In the days that followed, Sidney's first admiration for Pola returned.
Though Pola would never again be the idol she was much more enjoyable
as a chum. Her spirits, though an affectation, were infectious and gay;
in her pretty clothes and with her pretty face she made Sidney think of
a butterfly, a fragile, golden-winged, dainty flitting butterfly. She
professed to enjoy everything they did--even to the picnics. She
tramped endlessly in her unsuitable shoes without a murmur of fatigue
and Sidney suspected that she really _did_ care a great deal for her
cousin Dugald's approval.
With Mr. Dugald they motored to Highland Light and to Chatham. They
toured the shops at Hyannis. They sailed with Captain Hawkes on the
_Mabel T_. They rose very early one morning and went to the Coast Guard
Station to watch the drill and then ate ham and eggs with Commander
Nelson. More than once Sidney donned the cherry crêpe de chine and
dined with Mrs. Allan and Pola and Dugald at the hotel, feeling very
grand and traveled.
But to Sidney's deep regret Pola professed an abhorrence of swimming.
"Just please don't _ask_ me," she had begged, shuddering. "I loathe it!
It's one of my complexes. Of course I've gone swimming in almost every
body of water on the globe, but I hate it. You'll spoil my fun
_utterly_ if you even try to make me!" After that Sidney could not
urge. She did not know what complexes were, but Pola had made them
sound real and convincing and a little delicate. Though Sidney missed
the jolly swims with Lavender and Mart she refrained from even a hint
of her feelings.
Often when they were together Pola waxed confidential over her cousin.
"He's a thorn in Aunt Lucy's side," she explained one day as the girls
lounged in Pola's room at the hotel, a huge box of candy on a stool
between them. "She always wants him to go in for society and to go
abroad with her and do all the fashionable resorts on the Continent,
but couldn't you _see_ him? Not for Duggie boy, ever! When she starts
planning something like that he bolts off somewhere and the next thing
you hear is that he's painted a wonderful picture and sold it or had
first mention or a gold medal. Of course that makes him terribly
interesting and there are dozens of single ladies from forty to
fourteen itching to catch him. And Dug's such a simple old dear that he
doesn't know it. But his mother does and she has them all sorted over
and the eligible ones ticketed. You see Dug will be dreadfully rich
some day and goodness knows what he'll do with the money for he hasn't
the brains of a child where business is concerned. His father's even
richer than Dad."
Sidney literally blinked before the picture Pola drew--blinked and
blushed that she had dared angle for Mr. Dugald herself like the
forty-to-fourteen single ladies. Mr. Dugald belonged to a world that
was foreign to the Romley girls, Pola's dazzling, peacock-world.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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