You know it has been closed all winter."

"Indeed, I'm not going anywhere." d.i.c.k felt greatly relieved, for he believed that Ralph was telling him the truth. He knew that his college pal was impulsive and often did things in more of a headlong manner than he would had he given the matter thought. "Of course he admires my Bobs; no one could help that, but I'm glad that he doesn't really love her,"

d.i.c.k was thinking. "He's had sorrow enough as it is." Aloud he asked, "Who are you going to ask?"

"Well, I did invite all four of the Vandergrift girls, but Bobs is the only one who has accepted. The oldest and youngest sisters are free but a few hours each day; the rest of their time they devote to Settlement work and they feel that they are especially needed now that it is vacation in the schools. Gwendolyn, however, may come, as of course I have invited your sister Phyllis and her guests."

d.i.c.k looked at Ralph with the light of a new inspiration in his eyes. "I say, wouldn't it be great if you could care for my sister Phyl? Then you would be my brother in very truth."

Ralph laughed. "d.i.c.ky-boy," he said, "are you turning matchmaker? It's too late for that, old man. Bobs tells me that Phyllis is engaged to a fine chap from up Boston way. His name is Arden Wentworth."

"Gee, that's great news! Arden is a chap after my own heart, but I didn't think that he ever could win Phyl. She must have changed a lot this last year."

"Why, how's that?" Ralph looked around inquiringly. "His father has piled up a few millions. That ought to please any girl."

"That's just where the shoe pinches, so to speak," was the reply. "Arden, being a red-blooded young American, refused to just spend his father's money and so he put on overalls and began at the bottom in one of his dad's factories. He said he wanted to prove to himself, even if the world didn't care, that he had brains enough to make good without help. Phyl wouldn't speak to him after that, hoping that, for her sake, he would give it up; but he didn't, and so I thought it was all off between them."

"Well, something must have happened, for Bobs tells me that they are really engaged, and so, of course I have also invited Arden. By the way, you know Gwendolyn Vandergrift. What kind of a chap ought I to ask for her? Harry Birch is in town. I thought she might like him." And so the lads talked over the plans for the coming house party, and so successfully did Ralph play his part that his pal did not for one moment suspect that his friend was secretly wishing that he might have sailed away in d.i.c.k's place on the boat which, that noon, had left for distant sh.o.r.es.

But night is darkest before the dawn.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

THE HOUSE PARTY

Ralph and d.i.c.k were out on the wide velvety lawn which surrounded the handsome rambling summer home of the Caldwaller-Corys.

The gay awnings, palms and boxes of flowers gave the house a festive appearance, while the many colored lanterns strung about the garden suggested that some merriment was planned for the evening.

Mrs. Caldwaller-Cory, who seemed very young to be the mother of a junior member of an ancient law firm, emerged from the house closely followed by Roberta Vandergrift.

Bobs, in an attractive summer dress and wide flower-wreathed hat, looked very different from the girl who, while on the East Side, dressed in a simple dark tailor-made suit and a neat, narrow-brimmed hat.

"Aren't your guests late, my son?" the hostess inquired. Ralph looked at his watch for the tenth time in as many minutes.

"They certainly are," he replied, "late by a full hour now, and I am almost inclined to think that they had a breakdown. They were coming in Jack Beardsley's tallyho, and he said he would time the drive from New York so that they would reach us promptly at two-thirty, and now it is nearing four."

Just at that moment a butler crossed the lawn and, beckoning Ralph to one side, told him that someone awaited him at the telephone. Excusing himself, the lad fairly ran indoors. As he had expected, it was the voice of his friend, Jack Beardsley, that greeted him. "I say, Ralph, are you alone so that no one will get wise to what I am going to say?"

"Yes," was the reply.

"We don't want to worry her sister needlessly. There really is no cause for that, but we've been delayed at the Orange Hills Inn because Gwendolyn Vandergrift, who isn't as strong as she thought, has found riding in the tallyho too hard. She's got grit, that girl has! Never complained, but kept up as long as she could that she need not trouble anyone until she just keeled over and fainted. She's better now, and Phyllis thought that if you would come over after her with that little runabout of yours, made comfortable with blankets and pillows, it wouldn't be as hard for Miss Vandergrift as this old tallyho of mine.

Mrs. Buscom, the innkeeper's wife, will look out for her, and so, if you are coming, we'll start along, as I want to make the steep grade with this lumbering vehicle of mine before dark."

"Sure thing, I'll get there all right. I'll take a short cut through the hills, so you won't pa.s.s me, but don't be alarmed. I'll probably get back here in The Whizz as soon as you do in the tallyho, so I won't say anything to her sister, Roberta, as yet. So long."

