“Oh, I’ve seen him, too,” commented Gertrude Trumbull.
“He wears a cap and a belted coat like Gilbert Griffiths, sometimes, doesn’t he?
Arabella Stark pointed him out to me once and then Jill and I saw him passing Stark’s once on a Saturday afternoon.
He is better looking than Gil, any day, I think.”
This confirmed Sondra in her own thoughts in regard to Clyde and now she added:
“Bertine Cranston and I met him one evening last spring at the Griffiths’.
We thought he was too bashful, then.
But I wish you could see him now — he’s positively handsome, with the softest eyes and the nicest smile.”
“Oh, now, Sondra,” commented Jill Trumbull, who, apart from Bertine and Bella, was as close to Sondra as any girl here, having been one of her classmates at the Snedeker School,
“I know some one who would be jealous if he could hear you say that.”
“And wouldn’t Gil Griffiths like to hear that his cousin’s better looking than he is?” chimed in Tracy Trumbull. “Oh, say —”
“Oh, he,” sniffed Sondra irritably.
“He thinks he’s so much.
I’ll bet anything it’s because of him that the Griffiths won’t have anything to do with their cousin.
I’m sure of it, now that I think of it.
Bella would, of course, because I heard her say last spring that she thought he was good-looking.
And Myra wouldn’t do anything to hurt anybody.
What a lark if some of us were to take him up some time and begin inviting him here and there — once in a while, you know — just for fun, to see how he would do.
And how the Griffiths would take it.
I know well enough it would be all right with Mr. Griffiths and Myra and Bella, but Gil I’ll bet would be as peeved as anything.
I couldn’t do it myself very well, because I’m so close to Bella, but I know who could and they couldn’t say a thing.”
She paused, thinking of Bertine Cranston and how she disliked Gil and Mrs. Griffiths.
“I wonder if he dances or rides or plays tennis or anything like that?”
She stopped and meditated amusedly, the while the others studied her.
And Jill Trumbull, a restless, eager girl like herself, without so much of her looks or flair, however, observed:
“It would be a prank, wouldn’t it?
Do you suppose the Griffiths really would dislike it very much?”
“What’s the difference if they did?” went on Sondra.
“They couldn’t do anything more than ignore him, could they?
And who would care about that, I’d like to know.
Not the people who invited him.”
“Go on, you fellows, stir up a local scrap, will you?” put in Tracy Trumbull.
“I’ll bet anything that’s what comes of it in the end.
Gil Griffiths won’t like it, you can gamble on that.
I wouldn’t if I were in his position.
If you want to stir up a lot of feeling here, go to it, but I’ll lay a bet that’s what it comes to.”
Now Sondra Finchley’s nature was of just such a turn that a thought of this kind was most appealing to her.
However, as interesting as the idea was to her at the time, nothing definite might have come of it, had it not been that subsequent to this conversation and several others held with Bertine Cranston, Jill Trumbull, Patricia Anthony, and Arabella Stark, the news of this adventure, together with some comments as to himself, finally came to the ears of Gilbert Griffiths, yet only via Constance Wynant to whom, as local gossips would have it, he was prospectively engaged.
And Constance, hoping that Gilbert would marry her eventually, was herself irritated by the report that Sondra had chosen to interest herself in Clyde, and then, for no sane reason, as she saw it, proclaim that he was more attractive than Gilbert.
So, as much to relieve herself as to lay some plan of avenging herself upon Sondra, if possible, she conveyed the whole matter in turn to Gilbert, who at once proceeded to make various cutting references to Clyde and Sondra.
And these carried back to Sondra, along with certain embellishments by Constance, had the desired effect.
It served to awaken in her the keenest desire for retaliation.
For if she chose she certainly could be nice to Clyde, and have others be nice to him, too.
And that would mean perhaps that Gilbert would find himself faced by a social rival of sorts — his own cousin, too, who, even though he was poor, might come to be liked better.
What a lark!
At the very same time there came to her a way by which she might most easily introduce Clyde, and yet without seeming so to do, and without any great harm to herself, if it did not terminate as she wished.
For in Lycurgus among the younger members of those smarter families whose children had been to the Snedeker School, existed a rather illusory and casual dinner and dance club called the
“Now and Then.”
It had no definite organization, officers or abode.
Any one, who, because of class and social connections was eligible and chose to belong, could call a meeting of other members to give a dinner or dance or tea in their homes.