This thought added to his agitation.
“How can she help it?” he muttered, again fiercely pacing the floor. “Dick is the sort of fellow all the girls care for. He’s far superior to me, and I don’t see how she came to be interested the least bit in me in the first place. Of course, there is June Arlington and Doris Templeton—but they’re on the other side of the Atlantic, and I don’t believe there ever yet was a pretty girl who did not believe she could cut out another girl if she really tried.
“Perhaps that’s what Nadia is trying to do! Perhaps she’s playing a clever game by pretending to have any interest in me and seeming indifferent to Dick. A girl best attracts a fellow by seeming indifferent to him. The girl who pursues a chap is bound to lose him, nine times out of ten. It’s the fellow who wants to do the pursuing. He loves the chase and the zest of it. Some girls know this, and they play the timid deer to perfection. Nadia Budthorne is right clever, and I’ll wager something this little game is no secret to her.
“I’ve hit it at last! I’ve known all along that she really cared for Dick, and now I’ve been fool enough to help her in her play. Say, I ought to be shot! I know Dick is on the level, but how is he going to resist a clever girl like her? He might, if June Arlington were near; but June is far away, and, in my estimation, Nadia lays away over June any old time. Oh, you poor fool!”
He clenched his fist and struck himself on the side of the head.
Thus it happened that Professor Gunn and Dunbar Budthorne found the Texan in anything but a happy frame of mind when they returned to the hotel.
They were agitated over the disappearance of Dick and Nadia, for whom they had searched and inquired ere leaving the bazaars. When they did return to the hotel it was with the expectation and hope that they might find the boy and girl there.
“They will turn up all right,” declared Brad. “Dick will take care of her, never fear.”
And now for the first time in his life he grew violently jealous of his bosom comrade.
“If he plays me double I’ll never again have the least confidence in human nature!” he mentally cried.