Gwynette crossed the room, watching the swing of the soft satin folds in the mirror over one shoulder. Her lips were pressed together as though she were trying to keep from retorting to her friend's speech, but her mounting anger caused her to stop in front of Pat's chair and flare at her. "I can't understand _why_ you continue to associate with me at all, since you disapprove of me so entirely. If you feel that it is an idiotic thing for us to try to do homage to the daughter of nobility, why didn't you say so at first? It is too late now to make any changes in our plans, but after tonight I shall no longer expect you to be one of my intimate friends."
Beulah said conciliatingly: "Gwyn, we aren't any of us perfect, and we certainly don't want our friends to pretend they think we are, do we?" Then, in an entirely different tone, she continued: "For myself, Gwyn, since your brother and fifteen other cadets are coming to our party, I shall consider my money well spent. I'm pining for a dance. And, as for the Lady Clare Tasselwood, I don't care a fig whether she is or isn't. Hark, what's the commotion without?"
The palatial bus from The Palms was arriving and on the high seat with the driver, resplendent in his gold-trimmed blue uniform, sat Cadet Harold.
Beulah, who had skipped to the front window, hurried back to don her cloak and tie a becoming cherry colored scarf over her short light brown curls. "Gwyn, I wish you would be the one to tell Lady Clare that the hour of departure has arrived. Pat and I will round up the other twelve." Gwynette lifted her eyebrows as she adjusted her swansdown-trimmed cloak about her slim shoulders. "Sometimes, Beulah, from your choice of English, I might think you a cowgirl."
The rebuked maiden chuckled mischievously. "I ain't, though," she said inelegantly, "but if ever there was a romance of the Wild West written that I haven't read, I hope I'll hear of it soon. I'm daffy about the life. Truth is, I'd heaps rather meet a cowgirl than I would a younger daughter of----"
But Gwynette, with a proud toss of her handsome head, had swept from the room, leaving Beulah to mirthfully follow, accompanied by Pat, whose dark looks boded no good. Beulah drew her friend back and closed the door. "Child," she remonstrated, "don't take Gwyn's loftiness so much to heart. I think she is just as superlatively selfish as you do, and I also think she treats her invalid mother shamefully, but you know we can't go around this world telling everyone _just_ what we think of them. It isn't done in the best society. Gwyn has her good points, too, otherwise we wouldn't have been chumming with her, would we?"