“Who cares?” cried Straight, splashing into a puddle herself for sheer bravado.
“Who indeed?” Fluffy took her up. “I’ve had a thought, Georgia. Let’s keep on playing dolls. Then Christabel Porter can’t explain us at all. She’ll be too mixed up to ever go to Zurich.”
CHAPTER VIII
MORE ARCHITECT’S PLANS, AND A MYSTERY
One lovely afternoon in late October, Jim Watson, arrayed in very correct riding clothes, poked his head gingerly into Betty’s office, and having thus made quite sure that she was alone, stepped briskly inside and stood smiling quizzically down at her over the top of her big desk.
“What’s the joke to-day?” Betty inquired, smiling frankly back at him.
“Same old joke,” said Jim, leaning his elbow comfortably on a pile of pamphlets. “Small person with a generally frivolous appearance, sitting at the biggest roller-top desk on the market, flanked on the right by a filing cabinet and on the left by a typewriter. Vast correspondence strewn over desk. Brow of small person puckered in deep thought. Dimple of small——”
“That’s quite enough,” interrupted Betty severely. “I am not a joke, except to really frivolous persons like you, and I refuse to have my time wasted listening to such nonsense. Where’s Eleanor?”
Jim sighed deeply. “Where is Eleanor, indeed? Paying calls, known as ‘friendly visits,’ on the families of her Terrible Ten—her young Italians. I thought she came up here to comfort and amuse my leisure hours, but that’s certainly not what she’s staying on for. Is this your day for office hours?”
“No-o,” Betty admitted doubtfully, “but I thought I’d stay and——”
“Please think again,” Jim coaxed in his most beguiling fashion. “It’s a gorgeous afternoon. Please come for a ride.”