“Tell me,” she urged. “I am your friend. What was it Chester said to you? I could hear but little of it.”
“He said enough to prove conclusively that he is no gentleman!” declared the troubled girl.
“Oh! I am sure you’re wrong about that. He is naturally a gentleman, Doris. If he told you anything, he told it because he believed you should know.”
“But it isn’t true—it can’t be true. Dick wouldn’t say such things to his best friends. I will never believe the academy boys are talking such gossip.”
Again Zona urged her companion to tell, and Doris finally consented. With her cheeks burning, she repeated what Chester Arlington had said.
“What do you think of that, Zona?” she demanded.
The girl with the yellow hair turned her face away.
“I—don’t—know,” she murmured, finding it difficult to reply.
“You don’t know,” cried the other, grasping her arm. “Why, you don’t believe the boys are saying such things, do you?”
Suddenly, with a burst of absolute frankness, Zona turned toward her friend: