“It seems as if you just couldn’t let him down, Linda.”
“I’m not letting him down. I never made any promises to him. He’s being let down because he was so careless.”
For at least an hour the girls continued to discuss the party and the stars, until at last they settled down to sleep, thankful that they had no need to get up early in the morning.
They combined breakfast and lunch the following day at noon, and went to the flying field a little before two o’clock to be on hand when the false Linda should arrive.
Linda was intensely excited. She tried over and over to picture to herself what this meeting would be like, whether the girl would be humble and sorry, whether she would try to work on Linda’s sympathies by telling of some pressing need she had for money, or whether she would be flippant and self-assured, still insisting that she was the real Linda Carlton.
Mr. Von Goss’s car appeared shortly after Linda and Dot arrived, and they recognized Mr. Leslie Sprague in the back seat. Both men nodded to the girls, who had dismissed their taxi and were standing beside one of the hangars, talking to an attendant.
“See your names in the paper, girls?” he was asking them.
“No. When?” inquired Dot.
The mechanic picked up a newspaper and handed it to them. There was a picture, somewhat poor, to be sure, of Linda and Dot in their flying suits and an account of their arrival, recalling the incident of their strange landing at Kansas City. Underneath were the names, “Miss Sallie Slocum and Miss May Manton.”
“How did they ever get that picture?” demanded Dot.