Forthe first time during all the years of their mutual association and friendship, there was a rift between Billie Bradley and her chums. Edina Tooker was the cause of it, as Edina herself very well knew.
Laura and Vi did not like Edina. They saw her as raw, uncouth, ill-tempered. Edina, who was always one to return either friendship or enmity with interest, did not go out of her way to alter their opinion of her. She disliked Laura and Vi openly, and this they took as a personal affront.
The fact that their adored Billie, despite all that had been said and done to discourage her, still clung to her original intention in regard to this girl, they also took as a personal affront.
“It seems that she might consider our feelings in the matter!” Laura had exclaimed on one occasion when she felt that her patience had been taxed to the limit. “Can’t she see that our fun is being spoiled by having that Edina Tooker dragged into everything we do? Why, Billie had her out on thetennis courts yesterday, coaching her, actually coaching her!”
Vi nodded and giggled reminiscently.
“I was watching,” she confessed. “Edina has a service that would smash everything in sight if she ever should get it going properly.”
“Yes, and she’s death on tennis balls. She wrecked two yesterday and lost a third. It was a scream. Connie and Rose Belser and Nellie Bane were on the sidelines, laughing themselves sick. And all this time,” she added resentfully, “I was dying to have a set with Billie myself.”
“Not much fun for us,” agreed Vi, with a thoughtful shake of the head. “You know Billie promised to help me with my math—Iamworried about that, Laura, and with good reason—but these days she has no time for anything but Edina. Old friends don’t count.”
“I heard her offer to help you yesterday afternoon,” Laura remarked.
“Yes, while that horror was with her,” flared Vi. “Do you think I could concentrate on three unknown quantities with Edina Tooker looking over my shoulder?”
It was Laura’s turn to chuckle.
“I could imagine easier things,” she admitted.
There was a moment of silence, while Billie’s two closest chums reviewed their grievances. Laura asked suddenly:
“What about this mysterious trip to Fleetsburg to-morrow? Billie’s taking Edina, isn’t she?”
“So I understand.”
“Do you know what’s on the carpet?”
“Haven’t the slightest idea. Two or three times I’ve hinted to Billie, hoping she might have a change of heart and confide in me, but she’s been as mum as a clam.”
“There you are! Having secrets with this western coyote that she can’t or won’t confide to her dearest friends. If that’s loyalty, then I don’t know it!”
Laura took an excited turn or two about the room, then came to stand before Vi, her hands in the pockets of her sport coat, her chin thrust forward aggressively.
“I tell you, Vi, if it was anybody but Billie I wouldn’t stand for it for a minute! I’m just about fed up with this lion cub! I wish she’d go back to her mountain cave where she belongs!”
This was Laura’s angle of it, and Vi’s. Billie’s was quite different.
Angered by the open hostility of her friends toward Edina, hurt by what she considered a misunderstanding of her own motives in regard to the girl, Billie had repressed a natural desire to confide in Laura and Vi concerning her plans for Edina. While they felt that Billie had failed them, Billie was equally sure that they had failed her. So began the gradual rift in their long and loyal friendship.
Several times during the process of dressing on the morning of the shopping expedition in Fleetsburg, it was on the tip of Billie’s tongue to confide, belatedly, in Laura and Vi. But the two girls, nursing their resentment, were cool and distant, assuming an attitude discouraging to confidences.
“Very well!” thought Billie. “If that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll tell you nothing!”
She went down to breakfast with her nose in the air and a hurt in her heart. She had counted upon Laura and Vi, and they were failing her.
At nine o’clock the school bus drew up to the door, and those of the girls who were lucky enough to have secured permission for a day’s holiday in Fleetsburg came thronging out, all clad in their prettiest, faces turned with bright eagerness toward this break in the school routine.
The girls were like a flock of butterflies in their gay clothes and smart trappings; all save Edina Tooker who, in her mannish tweed coat, heavy boots, and queer hat looked like something out of a curiosity shop.
