"I'll just tell you the whole story, Charlie," she declared, "so you will see what an awful predicament I am in. I know you won't tell Father, and you may be able to help me out. I owe Madame Louise, my dressmaker, five hundred dollars! She has threatened to bring suit against me at the end of a week unless I pay her what I owe before that time. Would you lend me the money, Charlie? I am awfully ashamed to ask you. But I could pay you back in a little while."

Harriet's voice dropped almost to a whisper, she was so embarra.s.sed. Her companion must have heard her, for he was sitting beside her in the automobile, but he made no answer.

Poor Harriet sat very still for a moment overcome with humiliation. She had trampled upon her pride and self-respect in making her request, and she had begun to realize more fully how very unwise she had been in asking such a favor of this young man. Yet it had really never dawned on the girl that Charlie Meyers could refuse her request. When he did not answer, she began to feel afraid. Harriet could not have spoken again for the world. Her usually haughty head was bent low, and her lids dropped over her eyes in which the tears of humiliation were beginning to gather.

"Look here, Harriet," protested the young man at last. "Five hundred dollars is a good deal of money even for me to lend. What arrangements do you want to make about paying it back?"

"Why, Charlie!" Harriet exclaimed. "You can have the interest on the money, if you like. I never thought of that."

"You can pay me back the interest if you wish," Charlie replied sullenly.

"But you know, Harriet, that I like you an awful lot, and for a long time I've been wanting you to marry me. But you've always refused me. Now if you'll promise to marry me, I'll let you have the money. But if you won't, why you can't have it--that's all! I am not going to lend my good money to you, and then have you go your way and perhaps not have anything more to do with me for weeks. I tell you, Harriet, I like you an awful lot and you know it; but I am not going to be made a fool of, and you might as well find it out right now."

Harriet was so angry she simply could not speak for a few minutes. The enormity of her mistake swept over her. But silence was her best weapon, for Charlie Meyers began to feel ashamed. He was dimly aware that he had insulted Harriet, and he really did care for her as much as he was capable of caring for any one.

"I didn't mean to make you angry, Harriet," he apologized in a half frightened voice. "I don't see why you can't care for me anyhow. I've asked you to marry me over and over again. And I can just tell you, you won't have to worry over debts to dressmakers ever again, if you marry me. I've got an awful lot of money."

"I am very glad you have, Mr. Meyers," Harriet answered coldly, with a slight catch in her voice. "But I am certainly sorry I asked you to lend any of it to me. Will you never refer to this conversation again, and take me home as soon as you can? I don't think it is worth while for me even to refuse your offer. But please remember that my affection is something that mere money cannot buy." Harriet's tone was so scornful that the young man winced. He could think of nothing to reply, and turned his car around in shame-faced silence.

Harriet too was very quiet. She would have liked to tell her companion what she truly thought of him, how coa.r.s.e and ill-bred he was, but she set her lips and remained silent. She did not wish to make an enemy of Charlie Meyers. After that day's experience, she would simply drop him from her list of acquaintances and have nothing more to do with him.

Stupid though he was, the discomfited young man felt Harriet's silent contempt. He wanted to apologize to her, to explain, to say a thousand things. But he was too dense to know just what he should say. It was better for him that he did wait to make his apology until a later day, when Harriet's anger had in a measure cooled and she was even more miserable and confused than she was at that time.

"I am awfully sorry, Harriet," Charlie Meyers stumbled over his words as he helped her out of his machine. "You know I didn't exactly mean to refuse your request. I'll be awfully glad to--"

But Harriet's curt good-bye checked his apologetic speech, and he turned and drove swiftly away.

CHAPTER XIV

"GRANT NO FAVORS!"

"Mrs. Wilson's tea is at four o'clock, girls, remember," Harriet announced a day or so later, looking up from the note she was writing.

"Are you actually going sight-seeing again to-day before the reception?

Truly, I never imagined such energy!"

"Oh, come, Harriet Hamlin, don't be sarcastic," Ruth rejoined. "If you had not lived so long in Washington you would be just as much interested in everything as the 'Automobile Girls' are. But Bab and I are the only ones to go sight-seeing to-day. Mollie isn't feeling well, and Grace is staying to console her. We shall be back in plenty of time. Why don't you lie down for a while! You look so tired."

"Oh, I am all right," Harriet answered gently. "Good-bye, children. Be good and remember you have promised not to be late."

Ruth and Bab were highly anxious for a walk and talk together, and they had a special enterprise on hand for this afternoon. Bab had received a mysterious summons from her newspaper friend, Marjorie Moore. The note had asked Bab to bring Ruth, and to come to the Visitors' Gallery in the Senate Chamber at an appointed time. Marjorie Moore chose this strange meeting place because she had a "special story" of the Senate to write for her paper and was obliged to be in the gallery.

Barbara was not particularly surprised at the request. She knew that Marjorie Moore had been wishing to make her a confidant ever since the reception at the White House. And she knew that the girl could not come to Mr. Hamlin's house because of Harriet's hostile att.i.tude toward her.

So Bab confided the whole story to Ruth, and feeling much mystified and excited, the two girls set out for the Capitol.

During the long walk Barbara thought of her own secret, which she longed to confide to Ruth, but she dared not tell Ruth of the borrowed money for fear Ruth would at once insist on paying her debt. The money had to be paid, of course, and Bab hoped to pay it back at an early date, but she had not yet come to the point where she could bear to ask Ruth for it.

When Ruth and Bab finally reached the Capitol building, and made their way to the Visitors' Gallery in the Senate Chamber, Marjorie Moore was not there. She had failed to keep her appointment.

"I am not so very sorry Miss Moore has not come," Barbara remarked to Ruth. "She seems to be such a mysterious kind of person, always suggesting something and never really telling you what it is."

Ruth laughed. "The 'Automobile Girls' hate mysteries, don't they, Bab?

But goodness knows, we are always being involved in them!"

The two visitors sat down to listen to the speeches of United States Senators. There was some excitement in the Chamber, Bab decided, but neither she nor Ruth could exactly understand what was going on.

Both girls listened and watched the proceedings below them with such intensity that they forgot all about Marjorie Moore and her strange request.

A few moments later she dropped down into the vacant seat next to Barbara. She looked more hurried and agitated than ever. Her hat was on one side, and her coat collar was half doubled under. She was a little paler from her trying experience of a few nights before, and an ugly bruise showed over her temple. But she made no reference to her accident.

"I am sorry I am late," she whispered. "But come back here in the far corner of the gallery with me. I want to talk with you just half a minute. I am so busy I can't stay with you any longer. I just felt I must see you, Miss Thurston, before you go to tea with Mrs. Wilson this afternoon."

"Tea with Mrs. Wilson!" Bab e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "How did you know we were going to Mrs. Wilson's tea? And has that anything to do with your message to me?" Barbara did not speak in her usual friendly tones. She was getting decidedly cross. It seemed to her that she had been under some one's supervision ever since her arrival in Washington.

"Yes, it has, Miss Thurston," the newspaper girl replied quickly. "I want to ask you something. Promise me you will grant no one a favor, no matter who asks it of you to-day?"

Barbara flushed. "Why how absurd, Miss Moore. I really cannot make you any such promise. It is too foolish."

"Foolish or not, you must promise me," Marjorie Moore insisted. Then she turned earnestly to Ruth. "I know you have a great deal of influence with your friend. If she will not agree to what I ask her, won't you make her promise you this: She is not to consent to do a favor for any one this afternoon, no matter how simple the favor seems to be. Do you understand?"

Ruth looked at Marjorie Moore blankly, but something in the newspaper girl's earnest expression arrested her attention.

"I don't see why you won't make Miss Moore the promise she begs of you, Bab," Ruth argued. "It seems a simple thing she has asked you. And I don't think it is very nice of you, dear, to refuse her, even though her request does seem a little absurd to you."

"But won't you tell me why you ask me to be so exceedingly unaccommodating, Miss Moore?" Bab retorted.

Marjorie Moore shook her head. "That's just the trouble. Again I can't tell you why I ask this of you. But I want to a.s.sure you of one thing. It would mean a great deal more to me, personally, to have you agree to do the favor that may or may not be asked of you this afternoon. I am the only outside person in Washington who knows of a certain game that is to be played. It would mean a big scoop for my paper and a lot of money for me if I would just let things drift. But I like you too well to hold my tongue, though I am not going to tell you anything more. And I certainly won't beg you to do what I ask of you. Of course you may do just as you please. Good-bye; I am too busy to talk any more to-day." Before Barbara could make up her mind what to answer, the newspaper woman hurried away.

Ruth looked decidedly worried after Marjorie Moore's departure. But Barbara was still incredulous and a little bored at being kept so completely in the dark.

"Look here, Bab," Ruth advised, as the two girls walked slowly home together, "you did not promise Miss Moore to do what she asked of you.

But you must promise me. Oh, I know it seems absurd! And I am not exactly blaming you for refusing to make that promise to Miss Moore. But, Bab, we cannot always judge the importance of little things. So I, at least, shall be much happier at this particular tea if you will promise me not to do a single thing that any one asks you to do."

Both girls laughed gayly at Ruth's request.

"Won't I be an agreeable guest, Ruth?" Bab mimicked. "If any one asks me to sit down, I must say, 'No; I insist on standing up. Because I have promised my friend Miss Stuart not to do a single thing I am requested to do all afternoon.' I wish I did not have to go to Mrs.

Wilson's tea to-day."

"You need not joke, Bab," Ruth persisted. "And you need not pretend you would have to behave so foolishly. I only ask you to promise me what you would not agree to, when Marjorie Moore asked it of you: 'Don't do any favor for any one, no matter who asks it of you this afternoon!'"

Bab gave up. "All right, Ruth, dear; I promise," she conceded. "You know very well that I can't refuse you anything, though I do think you and Miss Moore are asking me to be ridiculous. I do hereby solemnly swear to be, for the rest of this day, the most unaccommodating young person in the whole world. But beware, Ruth Stuart! The boomerang may return and strike you. Don't dare request me to do you a favor until after the bells chime midnight, when I shall be released from my present idiotic vow."

Mrs. Wilson's afternoon teas were not like any others in Washington. They were not crowded affairs, where no one had a chance to talk, but small companies of guests especially selected by Mrs. Wilson for their congeniality. So Mrs. Wilson was regarded as one of the most popular hostesses at the Capital and distinguished people came to her entertainments who could not be persuaded to go anywhere else.

Harriet and the four "Automobile Girls" were delighted to see a number of service uniforms when they entered the charming French drawing-room of their hostess, which was decorated in old rose draperies against ivory tinted walls.

Lieutenant Elmer Wilson's friends, young Army and Navy officers, were out in full force. They were among the most agreeable young men in Washington society. Lieutenant Elmer at once attached himself to Mollie; and his attentions might have turned the head of that young woman if she had not been feeling unusually sobered by her recent experience with debt.