CHAPTER XVIII

LINDA PERFORMS AN INTRODUCTION

"I beg your pardon." Linda Riggs' companion spoke again, "but could you direct us to Avenida Chapultepec?"

Before anyone could answer Linda rushed over to Nan and took her by the arm. "Why, Nancy Sherwood!" she exclaimed as though Nan was the best friend she had in the world. "I'm so surprised to see you here. When did you arrive? Isn't this city just perfectly gorgeous? More quaint, don't you think, than anything we saw in Europe?"

Nan was at a loss as to what to say. Deep within her she was entirely out of patience with the situation. Linda was being disgustedly affected. She was talking slowly, dragging her vowels and gesturing with her hands, acting as a person twice her age might act and even then be nauseous. But Linda disregarded Nan's coolness.

"And you, Bess," Linda turned to Elizabeth Harley. "Imagine seeing you here. Isn't it all too romantic for words, a whole crowd of Lakeview Hall people meeting in this far-off corner of the globe. The most astounding things do happen, don't they?"

"Yes, they do," Laura remarked dryly, looking Linda up and down as she did so.

"And you, Laura Polk. Why, you are all together, I do believe." Linda acted as though she had made a brilliant observation. She was having a difficult time, even for her, in the situation, for her effusions were being received rather coldly to say the least.

"I'd like to have you meet my friend, Arthur Howard," she went on, forcing Nan to introduce her and her companion to her cousin and Alice.

"Hm! Glad to meet you." Adair MacKenzie said abruptly. "Got to be going now. Sorry, don't know the way to Avenida whatever-it-was-you-said. Can't keep any of these streets straight in my mind. They're all mixed up." With this, he summarily herded his daughter, Nan, Laura, Bess, and Amelia toward the car where Walker Jamieson and Grace who had gone on alone together were waiting. Linda and her companion were thus left behind.

"Nan," Grace hardly waited until the girls were in the car beside her before she asked the question, "was that Linda Riggs that you were talking to out there?"

"None other," Laura answered. "And why are you giggling so, Bess. A few moments ago you were all hot and bothered about Linda and now you're laughing. Will you please make up your mind about what you're thinking."

"Oh, it's so funny." Bess was off again. "Did you see the way she looked when Mr. MacKenzie walked away so suddenly. I do believe that she thought we would fall all over her the way she was falling all over us. Oh, dear, did that do my heart good!" Bess sounded positively gleeful.

"Mine too." Laura was laughing with her.

"And do you remember," Bess went on, "how, when Mr. MacKenzie analyzed all of us when he first met us, we wished that some day he would have the chance to do it to Linda. Well, that wish almost came true down there. I do believe that if we had stayed a moment longer he would have done it. I was hoping--"

"Elizabeth Harley! I thought you didn't like Cousin Adair," Nan, too, was tickled at the whole situation.

"Oh, I do now," Bess capitulated. "I just love him. Do you know that's the first time since we've known her, that we've seen her as embarrassed as she makes us sometimes. How I wish we had stayed just a moment longer."

"What's this about your just loving someone?" Adair turned around to join in the conversation.

Bess blushed.

"Well, all I can say is," he went on when she failed to answer. "I hope it's not that girl back there that we just met that you're being so enthusiastic about. Don't like her at all myself. No character. She's snippy. She's deceitful. Can't even talk without putting on airs. Can't stand her. Hope she's no friend of yours." He turned to Nan as he said this last.

Nan shook her head and said nothing further. She felt, and rightly so, that it was unnecessary to discuss Linda among people who did not know her. This was a consideration that Linda would never have shown Nan. In fact, time and again, Linda had purposely attempted to blacken Nan's character in front of strangers. This was one reason that Bess, loyal as she was to Nan, disliked Linda so much.

"Can't tolerate people who are affected," Adair MacKenzie went on blustering as the car drove out into the street. "And didn't like that man she was with either. He didn't have a very honest look about him."

"But he was nice-looking." Bess let the words out before she realized what she was doing, and the wrath of Adair MacKenzie descended upon her.

"Nice-looking! That's all you think of. Nice-looking, bah! Can't judge people by their looks. It's what's in their eyes and their hearts that counts. Have to see that before you can accurately decide what they are. Anybody can dress up and make a good appearance. You, Bessie," he lowered his tone at a look from Alice, "you've got to learn something about true values before you get much older. You're a nice sort of girl, but you put too much emphasis on money and worldly goods. You'll have to be taught sometime that they are not so important as you think.

