“My dear boy,” he said, “some things happen in this world despite ourselves. I know what you mean now, but perhaps you fancy you did me a greater wrong than was truly the case.”
“No; I did not do you a wrong!” was Dick’s surprising statement. “I believe I did you a good turn; but, at the same time, it was a piece of unfairness and treachery, for I knew you had cared for Inza Burrage—I knew I had no right to come between you and her.”
“You are strangely contradictory, Starbright. If you did not do me a wrong, if what you did was a good thing for me, why should I not remain your friend? Why should I feel resentment toward you?”
“Because you do not know—yet. I know, for I have seen with my own eyes. Oh, she is the handsomest girl in all the world, Merriwell, but she is just as false and fickle as she is handsome!”
Frank looked graver than ever.
“You are excited and hasty, else you would not make such a charge against her, Starbright!” he declared.
“Excited I may be, but I am not hasty. I have a reason, Merriwell, you may be sure of that. I don’t wish to get rid of any of the blame, but if she were not fickle, why did she so readily turn from you to me?”
“Because she felt certain that between us there could never be a tie stronger than mere friendship.”
“Why did she feel certain of that? Merriwell, are you saying this just to make me feel less like a sneak?”
“Not at all.”