The worst of it was that Edina realized to the full the gulf that separated her from these smart, happy, “just-right” girls. Every amused glance in her direction was a keen shaft of pain in her heart. She clung to Billie as though the girl were her one protection against intolerable suffering.
Billie, herself a little dream of “just-rightness” ina coat of some soft, greenish-gray material, gray slippers, sheer stockings, a small gray cloche with a green buckle snuggled over one ear, felt her heart burn with indignation at what she considered the callous cruelty of her fellow students.
“Never you mind,” she whispered to Edina, whose face was grim and more than ordinarily plain. “We’ll show them! Coming back will be different. Oh, very, very different!”
Under her breath, Edina said fiercely:
“They’re horrid! I hate them! I’ll always hate them!”
Billie sighed. At that moment she realized, more clearly than ever before, how difficult a problem she had undertaken. The self-appointed guardian of an Edina Tooker could expect no easy time of it!
As the bus started off, Billie looked among the crowd that had gathered on the school steps to see them off. Laura and Vi were not there. They had not even come out to see her off!
However, she caught sight of Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks, standing close together, giggling, and pointing toward Edina Tooker.
Billie turned away. Her color was heightened, her lips set.
“I won’t let anyone spoil this day’s fun for me! I won’t!” she cried, and was angry past all bearing because there were tears of exasperation in her eyes.
However, the morning was fine; Billie was youngand about to perform a fascinating experiment. The school bus had barely lumbered through the gates of Three Towers and started out along the lake road before Billie had forgotten her vexation in eager anticipation of what the next few hours might bring forth.
The girls were all in high spirits, bandying jokes back and forth and laughing at their own witticisms until it seemed a wonder the bus did not rock with their mirth.
Billie took her fair share of the merrymaking, answering quips in her inimitable way until Miss Arbuckle herself began to smile and the driver of the bus looked back over his shoulder from time to time with a wide-mouthed grin.
During all the fun, Edina sat grim and unsmiling. The merry sallies were never addressed to her. Had they been she would not have been able to retort in kind. She was as aloof as a snow-capped mountain. Perhaps only Billie Bradley guessed that under her aloof exterior Edina was as much a girl as any of them and that she suffered intensely because of her inability to join in their fun.
The bus passed through Molata at a merry pace and rattled on toward Fleetsburg.
Billie turned to Edina, her face radiant.
“We’ll be there soon. And then such an orgy of shopping as we’ll have! I hope,” she hesitated andregarded the other girl laughingly, “I do hope you have brought plenty of money with you!”
Edina looked anxious.
“I’ve brought five hundred dollars. Will that be enough?”
Billie was staggered.
“Five hundred! Why, Edina, what did you think we were going to do—buy the town?”
“Well—how was I to know? Everything these girls wear looks as if it would run into a heap o’ money.”
“So it does. Nevertheless, five hundred dollars should give us a pretty good running start! Here we are, Edina! Come along!”
There was a riotous exodus from the bus, and in the general confusion Billie nearly lost sight of Edina. She found her finally on the edge of the crowd, clinging to her pocketbook and looking scared.
“Come along,” said Billie. “I’ve already fixed things with Miss Arbuckle. We’re to meet the girls at the Busy Bee at twelve o’clock sharp. Until then, our time’s our own.”
When they reached the center of town, Billie paused and looked about her thoughtfully. Then her eyes came back from their tour of investigation and rested musingly on her protégé.
“It must have been fate that made us stop beforethis barber shop,” she dimpled. “Come inside, Edina. You are going to have your hair cut!”
Edina protested. She shied like a skittish pony at the barrier. But Billie had her way.
“Either you do as I say or you don’t,” cried Billie sternly. “Do you want to go back to Three Towers Hallas you are?”
“No!” said Edina.
Like a prisoner marching to execution, she entered the barber shop.