Roberta, sitting on the front seat with her friend, glanced often at his face and realized that, although he, too, joined in the laughter evoked by the baby’s prattle, his thoughts were of a very serious nature, and she wondered what she was to hear when they two were alone.
She little dreamed that Ralph was to say something that would greatly affect her.
Dean, carrying the basket which was well filled with picnic refreshments, and Lena May leading the shining eyed three-year-old, waved back at the big car as they entered the side gate of the woodsy Bronx Park.
Bobs smiled as the baby voice wafted to them, “Ohee, see funny cow!”
They were near the buffalo enclosure.
Then Ralph started the engine and slowly the car rolled along the little river and toward the country. Roberta, knowing that something was greatly troubling her friend, reached out a hand and laid it sympathetically upon his arm. Instantly his left hand closed over hers and his eyes turned toward her questioningly. “Bobs,” he said, “you’ve been a trump of a friend to me. I’m not going to try to tell you just now what it means. It’s another friend I want to talk about. Dick—Dick De Laney. You remember that I told you he has become almost as dear to me as a brother, since Desmond died. I was sure Dick would do anything for me. I had such faith in his loyalty, in his devoted friendship, but now he has done something I can’t understand.” Ralph paused and his companion saw that he was greatly affected. “Bobs, I’m taking this awfully hard. I——”
Roberta was amazed. What had her old pal, Dick De Laney, done to so hurt her new friend? “Why, Ralph dear,” she said, for he had turned away as though too overcome with emotion for the moment to go on with his story. “What has Dick done? I know that it is nothing disloyal or dishonorable. You don’t know Dick as I do if you can doubt him for one moment. He would do what he believed was right, even if the consequences were to bring real suffering to him. He’s been that way ever since he was a little fellow. You may take my word for it, Ralph, that whatever Dick has done, his motive is of the highest. Now tell me what has hurt you so deeply?”
“Well, it’s this way,” the lad began. “I’ve missed Dick terribly, more, of course, before I met you, but I have been looking eagerly forward to the month he was to spend with me in the Orange Hills. I didn’t tell you that I expected him to arrive today. I wanted to surprise you, but instead I received a letter on the early morning mail and it informed me that, although the writer really did love me as though I were his brother, he thought it best not to visit me this summer; instead he had decided to travel abroad indefinitely and that he had engaged passage on a steamer that leaves Hoboken at noon today. What can it mean?”
The lad turned and was amazed at the expression in the face of the girl. “Why, Bobs,” he blurted out, “can it be—do you care so much because Dick is going away.”
“Oh, Ralph, of course I care. It’s all my fault. I knew Dick loved me. I guess I’ve always known it, and last April, when he was home for the spring vacation, I promised him that—Oh, I don’t remember just what I did promise, but I do know that I haven’t written often of late, and I guess he thinks I don’t care any more; and maybe that’s why he’s going away; but I do care, and, oh, Ralph, I can’t let him go without telling him. I always meant to tell him when he came home from college. I thought we were too young to be really engaged until then. Dick has been so patient, waiting all these years, and loving me so truly and so loyally. Can’t we stop him, or—at least can’t we see him before he sails?”