Allie! Then it was all right. “Dear Allie” had been working in the interests of her friend. Beatrice sent a loving thought to her.
“And you must admit Allie has a lot of good points,” pursued Peter, calculating that his judicial manner would set the jealous flame to spreading and mounting.
“She’s much nearer your ideal of what a girl should be than I am,” said Beatrice with discouraging enthusiasm. “She’s fond of the same kind of life that you are. Peter—why don’t you love her?”
Peter stared gloomily at the ground, then fell to switching off leaves with his stick. Was Beatrice jealous and taking this method of hiding it? Or was she really indifferent to the danger of losing one of the few first-class catches in America? The fear that the latter might be the case made him so miserable that he could not keep up the pretense about Allie.
Beatrice, desperate, hesitated no longer. “But first, Hanky, I want you to do me a favor. I want you to pretend that we are to be married and that it’s to be in—say—in three months. Allie will understand. I’ll explain it all to her.”
Peter began to bristle. “Pretend to whom?” said he sourly.
“To father. And you must say you simply can’t marry for three months. I must have time to— No matter. I hope—in fact I’m sure that I’ll be able to let you off in a month.”
“And have everybody say you chucked me? I like that—I do!”
“You know, Hanky, no one would believe for a minute that any girl would chuck you.”
“But—but you’d be doing it, just the same,” he exploded. “And—I want to marry you.”