No coquetting miss, contriving to meet the lad of her fancy, could have planned things to more of a nicety; Robin, her arms full of her absurd purchases, came out of the store just as Dale and Adam Kraus walked along. It was not so much the unusualness of the girl's being there—and alone, that brought Dale to a quick stop; it was the imploring look in her wide and serious eyes.
"Where's Beryl—or that chauffeur?" He took her packages from her.
"I want to talk to you. I have to. Will you walk just a little way home with me?"
"Why, what's up? Of course I will. Come, let's cut through here." For Dale realized that many curious eyes were staring at them, and not too kindly. Someone laughed. He would be accused of "truckling" to a Forsyth, which, just then, was likely to bring contempt upon him.
Neither he nor Robin saw the incongruous picture they made; she in her warm suit of softest duvetyn and rich with fur, he in his working clothes, swinging a dinner pail in one hand and in the other balancing her knobby packages. All she thought of was that this was Dale, the Prince who had once befriended her, whose make-believe presence had often gladdened her lonely childhood hours, and who was in danger now; and he looked down into the little face under its fringe of flame-red hair and wondered what in the world made it so tragic and why it strangely haunted him as belonging to some far-off picture in the past.
Vehemently, because it had been bottled up so long, Robin told him how afraid she was for him—that Norris had as much as said he suspected him and Adam Kraus, and that the constable might arrest them any moment and wouldn't he please—go away—or—or something?
"He says you're disgruntled 'cause he wouldn't look at your 'toy.' He's terribly mad about everything—I could see it in his horrid eyes. Oh, I hate him!" she finished.
They had left the village and were close to the bend in the road where stood the House of Laughter. Dale stopped short and threw his head back with a loud laugh. Robin had wondered in her heart with what courage her Prince would take the news of his danger but she had not expected this! However, his laugh softened the lines of his face until it looked boyish and oh, so much like it had that night long ago when she had been lost.
"Well, here I am laughing away and forgetting to thank you for wanting to help me. But you needn't be afraid for me, Miss Robin. There is still a little justice in the world, in spite of men like Norris, and I can prove to anyone that I was snug in my bed until my mother dragged me out to go off up to the old village. I can't say I helped fight the fire—what was the use? Nothing could have saved the old place. And I'd rather like to shake hands with the man who set it on fire, though it was sort of a low-down trick. Norris won't house anyone in that rat-hole."
An immense relief shone in Robin's face. She knew Dale had not done the "low-down trick." She wished she had made Norris believe it!