“A likely old story, that I should be goat enough to do that, after winning the money!” He burst into a derisive laugh at the bare suggestion of such a thing.
Dorothy turned away. There was a little sinking at her heart. She really liked Bobby, and they had been great pals since she had come to the Compton School. If he could not do this thing that she had put before him as her ultimatum, then there was no more to be said, and they must just go their separate ways, for, having made up her mind as to what was right, she was not going to give way.
“You don’t mean that you are going to stick to it?” he said, catching at her hand as she turned away.
“Of course I mean it, and you know that I am right, too,” she said, turning back so that she could stand confronting him. “You know as well as I do that gambling in any shape or form is forbidden here, and yet you not only do it yourself, but you teach smaller fellows than yourself to gamble, and you fill your pocket by the process. You are about the meanest sort of bounder I have seen for a long time, and I would rather not have anything more to do with you.”
“Well, you are the limit, to talk like that to me,” snarled Bobby, who was as white as paper with rage, while his eyes bulged and shot out little snappy lights, and Dorothy felt more than half scared at the tempest she had raised.
But she had right on her side. She knew it. And Bobby knew it too, but it did not make him feel any nicer about it at the moment.
Just then a crowd of girls came scurrying into the room. The foremost of them was Rhoda, and she called out in her high-pitched, sarcastic voice, “What are you two doing here? The other fellows are just saying good night to the Head, and you will get beans, Bobby Felmore, if you are not there at the tail end of the procession.”
For once in her life Dorothy was downright grateful to Rhoda. Bobby had to go then, and he went in a hurry. Dorothy could not comfort herself that she had had the last word, since it was really Bobby who had spoken last. But at least it was she who had dictated terms, and so she had scored in that way.
She did not encounter Bobby again until the next Sunday afternoon. It was the last Sunday of the term, and only a few boys had come over to see their sisters. It was a miserable sort of day, cold wind and drizzling rain, so that nearly every one was in the drawing-room or the conservatory, and only a few extra intrepid individuals had gone out walking.
Dorothy was looking for Tom. She could not find him anywhere, and was making up her mind that he had not come over when she encountered Bobby coming in at the open window of the drawing-room, just as she was going out to the conservatory in a final search for Tom.