The Ranch Girls in Europe

And the Princess laughed as naturally and cheerfully as an ordinary American girl.

"I wasn't asleep then!" Frieda defended. Catching the expression of her cousin Jean Bruce's face, she realized that she would never hear the last of this escapade.

"Then why, baby mine, when you came back from dreamland did you not struggle into the hall and find out what had become of your family?" Jean demanded.

"Because I was cross," Frieda whispered. "You see, I thought it hateful of you to have let me stay such a long time by myself. And I meant never to get up until you came and found me, even if I starved!"

"And speaking of starving!" Jean exclaimed, clasping her hands together in a dramatic fashion and gazing at Frieda who now appeared as hungry as she had been sleepy a few moments before.

But although Ruth and the three Ranch girls had done their best to make her remain so, Frieda was not a baby. She turned to their new-found acquaintance. Something in her sister's face showed at least a part of the strain which her family had been under.

"I am afraid I hardly know how to thank you, Mrs. – Miss – " she hesitated.

"She isn't a Miss or a Mrs. either; she is a Princess!" Jean whispered, supposing that no one else could overhear her. However, seeing Frieda shake her head with indignation over her cousin's continued teasing, the four women, including the Princess, laughed in chorus.

"I am a Princess, really, Frieda, but my title does not mean anything serious in Italy. And I hope you may not like me any the less well for it."

The girls noticed that the Princess had spoken as informally to Frieda as though she were one of them, but now as she turned toward Ruth again her manner changed.

"For the second time let me bid you good-night and offer my congratulations," she said.

And there again was the coldness, the hauteur and the superiority, which Jean had resented before their misfortune had awakened the young woman's sympathy.

In the midst of a murmur of thanks from every one else in the room, Jean quietly opened the door for their visitor. But it was hardly possible for the Princess successfully to pass two large men bearing enormous trays of dishes in their outstretched arms.

"Dinner!" Jean murmured soulfully, forgetting her new-found dignity.

And the Princess' tired-looking, big blue eyes were immediately turned wistfully toward the food.

"I am dreadfully hungry too," she announced, speaking like a girl again. "I wonder if you would let me have some of your dinner. You see, it is too late to dress now and I shall be all alone."

Five voices answered and several hands reached forward to draw their guest down into the most comfortable chair. A little later the table was laid with a bunch of roses, which Ruth had received anonymously, to serve as the centerpiece. And seated between Jean and Frieda was a real live Princess; when in their fondest dreams the Ranch girls had only hoped to see one drive past some day in a coach and four.

CHAPTER III

NEW ACQUAINTANCES

AMBITION in this world is often gratified in a most unexpected fashion, and so it happened with Frieda Ralston!

For weeks before leaving the Rainbow Ranch she had discussed with Jim, with Ralph Merrit, who was still engineer at the mine, and with her sister Jack, whether or not they believed she would be able to make agreeable acquaintances aboard ship or during the months of their travel on the other side. For Frieda was certain that she should soon grow weary with nothing to entertain her but miles of salt water, hundreds of art galleries, thousands of pictures and statues. It was all very well for Jack and Olive to enthuse over these possibilities and for Jean to pretend to feel the same way. She wanted people for her diversion and hoped to be able to make a few friends in the course of their ocean crossing. Though how this was to be accomplished without a single introduction Frieda did not know. However, on the morning of the second day of their voyage the youngest Ranch girl made the discovery.

In a state of blissful unconsciousness and without reflecting on the events of the day before, she started down to breakfast with Jean and Olive. Jack and Ruth were a little too weary to care about making early appearances.

The morning was a perfect one, with a smooth sea, and the dining room was crowded with passengers. One would hardly have expected that the quiet appearance of three young girls could have attracted any special attention. For a few moments they waited for the head steward to be found, and were then led to their seats at the First Officer's table. It was all very quickly done, yet Jean and Olive were distinctly aware that a subdued murmur followed them; then that an entirely unnecessarily large number of heads were turned in their direction. Of course Frieda noticed this, too, but she merely presumed that their fellow travelers were curious and had not the good manners that they should have had. The idea that she or Jean or Olive could be exciting any particular attention never occurred to her at first, so deeply did the scene hold her attention.

Then, without warning, something took place which made Frieda flush and tremble. Except that she was holding a ménu card in her hand at the moment the tears would have shown in her eyes.

Seated just across the table opposite her was a large, middle-aged woman, dressed in black and wearing a quantity of handsome jewelry. She stared hard at Frieda for the first few moments after her arrival. Then, turning to the young fellow who sat next her, she announced in a loud enough voice to be heard from one end of the table to the other, "It was the plump, yellow-haired one, wasn't it, created such a stir? Seems like it ain't possible she could have been asleep in some one's stateroom. Much more likely she was in some kind of mischief! I am going to ask her what she really was doing?" Then she leaned half-way across the cloth and, except for the young man's agonized protest, most assuredly would have asked her question of Frieda.

But in an instant Jean grasped the situation. She was quicker than any of the other girls to understand social matters, and now realized that something must be said and done at once. Not only must she cover up the awkwardness of the present moment, but save Frieda from further discussion later on. They had believed that their search yesterday had been conducted quietly, and yet questions must have been asked of many passengers aboard and the whole business of the lost girl thoroughly gone into. Frieda herself should speak now and right the whole matter. Of course this would have been the better way, Jean thought. And yet one glance at Frieda showed this possibility hopeless. Should the strange woman ask her a single question or say another word concerning her escapade, it was apparent that the youngest of the Ranch girls would burst into tears before the many strangers at the breakfast table!

Frieda was not feeling very well. Perhaps because she had slept so long in the afternoon, or, perhaps, for more sentimental reasons she had lain awake several hours during the night past worrying over the events of the afternoon. Not that she dreamed then that she might be talked about aboard ship, but because she was sorry for the girls' and Ruth's anxiety. Yet evidently persons had been commenting upon her! Moreover, had she not just been called plump before everybody at their table? Frieda was extremely sensitive on this subject and no one of her family or friends dared mention it. It was because Jack and Olive were both so absurdly thin and because Jean had a remarkably beautiful figure for a girl of eighteen that Frieda might seem a little large in comparison. The real truth was that she had only a soft roundness of outline, which put attractive dimples, and curves in the places where you might have expected angularities.

Therefore, in the pause following the older woman's speech, Jean looked across the table with an air of quiet amusement. Immediately she held the attention of the persons nearest them and at the same time gave the embarrassed young man a reassuring smile.

He was not a young man, however. Jean decided from the weight of her eighteen years of masculine experience that he was a college boy probably in his Freshman year and certainly far more refined in his manner and appearance than his ordinary-looking mother.

"If you were kind enough to be interested in our difficulty of yesterday, I should be glad to explain to you how it had a happy ending," she began in a friendly voice. "I suppose it was foolish for us to have been so frightened."

And then in detail Jean went through the history of the entire occurrence, beginning with their discovery of Frieda's absence, closing with the moment of her appearance, and neglecting nothing to make her story a good one. This in spite of Frieda's hot blushes and imploring although unuttered requests for silence. In the end, however, every member of the audience laughed, and Frieda determined never to forgive Jean's unkindness, while Jean and Olive were both silently congratulating themselves that any mystery surrounding her proceedings had been so soon and so easily cleared up. They were fully aware that their story would soon be circulated among a number of their fellow passengers.

Yet for a long time afterwards Frieda Ralston would always recall this first breakfast aboard the Martha Washington as one of the most uncomfortable meals of her whole lifetime. More than anything she hated being laughed at. And even the young man, whose mother had started the entire unpleasantness, had the impertinence to forget his own responsibility and to smile and exclaim "Great Scott" over her ability to sleep so long and well in the midst of such great excitement. Later in the meal he attempted smiling at Frieda once or twice, hoping that she might have come in time to regard the situation more humorously. But she had returned his glances with a reproachful coldness that apparently had reduced him to a proper state of silence and humility. One thought, however, upbore Frieda until she was able to withdraw from the dining room. At least, she need never again recognize the presence of the two objectionable persons across the table from her. For not only should she never speak to them, she would not even incline her head in recognition of their existence at meal times, although she had heard that this was a polite custom among even the most exclusive of ocean travelers.

