“Don’t think that! He is paying you back in your own coin, that’s all.”
“But this has nothing to do with the gossip Chester Arlington spoke of. How does this prove Dick said he was sorry he had ever become so friendly? I know he is not the boy to boast that he cut Hal out.”
“If there was no such gossip, Doris, how did Chester know about it? You say you want me to tell you the truth? Well, I will, even though you get angry with me. I have heard such talk myself.”
“You?” breathed Doris, as she started away and stared at her companion, her hands clinched. “You, Zona?”
“Yes,” nodded Zona grimly. “Why, it is the most natural thing in the world. Dick has his friends and confidants, and he is liable to trust them with his secrets and tell them his thoughts. You know girls have to talk; they can’t help it. They have their little secrets, and it often happens these secrets are betrayed by the ones they trust. Brad Buckhart is Dick’s closest friend. Why shouldn’t he talk things over with Brad? It’s perfectly natural. Brad might tell some one else, and in that way it could leak out. If there was no foundation of the truth in it you may think it never happened.”
“But I can’t—I can’t believe it!” murmured the distressed girl. “I shall go to him and ask him about it myself.”
Zona shook her head.
“You will do nothing of the sort,” she asserted.
“Why not?”
“You have too much pride.”