“I mean to ask David point-blank! I hope I can make him ashamed of himself, if he did cause Cliff’s arrest!”
“I’m afraid you can’t do that,” put in Mrs. Gay wisely. “These self-righteous people who feel that it is their duty to tell on others——” She stopped, wondering whether she was hurting Mary Louise’s feelings by speaking thus about David McCall, but her daughter was scarcely listening. “I think he’ll come over to see us,” Mrs. Gay concluded as she gave her order to the waitress, “with the Smiths.”
Mrs. Gay was correct in her surmise: when the Smiths had finished their dinner, they came straight to the Gays’ table.
Mrs. Smith, a well-dressed woman of perhaps thirty-five—though she looked much younger—put her hand on Mary Louise’s arm.
“I can never thank you enough for saving my baby, Mary Louise,” she said. “All my life I’ll be grateful to you!”
Mary Louise smiled.
“I’m thankful I was there in time, Mrs. Smith,” she said. “Ethel is such a darling.”
“I wish we could do something for you, Mary Lou,” put in her husband. “Can’t you think of something you want?” He was too well bred to offer her a reward in money, the way old Miss Mattie Grant at Dark Cedars had done.
“All I want is to find out who really did start that fire at your house,” replied the girl. “Because I’m sure Cliff Hunter didn’t!”
She was staring past Mrs. Smith right at David McCall as she said this, with scorn in her eyes.