Seated in her steamer chair next her sister Jacqueline half an hour later, with a veil tied close about her little scarlet velour hat, Frieda was dumfounded to observe this same objectionable young man stopping calmly before them.

Looked at closely he had a well-shaped head with almost too heavy a jaw, a bright color, brown eyes and hair that he was vainly trying to train into a correct pompadour. His shoulders were broad and athletic, of a kind the younger Miss Ralston had previously been known to admire.

First the young fellow bowed politely to Jack. Then he turned as directly toward Frieda as though they had already been properly introduced.

"I am awfully sorry my mother made you so uncomfortable this morning," he began bravely, and turned so crimson that Frieda felt her heart relenting.

"Mother is an awfully good sort, but she hasn't been around much and did not guess how you would feel. And – oh, well a fellow can't be expected to apologize for his mother! Only as she asked me to come and talk to you, I am trying to do my best."

Then, answering a nod of invitation from Jack, who had liked his straightforward manner, he sat down in the vacant chair next Frieda and pulling out a box of chocolates from his pocket began to tell her the story of his life. His name was Richard Grant. He and his mother came from Crawford, Indiana, where his father had been a candy manufacturer until his death a few months before. Richard was in his second year at Princeton when his father had died, so, as his mother felt a trip abroad might help her, he had dropped behind his class for half a year in order to do what she wished.

He seemed so straightforward and so good-natured that by and by Frieda forgot to remain angry. So when he begged her to come and be introduced to his mother she hardly knew how to refuse.

Nevertheless Frieda found her first conclusion had been right. Mrs. Grant was as impossible as she had previously thought her. Could she ever endure the mother's acquaintance for the sake of the son's?

Still, Frieda continued walking the deck with her newest acquaintance until Ruth was obliged to send Olive and Jean to look for her. And a number of persons aboard had been watching the youngest of the Ranch girls with a good deal of pleasure. For Frieda had never looked more attractive than she did in her scarlet steamer coat and cap, with her blue eyes as wide open and as deeply interested in everything about her as a clever baby's and her cheeks, without exaggeration, as deeply pink as a La France rose.

CHAPTER IV

THINGS PRESENT AND THINGS TO COME

THE ensuing week at sea was one of the most delightful in the Ranch girls' lives and in many ways illustrative of their future history.

An ocean steamer filled with passengers is in itself a miniature world, so many different types of people are represented, there is such freedom of association, such a leveling of artificial barriers that often exist on land. Frequently a fellow traveler reveals more of his character and history to some stranger whom he may meet in crossing than ever he has confided to a life-long friend.

Until the present time the four Ranch girls and their chaperon, Ruth Drew, had lived singularly sheltered lives. First brought up almost like boys under the care of their overseer, Jim Colter, three of the girls had known only the few neighbors scattered within riding distance of their thousand-acre ranch. While Olive's acquaintance, owing to her curious childhood, had been even smaller and more primitive. Then had come the year for Jean, Olive and Frieda at Primrose Hall under Miss Katherine Winthrop's charge, when their horizon had broadened, admitting a number of girls and a few young men to be their friends. But this could hardly be called real contact with the world, since always they were under Miss Winthrop's wise guidance. While as Jack had spent exactly the same length of time at a hospital she had had even less experience with people. The last ten months with three of the girls again at the Rainbow Ranch had meant a return to the same kind of quiet every-day existence, varied only by the interests of the working of the mine. Olive's six months apart from the others had simply been devoted to further study with Miss Winthrop with week-end visits to her grandmother at The Towers.

Then, although Ruth Drew was almost ten years older than any one of the Ranch girls, in many ways she was fully as ignorant of the world. It had never yet occurred to her that there were persons capable of misrepresenting themselves, nor of pretending to be what they were not and using innocent friendships for purposes of their own. Nor had it occurred to her that the reputation of the four girls for having suddenly acquired great wealth might place them in danger.

