"They do," they heard Linda answer contemptuously, and with no attempt to lower her voice. "But I prefer not to know them--especially that Sherwood girl."

What the tall man said in answer, the girls could not hear, for they were once more engulfed in a sea of chattering humanity whose din swallowed up all individual sound.

Impulsive Bess wanted to turn back and tell "that horrible Riggs girl"

what she thought of her, but Nan put an arm about her angry chum and hurried her on.

"But, Nan, I don't see how you can stand such things and never say a word," cried Bess, indignantly. "I do believe you haven't any spirit. I never could take an insult like that so calmly."

"I'm not a bit calm," replied Nan, gripping her bag fiercely. "Right this minute, I'd like to get hold of Linda Riggs and tear her hair out by the roots."

"Why didn't you do it then?" demanded excited Bess, and at this query even Walter, who had been more incensed than any of the girls at the insolent speech of Linda's, had to laugh.

"Yes, I would look pretty, wouldn't I?" laughed Nan, all her wrath vanishing on the instant, although her dislike of purse-proud Linda was more real than ever, "announcing my arrival in Jacksonville by a street fight?"

"You would look pretty any way--even pulling Linda's hair out," laughed Walter in her ear.

"Please don't be foolish, Walter," returned Nan loftily, at which, for some unaccountable reason, Walter only chuckled the more.

The speech and the chuckle troubled Nan. It seemed in some ridiculous fashion to bear out the silly things Bess had said about her and Walter earlier in the trip.

She forgot all about her perplexity a few moments later, however, when Walter helped Nan and Bess and Grace into the roomy tonneau of his big car, put Rhoda in the front seat, squeezed himself in behind the wheel, and started the motor.

"Well, how do you like Jacksonville, girls?" he called back to them as the machine glided easily forward. "As good as Tillbury, is it?" he added, with a glance at Nan and Bess.

"Not nearly," answered Bess loyally, although in her heart she knew that they could put two or three Tillburys in Jacksonville and never miss them.

The girls had known in a rather vague way that Jacksonville was a big place, but they had never expected to see anything like the bustling, thriving, wide-awake city they now drove through.

"Why, it is almost as noisy and crowded as New York," said Bess, wide-eyed, as Walter skilfully threaded his way through the heavy traffic. "And we thought that was simply awful. Walter, please be careful."

"Don't worry," Walter sang back, grazing the rear wheel of another machine by the very narrowest margin possible. "If we did hit anything, we wouldn't be the ones to get hurt. This old bus could stop an express train."

"Maybe it could," retorted Bess. "But please try it some time when you are alone."

"Don't mind him," said Grace, with her quiet smile. "You know Walter never does all he says."

"Don't I though----" Walter was beginning, when his sister cut him off by turning eagerly to Nan and Bess.

"We're stopping at the Hampton," she said, the Hampton being one of the largest and most important of all the large and important hotels in Jacksonville. "Mother has engaged a perfectly lovely room for you girls.

Rhoda and I room together. It is just for one night, you know, for we are going to take the train for Palm Beach to-morrow morning."

"Then," cried Nan, happily, "we shall have all the rest of to-day to do as we please in."

"What bliss," breathed Bess. "Walter, you are going to be a perfect angel, aren't you, and take us for a lovely long, long ride?"

"At your service, fair damsel," said Walter gallantly. "We were planning that anyway," he went on to explain. "Mother and dad thought they would like to come along, too."

"More bliss," cried Bess, adding, as a cloud suddenly darkened her face: "I do hope we don't run across Linda any more. I declare, if I ever hear her say another word against you, Nancy Sherwood, I shall just have to kill her, that's all."

"Well, I must say I do wish she would stay home where she belongs," said Nan with a troubled frown. "Wherever we go she seems sure to turn up and spoil everything--or try to. I wonder if Cora is with her," she added.

"I didn't see her at the dock."

"Humph, you don't think she would be at the dock, do you?" asked Walter, joining in the conversation. "Cora is a regular lady's maid to Linda now, so Grace says. She must be a funny kind of girl to stand for that sort of thing."

"Oh, Cora isn't so bad," said Nan. "I imagine she would like to break away from Linda, but she doesn't know just how to do it. Is this where we get out, Walter?" she asked, as the car slowed down before a building that looked more like a palace than a hotel.

"This is where we get out," replied Walter, jumping from his seat and running around to open the door for the girls. "Right this way, ladies.

Follow me and you'll wear diamonds. Here, boy!" he spoke to a loitering colored boy who stood at the hotel entrance. "Carry these grips up to three-twenty. The hat boxes, too. I suppose you want the hat boxes," he said, turning to the girls with a grin.

"Well, I should say!" replied Bess. "Neither Nan nor I would ever smile again if we should lose one of those hats. Would we, Nan?"

But Nan was looking behind her with startled eyes and never even heard her friend's question.

"Walter!" she cried, grasping the boy's arm and pointing excitedly down the street, "do you see those men over there getting out of that taxi?

Quick! They are turning into that hotel."

"The little fat fellow and the long, thin man?" asked Walter, with a mystified line between his brows. "What about them? Friends of yours?"

"Take a good look at them," Nan cried, impatiently shaking his arm, while Grace and Rhoda looked on in amazement. "If you should see them again, I want you should know them."

CHAPTER XXI

THE BEGINNING OF ROMANCE

Walter was frankly bewildered by this time. But he obediently took a long look at the short, fat man and the long, thin one. Then, as they disappeared around a corner, he turned back to Nan and led her toward the hotel entrance.

"Why, Nan, you are trembling," he said, as they followed the colored boy through a handsome courtyard and between rows of beautiful palm trees.

"I never knew you to be like this before. What's the matter? If either of those men have bothered you," he added, glowering fiercely, "I'll wring their necks."

Nan gave a funny little hysterical laugh at this, and the laugh helped to steady her after the shock she had had at the unexpected reappearance of the two men.

"I don't want you to wring anybody's neck," she said, as they pa.s.sed through another big door and stopped before an elevator. "Only please, Walter," she looked up at him appealingly, "watch out for them and let me know if you see them again. They are following us."

Walter's bewilderment was beginning to change to alarm, and he would have demanded to know all about the strange affair at once, had not the three girls come up to them at that minute.

On the ride up to the third floor of the hotel, where the room engaged for Nan and Bess was located, Grace reminded Nan of nothing so much as a human interrogation mark.

She fairly besieged the girl from Tillbury with questions, which would have been very embarra.s.sing to poor Nan had not Rhoda interposed in her behalf.

"I don't suppose Nan wants to tell us about it now, Grace," she said.

"Let's wait till we get upstairs."

Whereupon Grace was silenced temporarily. As for Bess, she was nearly as disturbed as her chum, and the journey up to the third floor seemed interminable.

They reached it, however, and the girls stepped out into a handsome corridor and were preceded by the velvet-footed bellboy past interminable closed doors, to be stopped finally before one particular door, closed like the rest, but evidently belonging, for the s.p.a.ce of a day and night at least, to Nan and Bess.