me,” said Dick Phelps, suddenly checking his speed, and smiling down at the girl beside him, “you see this cowboy rig makes me feel as if I were back on the plains again, and I can’t seem to adjust myself to civilised conditions.”
Mr. Phelps looked very splendid as a cowboy, and Patty listened with interest, as he told her of an exciting episode which had occurred during his ranch life, in a distant western territory.
So engrossed did they become in this conversation that the photographs were forgotten for the moment, and they strolled along past the various booths, unheeding the numerous invitations to enter.
Of course Kenneth saw them, and from a trifling offence, Patty’s conduct seemed to him to have grown into a purposed rudeness.
As they passed him, Patty smiled pleasantly, and paused, saying, “We’re all going to have supper in the Dairy, and of course you’ll be with us, Ken?”
“Of course I won’t!” said Kenneth, and deliberately turning on his heel, he walked the other way.
Chapter XXIII.
The End of the Summer
“Whew!” said Dick Phelps, in his straightforward way, “he’s mad at you, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” said Patty, “and it’s so silly! All about nothing at all. I wish you’d take me back to him, Mr. Phelps, and leave us alone, and I think I can straighten matters out in two minutes.”
“Indeed, I’ll do nothing of the sort,” returned Mr. Phelps, in his masterful way; “you promised to go to the photograph place, and that’s where we’re going. I don’t propose to give you up to any young man we chance to meet!”
Patty laughed, and they went on. At the photograph booth they found many of the gaily dressed young people, anxious to have pictures of themselves in their pretty costumes. Patty and Mr. Phelps had to wait their turn, but finally succeeded in getting a number of pictures. Patty had some taken alone, and some in which she was one of a gay group. Some were successful portraits, and others were not, but all were provocative of much laughter and fun. By a rapid process of development, the photographers were enabled to furnish the completed pictures in less than a half hour after the cameras did their work, and as a consequence, this booth was exceedingly popular and promised handsome returns for the benefit of charity.
Mr. Phelps and Patty loitered about, waiting for their pictures, when Patty caught sight of Nan, and running to her she said, “For goodness’ sake, Nan, do help me out! Kenneth’s as mad as hops, and all about nothing! Now I want you to ask him to come to supper with our crowd, and you must make him come!”
“I can’t make him come, if he doesn’t want to. You’ve been teasing him, Patty, and you must get out of your own scrapes.”
“Ah, Nan, dear,” coaxed Patty, “do be good, and truly, if you’ll just persuade him to come to supper with us, I’ll do the rest.”
“I’ll try,” said Nan as she walked away, “but I won’t promise that I’ll succeed.”
She did succeed, however, and some time later Mr. Fairfield gathered the large party whom he had invited to supper, in the English Dairy.
The supper was to be a fine one, far exceeding the bounds of Dairy fare, and Mr. Fairfield had reserved a long table for his guests.
As they trooped in, laughing and talking, and seated themselves for the feast, Patty was relieved to see that Kenneth was among them, after all.
He took a seat between Elise and Helen Barlow, and knowing Bumble’s good nature, Patty went directly to her, and asked her if she wouldn’t move, as she wanted to sit there herself.
“Of course I will,” said Bumble, and jumping up, she ran around to the other side of the table.
Then Patty deliberately sat down by Kenneth, who couldn’t very well get up and walk away, himself, though he looked at her with no expression of welcome in his glance.
Without a word, Patty leaned over and selected from a dish of olives on the table one which had a stem to it.
With a tiny bit of ribbon she tied the olive to a little green branch she had brought in with her, and then demurely held the token toward Kenneth.
For a moment the boy looked rather blank, and then realising that Patty was offering him the olive branch of peace, and that she had gone to some trouble to do this, and that moreover she had done it rather cleverly, the boy’s face broke into a smile, and he turned toward Patty.
“Thank you,” he said, as he took the little spray, and attached it to the rolling collar of his blouse. “I accept it, with its full meaning.”
“You’re such a goose, Kenneth!” said Patty, her eyes dancing with laughter. “There was nothing to get huffy about.”
“Well,” said Kenneth, feeling his grounds for complaint slipping away from him, “you pranced off with that Roland chap, after you had just told me you couldn’t leave your gypsy queen business.”
“I know it,” said Patty, “but Ken, he brought a nice lady to fill my place, and besides, he asked me to go to get red flowers and I really wanted red flowers.”
“I asked you to go for flowers too,” said Kenneth, not yet entirely mollified.
“Yes,” said Patty, “but you didn’t say red flowers. How did I know but that you’d buy pink or blue ones, and so spoil my whole gypsy costume?”
Kenneth had to laugh in spite of himself, at this bit of audacity. “And then right afterwards you went off again with Dick Phelps,” he continued.
“Kenneth,” said Patty, looking at him with an expression of mock terror, “I couldn’t help myself that time! Honest, I couldn’t. Mr. Phelps is a fearful tyrant. He’s an ogre, and when he commanded me to go, I just had to go! He’s a man that makes you do a thing, whether you want to or not. Why, Kenneth, he just marched me off!”
“All right,” said Kenneth, “I’ll take a leaf out of his book. After this, when I want you to go anywhere, I’ll just march you off.”
“You can try,” said Patty, saucily, “but I’m not sure you can do it. It takes a certain type of man to do that sort of thing successfully, and I don’t know anybody but Dick Phelps who’s just that kind.”
But peace was restored, for Kenneth realised that Patty’s explanation was a fair one, and that he had been foolishly quick to take offence.
After supper they all went to the grand stand to see the parade of fancy costumes.
These were quite separate from the booth attendants, and a prize had been offered for the cleverest conceit, most successfully carried out.
When at last the grand march took place, it showed a wonderful array of thoroughly ingenious costumes.
Of course there were