From the time Ruth had been a little girl she had never had the disposition for making many friends. Always she had been timid and retiring, devoting herself to her father until after his death. Except for the year spent at the Ranch and the winter at the hospital in New York with Jack, Ruth had never known anything outside the narrow circle of a Vermont village life. Not that a village does not furnish almost all there is to learn of human nature, but that she had shut herself in from most of it. The freedom of the wonderful ranch life, the contact and friendship with Jim Colter, which for a while had looked like something more than friendship, had widened the little Vermont school teacher's horizon. Then had come the break with Jim, and the past winter at home she had shut herself up even more completely. During the many evenings alone in her small cottage there had been plenty of opportunity for Ruth Drew to regret her decision against Jim, but whatever passed in her mind she had kept to herself. Not even to Jacqueline Ralston, who at one time had been her confidante, had she made any confession.

So perhaps from the standpoint of worldly wisdom the Rainbow Ranch party was none too well equipped for a long journey or for the meeting with many different types of people and the making of friendships which might be of grave importance in after years.

And, notwithstanding the fact that Ruth and the four girls were singularly devoted to one another, there was no question but that they were five widely unlike characters, and that their interests must often lie in as many different directions now that their opportunities were to be so much broader.

For a disinterested observer (if ever there is such an one) it would have been difficult at this time in the Ranch girls' lives to have decided which one was the most attractive – beauty and charm are in themselves so much a matter of personal taste. But perhaps to older and more thoughtful persons it was now Jacqueline Ralston who would make the strongest appeal.

Jack was only a few months older than her friend, Olive Van Mater, less than a year older than her cousin, Jean Bruce, and yet looked a good deal more mature and felt so. This was true, not only because after her father's death she had been in a measure the head of the Rainbow Ranch, but because her year of illness had given her more time for introspection than is allowed most girls of her age. Sometimes she believed that this whole year had been completely lost, and then again came the knowledge that she could have learned certain lessons in no other way. Yet now she was determined to waste no further time, but to get as much as possible out of each passing day and to live fully and completely.

Jacqueline Ralston did not look entirely like the brilliant, vigorous Ranch girl who three years before had ridden alone across the prairie to search for her lost cattle. She had less color in her cheeks, perhaps, except under the pressure of some unusual excitement, but her hair was a deeper bronze, her eyes a clearer gray, and her rather full lips a brighter crimson. There was something about her expression not always easy to understand. The old wilfulness was still there, the old habit of knowing her own mind and wishing to have her own way, but with it a greater power of self-control than most girls of nineteen have – and something else. What this other trait was neither Jack herself nor her friends yet knew. This trip abroad might mean more to her than to any one of the other four girls. In spite of her lameness, which was never apparent except when she was greatly fatigued, Jack was tall – five feet seven inches – and held her shoulders with the erectness of other days. Slender, Jack would always be, but not thin, for sixteen years of outdoor life had given her too fine a beginning.

In each person's atmosphere or aura, if you prefer to call it so, there is usually a suggestion of some one distinctive quality, some characteristic that shows above all others. With Jacqueline Ralston it was purity. She was straightforward and unafraid, without cowardice and without suspicion. Having once believed in you, Jack would stand by you through thick and thin. More than anything in the world she hated a lie. For some reason she had always been and always would be what for want of a better word is called "a man's woman," meaning that men would understand and sympathize with her point of view and she with theirs.

Olive Van Mater was just the opposite of Jack. Although the story of her strange early life was now fully explained, she would never lose her shyness and look of gentle mystery. Nor would she ever be able to make friends among strangers so readily as the three other girls. Many persons there would always be who would explain her shyness as coldness and a lack of interest. Still she could reveal herself more easily to girls and to women than to men. And although her peculiar beauty and sweetness could not fail to win her admirers because of her sympathy and self-forgetfulness, all the days of her life her own sex would make the strongest appeal to her.

In Jean Bruce the two types were mingled. Jean wanted to attract people. She wanted to make everybody like her and she always had and always would. It did not matter to her who the people were, whether they were young or old, girls or boys, she simply had the desire to be liked and went about accomplishing it on shipboard just as she had at Primrose Hall and everywhere else. This proved that Jean had the real social gift, but then her talent had never been disputed by any member of her family.