"That goes for all of you," he ended, sweeping them all with his glance. "You've all had easy lives, so you don't know yet, really, what's worth while and what isn't."

"Now, that girl back there," he resumed his talk after a few moments of silence, "she has no conception what-so-ever of worth. What's her name, anyway?" he asked.

"Linda Riggs," Nan answered.

"Not the daughter of the railroad king?"

"That's right." Nan nodded her head.

"Knew him, when he was a young fellow," Adair paused, remembering his own youth. "He was a nice chap then. Can't understand how he could have reared such a poor excuse for a daughter. We belonged to the same college fraternity. He was president of it at one time I think. Always helping people out. Everybody liked him. That's how he happened to get on in the world the way he did. Met up with someone who had lots of dough and no son to carry on the family name. Riggs seemed to fill the bill, so the wealthy old codger took him into his business and taught him the ropes.

"Riggs wore well, and when the old man died he inherited the fortune. Sounds like a fairy story, but those things happen. Jamieson here must know the tale."

Walker nodded in agreement. "Do. Interviewed the old bird one time under particularly difficult circumstances. There was a big railroad merger story about to break, and nobody wanted to talk. I got wind of it through a hot tip from a stooge in New York. Tried everything in order to get the story, and finally in desperation went to Riggs himself. It was rumored that he had the controlling interest in the stock. I had to go through a dozen secretaries before I finally got to him.

"Then he didn't want to talk either. However, some little thing I said in passing, captured his fancy, and before I knew it, I was laying all my cards on the table and he was putting them together so that they made sense. When we were finished, I realized that I had one of the biggest stories of the year and was about to grab my hat and run out to put it on the wires, when he put out a restraining hand. 'Sorry,' he said, 'but I must ask you to keep this quiet for twenty-four hours longer. If you promise, I assure you that no one else will get the release until your paper has the scoop all sewed up.'

"In a way I was up a tree, because I knew that if the story had leaked out to me, someone else was very likely to get wind of it too. I hesitated. He stuck out his hand as though to shake mine and he did it in such a frank friendly fashion, that I agreed to what he asked, even though I knew it was a dumb thing to do under the circumstances.

"But there was something about the man that inspired confidence and regard."

"Lived up to the agreement, didn't he?" Adair said positively.

"Sure did," Walker assented, "and under difficulty too. Just as I suspected, some other paper did get wind of the story and sent one of their ace men out to get the details. Riggs let him in, quizzed him to find out what he knew, excused himself, and then called me to tell me that the time was up, that I'd better shoot the yarn right through if I wanted to scoop the rest of the dailies.

"Well, after he did that, he went back into his office and told the other reporter the whole story he had told me. It took him three hours to tell it, and when my competitor came out of the office our extras were already on the street."

"That was the Midwestern merger, wasn't it?" Adair questioned.

"Right!" Jamieson agreed. "Remember it, don't you? But you chits," he turned his attention to the girls who had been listening with their customary attention to his tale, "you wouldn't remember. You were hardly out of your cradles then. Nan here was probably still creeping around in rompers. Bess, well, Bess probably didn't creep, that was too dirty for her, but she was probably beginning to put her hands up to her father and saying, 'gimme'."

This brought a laugh from everyone, including Adair MacKenzie.

"Can't understand," he returned to the question of Linda, "how a girl with a father like Riggs could be such an obnoxious person."

"Oh, there are lots of explanations," Walker answered. "I happen to know that his wife died when the girl was just a baby. He was all broken up and turned to the child for comfort. Guess he lavished all his attention on her and spoiled her."

"Sounds plausible," Adair agreed, and then looked at Alice. "See how I ruined my daughter with kindness," he twitted. "Let her get out of hand completely. Now I can't do anything with her."

"Want to get rid of her?" Walker winked at Alice, as he asked the question.

"What's that?" Adair was startled.

"Oh, nothing, dad," Alice frowned at Walker. "Where are we going now."

"Don't know." Adair took out his watch as he shook his head. He frowned. "Guess we can make it though," he continued, laughing with the others at his own inconsistency.