Again Ralph was acting on impulse. His first desire had been to take Bobs with him, but if he did there would not be room to make the invalid sister comfortable on the return trip, and, moreover, it wouldn't be fair to d.i.c.k.

His dad wouldn't arrive with the big car until five-thirty, and so The Whizz would have to do. Sending word out to the group on the lawn that the tallyho had been delayed but would soon arrive, Ralph donned his leather coat, cap and goggles and made his way out through a back entrance and down to the garage. Soon thereafter he was speeding over a country road which led among the hills and was a short cut of many miles to the Inn. He broke the speed limit whenever the dirt road was smooth enough to permit him to do so, but, although he frightened many a flock of birds from the hedges, no one arose from the wayside tangle to bid him go more slowly.

When at last he drew up at the Inn, the kind Mrs. Buscom appeared and smilingly informed him that the young lady was quite rested and that the tallyho had been gone for half an hour. She was about to lead the way into the dim, old-fashioned parlor of the Inn when new arrivals delayed her, and so Ralph went in alone.

The blinds in the old-fashioned parlor of the Inn were drawn, and, having come in from the dazzling sunshine, Ralph at first could scarcely see, but a girl, who had been seated in a haircloth rocker, arose and advanced toward him. She wore a rose-colored linen hat and dress. For a moment the lad paused and stared as though at an apparition.

"Bobs!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. Then he laughed as he extended his hand. "Miss Vandergrift, honestly, just for a second I thought that I was seeing a vision. I had quite forgotten that you and your sister so closely resemble each other, though, to be sure, you are taller than Bobs; but pardon me for not introducing myself. I am Ralph Cory, of whom, perhaps, you have heard."

"And I am Gwendolyn Vandergrift, of whom I am sure that you have heard, else you would not have come for me," the girl smiled; and, to his amazement, Ralph found that his heart was pounding like a trip-hammer.

"If you are sure that you are rested, Miss Vandergrift," he said, "we will start back at once. I've brought soft pillows galore, and a jolly soft lap robe. I do hope you'll be comfortable."

On the porch of the Inn, Gwen turned and, holding out a frail hand, she said to the kindly woman: "Thank you, Mrs. Buscom, for having taken such good care of me. I shall stop again on our way back to town."

The bustling little woman helped arrange the pillows and tucked in the blanket. Then to Ralph she said as the machinery started: "Do take care of the pretty dear. It's like a flower she is, and ought to be sheltered from the rough winds of the world."

"I'll do that little thing, Mrs. Buscom. Good-bye. Wish us luck!"

Ralph drove slowly at first, but Gwen said, "I'm so well packed in pillows, Mr. Cory, it won't jar me in the least if you go faster." And so the speed increased. It was late afternoon and the highway was deserted.

"I'd like to overtake the tallyho," Ralph remarked. "If I thought you wouldn't mind the pace we'd have to hit."

Gwendolyn smiled up trustingly. "I have perfect faith in your driving,"

she said. "I know you will take care of me."

Ralph, looking into the face of the girl at his side, again had the strange feeling that it was Bobs, only different, and--Oh, what was the matter with him, anyway? Was it possible that he liked the difference?

Bobs had always been a frank comrade, more like another boy, when he came to think of it, but this girl, who was equally beautiful, was depending upon him to take good care of her.

A fifteen-minute spurt brought them to the top of a hill and in the valley below they saw the tallyho.

Ralph stopped a brief moment on the plateau, leaped out to be sure that The Whizz was in perfect condition, and then anxiously inquired, "Are you sure you're game? Loop the loop won't be in it."

Gwen nodded. "I'll like it," she a.s.sured him. The color had mounted to her cheeks and her eyes sparkled. "All right! Hold fast! Here goes!" Then The Whizz went like a red streak down that hill on which, as Ralph had observed from the top, there was nothing to impede their progress.

They overtook the tallyho and slowed up that they need not startle the horses. They had reached the outer boundaries of the Caldwaller-Cory estate.

"Suppose I get back in the tallyho with the others," Gwen said, "then Bobs won't know that I had a fainting spell. If she knew it, she would feel that she ought to take me right home, and I don't want to go." Her smile at Ralph seemed to imply that he was her fellow-conspirator.

"I'm not going to let you go," he heard himself saying.

So the change was made. Ralph turned The Whizz into a rear entrance, used only by delivery autos, and in that way reached the garage.

He had asked Jack Beardsley to give him time to get out on the lawn before he arrived, and so the three, who were still seated around a tea table under a spreading oak, saw Ralph coming from the house at the same time that the tallyho entered the front gate.

They little dreamed of all that had happened.

CHAPTER XXIX.