“Do you mean that Dr. Eaton and Miss Hale haven’t fallen in love?” demanded Mary.
“Oh, I shouldn’t go as far as that.”
“I don’t believe you know any more about it than Betty does. You’re both guessing,” declared Mary indignantly.
Madeline smiled her slow, provoking smile. “Wait and see,” she said, and even to Betty she confided little more. “I’ve talked to Dr. Eaton,“ she admitted. “That is, I happened to ask him one question, and you’re right, Betty. Mary’s scheming was as much use as most match-making is.
”But the book will be a good wedding present all the same,” she assured Mary. “It’s a very ingenious fairy-tale, and I’m sure they’ll enjoy seeing themselves as others saw them.”
“How do you suppose they will act when they get back to Harding?” Roberta wondered.
“They’ll certainly make some bad breaks if they try to deceive the girls,” declared Bob.
“Well,” Mary warned them all, “we mustn’t make any breaks. We must remember that it’s the business of the merry match-makers not to breathe a word of what we’ve noticed, but to be very discreet and dignified.” Mary drew herself up proudly in her steamer chair.
Everybody got down to the last dinner on shipboard, even to Ethel, who came in leaning on Mr. Wales’s arm, and looking very pale through her Nassau tan. To the surprise of the match-makers she merely nodded to Dr. Eaton, and his nod in return was just as casual as hers. And the next morning when he bade the girls good-bye on the wharf,—for he was taking an early train to Harding,—he shook hands with Ethel in the same hearty, offhand way in which he had just shaken hands with Eleanor, and did not so much as try for a last word with the heroine. It was astonishing and disappointing enough!