With Frieda Ralston, however, the question of type was at this time not important. She was two years younger not only in years but in a great many other things, and when it did not interfere with her pleasure she meant to keep so. There was only one thing at present that Frieda was interested in and that was having a good time, and certainly she was accomplishing it. When Dick Grant was not dancing attendance upon her, and very often when he was, there were a dozen other girls and young men of about Frieda's age aboard, by whom she was constantly surrounded. It worried Ruth a great deal, but then, unfortunately, Ruth was the only member of the Rainbow Ranch party who was seasick. And the three girls simply did not take the trouble to spend much time looking after Frieda.

Though neither of them wished her to know it, both Olive and Jean tried to be especially careful of Jack. And this was particularly hard since Jack resented any suggestion that she was not as strong as they were. She was under the impression that she could walk without difficulty in spite of the rolling and pitching of the ship. Nevertheless she did finally promise Ruth to remain in her steamer chair unless one of the girls could be with her, and though she did not see any sense in her promise, meant to keep her word.

On the fourth afternoon out, at about four o'clock in the afternoon, the weather became unexpectedly heavy. Ruth had long ago given up and gone to her room. Frieda was playing games in the salon, but Jack, Olive and Jean were on deck watching the approach of the storm. Jack adored the water. She had wanted the ocean to look altogether different from her prairies, to bring a wholly new impression into her life. But until today the calm, gentle, even roll of the waves at a sufficient distance had not been so unlike the far-off rippling of the prairie fields. Now, with the approach of a storm, with the blackness, everything seemed different.

The three girls had been wrapped in their steamer rugs sitting quietly in their chairs, Jack supposing that Olive and Jean were as interested in the storm as she was.

Suddenly Jean sighed. "The face of the waters gets a bit tiresome after a while, don't you think so?" she asked. "Remember the Princess asked us to come and have tea with her some afternoon. Suppose we go now. Seems as though she is a chance that ought not to be neglected. Who knows if the Princess takes a truly fancy to us she may do something thrilling for us when we get to Rome. Ask us to a court ball perhaps!" Jean laughed at the absurdity of her suggestion.

But Jack frowned a little. She was grateful to the stranger for her interest and former kindness to them; yet she rather resented the air of mystery and seclusion surrounding her and her haughty attitude toward the other passengers. A princess might of course be different from other human beings; Jack felt she had no way of knowing. Nevertheless the Princess Colonna had confessed that she was an American girl. Why should a marriage have made so great a change in her point of view? In a vague fashion Jack was a little resentful of the homage which Ruth and the three other girls offered their new acquaintance. Now she slowly shook her head.

"You and Olive go, Jean. Really I would prefer to stay by myself for a little while and watch the storm."

Five minutes afterwards the two girls had departed, leaving Jack comfortably wrapped up in her steamer chair, and insisting that they would return in time to take her down to her stateroom to dress for dinner.

CHAPTER V

A SOLDIER OF FORTUNE

JACK may have been asleep for a little while. She was not quite sure. Anyhow, when she opened her eyes, she was surprised to see how the storm had increased and how entirely the promenade deck had become deserted. There had been a few persons about when Jean and Olive had departed, but now she saw no one except a man walking quietly up and down as though the pitching of the ship in no way affected him. He was wearing an English mackintosh with the collar turned up past his ears, but neither his appearance nor his existence at present interested Jack. Her only thought was for the oncoming storm. As yet there was no rain falling, only a cold gray Atlantic mist enveloped the sky and the sea. The waves had curling borders of white foam as they rolled and broke. There was no relief in the sky. Once the thunder roared as though they were cannonading on the other side of the world and then a single flash of lightning split straight across the horizon. Jack had thrown aside her steamer rug and was sitting upright in her chair, her hands clasping both sides. The color had gone from her cheeks (the storm was so wonderful, almost it was taking her breath away), but her head was thrown back, showing the beautiful line of her throat, and her lips were parted with the intensity of her admiration. Then the boat dipped and half the ocean picture became obscured.