As the two disappeared behind the swinging doors, Peggy turned to her companions. "Think you could stand it?" She indicated the poster by a gesture, and Bob Carey, who did not have the pleasure of Dick's acquaintance, looked surprised, while Graham's face wore an expression of doubt.
"I've seen just as bad, Peggy, and still survive," Graham said. "But I hardly think—"
"Of course we can stand it, if you'd like to go in, Peggy," interrupted Amy. And Bob, though evidently puzzled by Peggy's taste moved quickly forward to purchase the tickets, thus getting ahead of Graham who was still inclined to remonstrate. Graham understood that Peggy was not especially pleased to discover Dick in company with a girl she knew nothing about, especially since her manner had made anything but a favorable impression in the few seconds she had been under observation. But Dick, while considerably short of his majority, was old enough to resent interference in his affairs, and Graham could not see that Peggy would gain anything by trying to play detective.
The film which constituted the evening's entertainment was exceptionally poor. The comedy was of the atrocious, slap-stick sort that moves the judicious almost to tears while the feature play, a melodrama only saved from being a tragedy by an inconsistently happy ending, was frequently so overdone as to be extremely funny. Peggy paid comparatively little attention to the drama as it unrolled before her eyes. First of all she set herself to locate Dick and his companion, and then to evolve a plan of action suited to the requirements of the case.
Graham spoke confidentially in her ear. "Don't worry, Peggy. Every boy has his silly times. I did myself." Graham's manner suggested that he was speaking from the vantage-point of discreet middle age.
"Yes, I know." Peggy did not mean her answer just as it sounded. She was simply thinking of something else. Graham stared at the inane chase, unfolding on the screen, where a procession of people ran into everything imaginable from a peanut vendor's cart to an express train, and presently tried again. "You want to be careful, Peggy. He's just at the age to resent your trying to manage him."
"Yes, I know," whispered Peggy again. She was fully as alive as Graham to the necessity of tact. But she was aware, too, that all boys do not pass through the silly stage as unscathed as Graham had done. All the loyal sister in her was alert.
They sat through the depressing comedy and the amusing tragedy, and then suddenly Peggy rose. She had seen Dick on ahead getting to his feet. In the darkness of the picture house there was no danger he would recognize her. Indeed it was unlikely that he would have seen her even if the lights had been turned on, so engrossed was he by the plump little person whose head barely reached his shoulder.
Peggy and her party were outside first. All unaware of the ambush, Dick came blundering on. He was talking fast and the girl was giggling approval. Peggy saw that she was all she had feared. Her round cheeks were rouged so as to give an excellent imitation of a pair of Baldwin apples. Between the crimson circles her nose gleamed ludicrously white, suggesting a very recent use of her powder puff. Her bobbed hair, together with her diminutive frame, gave her a childish air, contradicted by the shrewdness of her eyes. Peggy guessed that Dick's friend was considerably his senior, probably not far from her own age.
Dick was laughing rather boisterously at one of his own witticisms, when Peggy touched his arm. "Hello, Dick!" Her tone was nonchalant, but Dick started, straightened himself and flushed angrily. All his masculine pride was up in arms at the thought of coercion. But Peggy's matter-of-fact air partly allayed his suspicions.