“Don’t be silly,” said Peggy.
“Well,” finished Doris defiantly. “Please satisfy our curiosity and show us how such a suspicion ever crept into that woolly little head of yours.”
She dodged Peggy’s pillow as it came hurtling at her with good aim, and then sat pensively with hands clasped over her knees as if to listen to a tearful tale.
“I’d never have noticed it, I admit,” said Peggy.
“Of course not,” chorused the nut-eaters.
“You know,” interposed Katherine, “sometimes I think people who aren’t in college, you know,—like Mrs. Moore, just can’t imagine a life like ours, all happy and independent and so arranged that nothing serious could possibly creep in to trouble us. So if a girl seems abstracted, or just resentful of too close scrutiny, as perhaps Gloria was, she is apt to jump———”
“No, no, I can’t believe that,” said the foolish voice of Doris. “Mrs. Moore wouldn’t jump. Anything that is less a tax on our credulity, Kathie, but not that,—not jump.”
“Take the nuts away from that girl. They are beginning to have a bad effect, in fact, nutty,” shrilled Peggy.
“As I was going to say,” continued Katherine imperturbably, “people like Mrs. Moore jump at conclusions———”
“O-oh,” murmured Doris. “That explains it. I wish you’d said that before. It’s quite all right, Kathie, now that you’ve made yourself clear. The fault was all mine.”