in the morning, she had had no signnor signal from the two detectives. The Countess Bertouche, apparentlyas calm and undisturbed as any of the other guests
, had been aninterested watcher of the tournament.
The girls were late in arriving at the ball. Miss Stuart had insisted ontheir resting an hour after dinner, and the affair was in full swingwhen they entered the beautiful Casino ballroom.
"You're just in time for the barn dance, all of you," called Mrs.Cartwright. "We are going to be informal for the next half hour, atleast. Come, Ruth, I insist on you and Hugh leading off. You are ourspecial tennis champions. Wasn't it hard luck that I didn't win, when myhusband was a judge?"
"Miss Thurston," said Harry Townsend, turning suddenly to Barbara,"won't you dance with me?"
Barbara's hands turned cold as ice and her cheeks suddenly flamed. Shehated to dance with a man whom she knew to be of the character of HarryTownsend. Yet how could she refuse?
He looked at her coolly, and Bab saw a mocking smile curl the corners ofhis lips. But he was as smooth and courteous as usual.
"He is the prince of actors," thought Bab. "I was a goose to let him seehow I felt. I will show him that I know how to act as well as he does,when I am forced to it."
Barbara accepted the invitation quietly. They took their places with thetwo long rows of dancers extending down the whole length of the greatballroom.
The barn dance, with its merry, unconventional movement, its swingingmusic and grace, was generally the greatest joy to Bab. But tonight, inspite of her pretense at acting, her feet lagged. She dared not lookinto the face of her partner. He was as gay and debonair as usual.
When the dance was over, Townsend asked Bab to walk out on the lawn withhim.
As Ruth saw Harry and Barbara walk out at the door, she turned suddenlyto the stranger with whom she was talking. "Will you," she said to him,"tell Ralph Ewing I would like to speak to him at once? I want to tellhim something that is very important. Please forgive my asking you, butI must see him. I will wait right here until you find him." It wasfive--ten minutes, before Ralph was found.
Harry Townsend meant to discover what Barbara Thurston knew. She was ayoung girl, still at school. He was a man approaching thirty, with arecord behind him of nearly ten years of successful villainy.
Would Barbara betray herself? Would she "give the game away?"
"Miss Thurston," began Harry Townsend, politely, "as I shall be goingaway from Newport very soon, I want to have a talk with you. I mustconfess, that, since the night of Mrs. Erwin's ball, I have been veryangry with you. No high-minded man could endure the suggestion you madeagainst my honor, when you asked Hugh Post to search me, so soon afterhis mother's jewels had disappeared. But time has passed, and I do notnow feel so wounded. Before I go away, would you mind telling me why youmade such an accusation against me?"
"Mr. Townsend," said Barbara, biting her lips, but keeping cool andcollected, "is it necessary for you to ask me why I made such anaccusation? If it is, then, I beg your pardon. The jewels were not inyour possession, certainly, when the search was made. I own I was mostunwise."
"Then you withdraw the accusation?" Townsend was puzzled. He hadexpected Barbara to defy him, to insist he had stolen the jewels, thatshe had seen him in the act of doing it. He was wise enough to knowthat, if he could once make her angry, she would betray what she knew.He had still to discover who the gypsy was that had so strangelyrevealed to him her knowledge of his crimes.
Barbara's heart was beating like a sledgehammer.
There was a slight movement in the nearby shrubbery. Harry Townsendwheeled like a flash. Barbara turned at the same instant. It was only astranger who had wandered across the lawn and mistaken the path, butBarbara knew that his presence there meant eternal vigilance.
"O Mr. Townsend," she said, "the music is commencing. I would ratherreturn to the ballroom. I have an engagement for this dance."
Harry Townsend realized he must manage to entice Barbara to a moresecluded part of the Casino grounds before he could have a satisfactorytalk with her.
"No," he said, "we will not go back yet, I want to talk to you. We mustunderstand each other better, before the night is over. Come!" He spokein a voice as cold and hard as ice and took Barbara by the wrist.
Barbara could not jerk away or call for help. She decided it was best tofollow him.
"You are not running away, are you, Miss Thurston?" It was Ralph's voicecalling. "I am sure Mr. Townsend will excuse you, as you have a previousengagement with me."
"Oh, certainly," said Harry Townsend, pleasantly, "sorry as I am to loseMiss Thurston's society." As Barbara and Ralph walked away, he bit hislips savagely. Then he decided to follow the tall man he had seen movingabout in the shrubbery. It might be that the man suspected something.But Townsend found him ten minutes later in the smoking-room, quietlymoving around among the men.
"Bab," Ruth had a chance to whisper to her later in the evening, "is itall right with you? I was desperately frightened when I saw youdisappear outside with Harry Townsend. Have you noticed something?"
"What?" said Bab, gazing searchingly about her.
"Only," Ruth answered, "that the Countess Bertouche is not here thisevening."
Both realized that the first card in the game had been played.
Automobile Girls at Newport; Or, Watching the Summer Parade Page 22