CHAPTER XVIII

THE CAPTAIN'S DINNER

"Oh, Nan, I wonder if all the girls received them! I hope they did!" Bess was waving a small white envelope in her hand. "Look, it has the boat's flag engraved on it and the United States flag too. Isn't it just too perfect for words!

"Nan," Bess hugged her friend, "I'm sure, as sure as I am of anything, that it's because of your saving Linda the way you did, that we got them."

Nan's face was alight too. "Oh, Bess, it isn't either," she contradicted. "It's because Dr. Beulah is the person she is. The Captain was going to invite her and he thought he had to invite us too, or we would get into trouble. He doesn't trust us since the night of the storm."

"You old silly," Bess was not to be gainsaid. "You are just being modest. But go on. I don't care what the Captain thinks anyway as long as he continues to do things in the grand manner. This cabin," she looked around it proudly--already she had sent many letters home telling friends and relatives about every little detail of its luxuriousness, "and now these invitations. Why, we are practically the belles of the boat, even if Dr. Beulah," she said dolefully, "does try to make us remember that we are still children."

"Oh, Bess, she doesn't either." Nan sprang to the defense of their preceptor. "You know she doesn't. You know she had been just as nice as she could possibly be on this trip. She couldn't let you wear that dress you wanted to the other night. It wouldn't have looked right. It was, just as she said, too formal for a young person to wear. It makes you look old. She was really very pleasant about it."

"Of course she was," Bess calmed Nan's ruffled feelings. "I was only fooling. She was just as sweet as she could be. Now, come, let's go up and see if the others have received cards, too."

"Oh, we have, we have!" Grace exclaimed excitedly when Nan and Bess finally located the others. "We all have invitations to the Captain's table for dinner tonight! Dr. Beulah says we are to go, that we may wear our very best dresses, and that we may stay up tonight for the costume ball. It's to be the very nicest night on board ship, for tomorrow morning, early, we sight land and some of the passengers will be leaving." Grace was breathless as she finished the end of the sentence.

"But where's Laura?" Nan looked in vain for the red-headed girl.

"Yes, where is she?" Bess echoed, and then added, "Surely, she received one too. The Captain didn't leave her out, did he?" Bess looked worried, for she remembered suddenly Laura's unfortunate encounter with the commander of the boat.

"She received one all right," Rhoda responded, "and she's down in her cabin practically crying her eyes out."

"Why?" Nan and Bess chorused.

"She says she can't possibly go to that dinner and face him. She knows he will laugh at her. She says she has never been in such an embarrassing position before. She almost wishes she hadn't come on this trip at all. You go, Nan, and see what you can do with her. The more I say, the harder she cries. I have never seen her in such a state."

"All right. You people stay here and I'll see if I can persuade her to come up." Nan started off, but then changed her mind and came back for the rest of the girls. "Come, let's all go down," she suggested. "I think, after all, that that would be better." So they went.

They found Laura lying across her bunk with her face buried in the pillow. Her shoulders were heaving and she was sobbing.

"Oh, Laura, don't take it so seriously," Nan stooped over the sobbing girl and gently pulled her around so that she faced her friends. Her eyes were red and swollen with crying, and her red hair was tousled. She put a wadded, tear-wet handkerchief up to her eyes and wiped them.

"I--I----I guess you would take it seriously too," she wept, "if you couldn't go to the Captain's dinner, if you had to send regrets, saying you were ill."

"Laura, you haven't done that, have you?" The girls all gasped.

"N--N--Not yet!" Laura sobbed some more. "But it's not because I didn't try to write it. I've got to ask Dr. Beulah how to address it," she sniffled. "I guess I'll go up and ask her now." She sat up on the bunk. "Then it will be all over with."

"Laura," Nan took her friend firmly by the shoulders. "Don't you know that you can't refuse. An invitation from the Captain is practically the same as a command."

"Well, I guess I can't go if I have scarlet fever." Laura was still crying.

"Yes, but if you have scarlet fever, we can't go either," Bess was troubled. "I don't care what you tell him, but you can't tell him that." A look from Nan silenced Bess.

"See here, Laura," Nan shook her friend. "You've got to come to your senses. You simply have to go. You might just as well make up your mind to do it now, because you are going if we have to dress you and drag you there." Nan tried to look very serious, but somehow she couldn't suppress a twinkle that came to her eyes. Already the other girls were smiling. They knew that Laura would have to give in. The situation seemed amusing now.

"You wouldn't go either," Laura continued, "if you had said the things I did and he had heard you. The next time I'm going to keep my mouth shut."

"Of course you will," Nan sounded full of conviction. "And this time you'll go, and he will shake your hand, and you'll smile up at him, and then everything will be all right."

"Do you really think so?" Laura was already more than half willing to be convinced.

"I haven't a doubt in the world but what it will," Nan sounded very positive.

"Then I'll go," Laura gave in at last, "if you'll all promise on your word of honor to stick by me and come to my rescue if anything embarrassing happens."

"We will, Laura, we will." Grace was almost jumping up and down with joy. She grabbed Nan's hand. Nan took Laura's. Laura took Bess's. Amelia and Rhoda were drawn into the circle and they all danced around the cabin until they fell breathless to the floor.

"Oh, such fun!" Bess wiped the tears of excitement out of her eyes, as they all proceeded to the business of deciding what to wear to the Captain's dinner and how to dress for the costume ball.

That night was unforgettable.

Laura and the Captain were friends just as Nan had said they would be. Bess was a triumph in a pretty silk dress. Amelia and Rhoda were almost speechless when they were seated between two tall handsome army officers enroute to London to take part in the coronation, but they forgot themselves and had the time of their lives as the dinner progressed. Grace, in her place next to a foreign diplomat was equally well taken care of.

And Nan, well, as the reader has already guessed, the dinner invitation was in her honor. She was seated in the place of honor next to the Captain and never was a young girl more praised and honored in an evening than she.

It was all very grand and lovely. Bess had her moment of supreme rejoicing when she saw out of the corner of her eye that Linda had recovered and had been allowed to come down for dinner. There she was, across the dining room from the Captain's table, watching with envious eyes her former schoolmates at Lakeview Hall. Bess might be forgiven, if, when paper caps and toy horns were passed out, she blew her horn extra loud--a blast of triumph in Linda's direction.